A 300 with a pair of small turbos...now that sounds about right. More work to sort out than just chucking a decently-sized V8 in there...
Keep tellin yourself that an pretty soon you'll actually start to believe it 351 FI w/ OD trans out of an F150 Or, since others said it first, that 5.3 setup in my '01 Yukon will tow all you want with that wagon. Most of my towing has been a lot heavier than that, towed that 36 big truck with no problem at all. Just keep it going fast enough to stay in the power band and keep the converter locked up.....
Why not a late model 5.4 supercharged Lightning engine with the overdrive trans. Street and performance has harneses to do it easily.
I third the 400 if it's dedicated to towing all the time. Otherwise, if it only get's towed on the two bookend holidays of the Summer, I'd suggest a 351W and AOD (built)
Purist, shmurist, just keep the hood closed. Besides, you'll have the coolest rig in the park, regardless of engine choice. Pick something that will allow you to afford to go to as many parks as possible.
If i were to redo my Edsel, you can shoot me for thinking this, but i would have taken the money i put into the rebuild of the FE and put a 5.3 in it... hands down... Just never open the hood. If you want pure driveability, affordability and decent milage you cant beat a LS swap....
Put me down for the 5.4 Triton/ E4OD combo. I had that in my 92 F-250 SC 4X4 and packed an old (heavy) 9 and 1/2 ft camper towing a 18 ft boat up long mountain grades here on the west coast with no issues. It did have 4.10 gears mind you but the OD took care of that. Due to the much lighter weight of the gas engine I actually had a higher payload than my buddy with a similiar truck with deisel power. That pissed him off.
Could you get a 352 in 57? That would be more vintage to the cars year. Hauling cars is easier than hauling a camper. The wind resistance is a lot more, and with that single axle, it may track well, but can be a challenge if the camper gets in a bad crosswind.
And the votes keep comming in... I'd vote for the 460 with the addition of a 1970 429 timing chain and gear set (worth 30+hp) Or find yourself a 302/5.0 with it;s overdrive. There are a ton of these out there in Crown Vics and Merc Marquis. The OD transmission to look for is the non-metric OD. When Ford switched to the metric version of their OD, it was installed with a myriad of wires and computers/chips to make it work. The earlier, non metric OD needs no additional wiring or computers and is therefor much easier to swap in and run. 5.0 liters out of the box pull well and can be equipped for big hp gains with little expense added. One trick is to find a set of 96 or 98 Ford Explorer 5.0 heads at the junk yard. They are basically Ford's high performance GT40 race heads. There are 2 versions of Explorer heads, GT40 and GT40P. The GT40 Explorer heads have an almost straight out spark plug angle and special headers are needed for most applications. The GT40P heads have the traditional angled spark plug. http://forums.mustangworks.com/f8/explorer-heads-40860/ The addition of the Explorer GT40P heads with 1.7 rockers is worth about 35 hp over stock mustang iron heads. Good luck with your wifey's build! moe .
I have a real soft spot for Effies, so I'd like to see you go with the 390. One thing to remember on any car like this is the fact fact that it's Your's and you're the only one that has to like it. If you go with the FE you have lots of options to lighten it, and I think that could really help. In my opinion, and I'm no auto engineer, gearing is the primary concern you'll have, and that goes, whatever the powerplant. Since economy of operation is a concern, so is economy of installation. What can you do, in a timely manner, for the most bang for the buck, and the most personal gratification? Remember, it's your's, and you want it to be cool. Something else to consider is alternate fuels, such as propane or Compressed Natural Gas, or even swapping in a funky diesel that could go Bio! However, Congrats and Good Luck dl
I vote for an FE. FE motors aren't as heavy as some make them out to be, especially with an aluminum intake manifold. They are about 100 lbs lighter than a 460 in stock trim. A good 390 or even a 410 (390 with a 428 crank) would be my choice.
Big block power all the way, back in the 70's a company I worked for bought a few new 1 ton Chevy flatbed trucks, some had 350's and some had 454's...hands down the 454 was superior in all aspects and the 350's got about the same mileage because they were working all the time..just my 2 cents worth
Arkies right about the gearing and I use the gearvendors over/under....they are the cats meow I think.
My traditional side wants to stick with the FE, but common sense says otherwise. Here's my problem with the FE. In order to benefit from the OD, I would have to either buy an adaptor kit ($800) and then drop some coin on a HD AOD (not sure about $$) or buy a Gear Vendor OD setup ($2695)behind a C6. Then you have to wonder about how much gain you would actually get due to parasitic drag and the convertor not being able to lock and unlock like a true OD. I have been sort of watching the classifieds for HP rebuilds and they tend to run about 3500-4000 for a long block. I'm sure that a guy could tie that up quickly in machine work and parts. Then add a good C6, just say $500, then the OD unit. You're looking at $7000 in a hurry and I don't know how much real gain I will get. That's a lot of gas. Basically, if I drove 15K per year and I saved 5 mpg, that would be a savings of about $2000 per year. It would take 4 years to break even basically.
http://www.survivalmotorsports.com/FE-Engine-Kits.html Gear and torque coverter the thing right and you won't need an overdrive.
You I did a quick price out on aod's built for the 390 and low end was 1500 to the high end of 3500 dollars. Its a lot but cheaper than the gear venders od unit for sure. But still if you had a c6 with like a 3.0 gear or in the high 2's you wouldn't need a od unit and would still pull that trailer just fine and be really nice on the road the rest of the time.
Jesucristo, do you have any idea how BIG those things are? The DOHC 5.4 is three feet across the cam covers and it's hard enough to get a 29-inch-wide 4.6 in those cars. The 5.4 is also quite tall. The 2-valve and 3-valve versions are a little smaller but not enough to be a reasonable fit in that car (and the 2-valve heads are crap.) Even an iron-block GM LQ3/LQ4 6.0 is (at least) 75lb lighter and a LOT smaller, an aluminum-block LS2/LS3 takes another 75lb off that. The E4OD has a big ribbed bellhousing and a big barrel of a gearcase that extends a LONG way back. I mocked one up under my '64 and I'd have been cutting a lot of sheetmetal to make it fit. Decided I didn't want to do that and had a 4R70W built instead. The GM 4L80 is a bit smaller but still probably a troublesome fit. A 4R70W/AOD/AODE or GM 4L60 should fit well enough.
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