Anybody else have a soft spot for the lowly Ford Windsor 260 engine?

My twin brother and I inherited a project car from my grandfather, a 1963 Ford Ranchero with a factory 260 V8 and 4 Speed. He and his brother, Great Uncle Bill, bought this thing to restore, Grandpa's health started failing before they could work on it, and he and Uncle Bill passed it down to us. Got some cancer on the floorboards and in the roof (it was a coast car), and for several years, it sat parked at my other grandma's ranch, as, since both of us worked out of state, we were both in the position of never having any money when we were home to work on it, and when we were home, neither of us had money.

That changed a few years ago, I now have a place of my own to work on it, and I currently got the 260 out and stripped to the block, awaiting some machine work and a rebuild. The guy Grandpa bought it from was a bit of a degenerate, and did degen things like put on a donut-sized racing wheel (on a car with no power steering), cut a hole in the dash for an aftermarket stereo that doesn't fit (sticks out a good inch from the dash), and etc. But the guy did have 289 heads on the block (though left a single-plane, 2 bbl intake on the block--whyyyyyy?!?!?).

Since it's a factory 260 rig (and per the website I registered it to, one of an estimated 135 Rancheros of that year that came with the 260 and the 4 Speed, before they upgraded to the 289 and changed the body style in 1964), I'd like to keep the 260 in it, but I'm curious to see how much horsepower my brother and I can get out of the thing. I was thinking swapping the intake to a 4 bbl unit, new carb (preferably one with an electric choke, as opposed to the manual one), mild cam, ditch the points and coil for an HEI distributor, and a 3-inch exhaust. Couple that with a disc brake conversion in the front, power steering, and a little interior repair, and she oughta be a nice cruiser.

If anybody here has any experience with this, let me know. Would be cool to get some insight as to how to best proceed.

 

Sidebar... weren't there other size engines using this era's block? I sold what I was told was a 289 and auto trans to a friend and when he took it apart he said it was more like a 247 or something strange like that. Perhaps their math was bad, who knows. They put it in his son's Jeep and they liked the result. I also recall a 220-ish version, about the time these motors went to Indy in the first Lotus cars. Perhaps a homologation special run of engines? Yes, I'm too lazy to do the research myself at this hour, just thought I'd throw that out and see if there might be some actual facts involved. LOL.

 

Ahh, good memories! My pop had several 260s and at least one 221 back in the 70's and '80's. Decent fuel economy, peppy little motors that would wind up very well. He was particularly fond of Meteors, had maybe 5 of them over the years. I had a '63 Comet in '89, 260 2V with a Fordomatic. Snappy light car that was surprisingly economical. Sure would love to have one again.