Engine Mods for Ford 351 5.8

[tcm glx]

Hey guys, so i have seen several folks talk about the GT40 heads, roller cams, etc etc.....

Is there a great place to go read on what mods to do to a 5.8, after the typical intake, headers and exhaust? I have a 93, and I am starting to look into what would be the next power adders....

[philofab]

http://www.nloc.net/vbforum/

Best place I know of...

[ChaseTruck754]

these guys know their stuff too
http://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/forum55/

[Agilt]

http://www.nloc.net/vbforum/

Best place I know of...

werd

the nloc board is a great place for info/builds. I got a ton of information from there in the course of building my motor.

[Deleted Account]

I will let you know how it runs. It needs to be tuned BAD. Specs 351 lightning long block. cleaned up gt40 lightning heads. e303 cam motorsport 1.6 roller rockers, Motorsport headers with a Bassani ypipe, magnaflow cat and a jones quiettone muffler. I am trying to find an intake and throttle body before it gets tuned. or a kenne bell. Then the wife can do errands even faster. Cause this one is hers.

[Agilt]

I will let you know how it runs. It needs to be tuned BAD. Specs 351 lightning long block. cleaned up gt40 lightning heads. e303 cam motorsport 1.6 roller rockers, Motorsport headers with a Bassani ypipe, magnaflow cat and a jones quiettone muffler. I am trying to find an intake and throttle body before it gets tuned. or a kenne bell. Then the wife can do errands even faster. Cause this one is hers.

Are you still running the EFI? If so the factory 5.8 manifold is by far the suckiest part. I would troll nloc and the local mustang boards as well as corral.net for used pieces. Can probably put together a mustang/lightning style setup for less than a edelbrock truck intake or a L GT40 intake.


Mine is fairly similar to yours and it rolls out compared to stock. And I still have the factory 3.55 gears on 32's



smooth block casting inside and out
chamfer oil drain holes in block
check deck, crank and cam bores (all perfect)
hone cylinders (stock bore)
all new bearings and plugs
smooth crank and rods
balance rotating assembly (stock hyper pistons)
AFR 185 heads (58cc chamber, 2.02 and 1.6 valves)
Edelbrock Performer Truck intake
BBK 61mm TB
trick flow stage 1 cam
crane 1.6 roller rockers
trick flow pushrods 7.650
Milodon windage tray
ARP oil pump drive
MSD billet distributor
MSD coil
Taylor spiro pro wires
bassani headers, y-pipe and magnaflow muffler
some ford racing valve covers to top it off
various ARP bolts and such for various things
autofab motor mounts

[Deleted Account]

I have a few complete lightning setups, but i want to at least look legal in cali. So im looking for the edelbrock truck stuff or a kenne belle. and they dont make that anymore. I have 3.55s and 33s with a c6. I dont know if i am going to do mass air or not yet. The guy that tuned my racetruck did a great job on the stock setup. Im almost identical to you besides the heads. It should run good. We shall see.

[Agilt]

I have a few complete lightning setups, but i want to at least look legal in cali. So im looking for the edelbrock truck stuff or a kenne belle. and they dont make that anymore. I have 3.55s and 33s with a c6. I dont know if i am going to do mass air or not yet. The guy that tuned my racetruck did a great job on the stock setup. Im almost identical to you besides the heads. It should run good. We shall see.

Oh yeah, I forget most of ya'll are in cali with the draconian vehicle laws. They make the edelbrock truck intake still(I bought mine a year ago) it's just not cheap.

[RyanDS650X]

This seems to be a pretty decent build.
http://www.dieselpowermag.com/tech/ford ... index.html

The Bronco never had a chance against the PS but a pretty cool read anyway.

[Agilt]

This seems to be a pretty decent build.
http://www.dieselpowermag.com/tech/ford ... index.html

The Bronco never had a chance against the PS but a pretty cool read anyway.

They handicapped the shit out of that 5.8 by leaving the stock exhaust on, as well as the stock cam and stock throttle body. Also the diesel got a "shift kit" while the bronco E4OD got nothing. Diesel had a K&N open element filter already, bronco didn't get anything. Also cometic head gaskets are overkill and a waste of money.

A gas motor will never make power like a diesel, but that's just a bit dumb

[bajascott]

i was going to start a thread but i saw this ...
what can you eliminate on a stock 5.8, i dont have smog here and would like to get rid of the smog stuff and as much electrical garb that i can.

[philofab]

i was going to start a thread but i saw this ...
what can you eliminate on a stock 5.8, i dont have smog here and would like to get rid of the smog stuff and as much electrical garb that i can.

Smog pump and air injection can be removed without harm. Egr removal requires ECM reprogramming to run right.

[RyanDS650X]

This seems to be a pretty decent build.
http://www.dieselpowermag.com/tech/ford ... index.html

The Bronco never had a chance against the PS but a pretty cool read anyway.

They handicapped the shit out of that 5.8 by leaving the stock exhaust on, as well as the stock cam and stock throttle body. Also the diesel got a "shift kit" while the bronco E4OD got nothing. Diesel had a K&N open element filter already, bronco didn't get anything. Also cometic head gaskets are overkill and a waste of money.

A gas motor will never make power like a diesel, but that's just a bit dumb

Its got the E303 cam and will have a full exhaust in about a month

[philofab]

This seems to be a pretty decent build.
http://www.dieselpowermag.com/tech/ford ... index.html

The Bronco never had a chance against the PS but a pretty cool read anyway.

They should have run that PSD against my 1997 190K mile 460... but I don't think they wanted to lose. For $1000 I could be over 500 ft/pounds.

[Dust]

I love these comparisons...
TAKE THE TURBO OFF THE DIESEL!

Now we are equal and we can compare!

[Drilim]

For everyone mentioning the E303 cam, what are your thoughts on it? I was under the impression that this cam didnt turn on until rather high in the rpm range. Im currently building a motor that has that cam in it. I was told to advance the cam timing 2degrees and that helped a ton. The other side of the argument was that i would totally be unhappy with the power range and lose a ton of low rpm torque.


What are everyones suggestions?

[SteveG]

For everyone mentioning the E303 cam, what are your thoughts on it? I was under the impression that this cam didnt turn on until rather high in the rpm range. Im currently building a motor that has that cam in it. I was told to advance the cam timing 2degrees and that helped a ton. The other side of the argument was that i would totally be unhappy with the power range and lose a ton of low rpm torque.


What are everyones suggestions?

When I was ordering the long block for my Bronco and deciding what cam to used I went to my Ford guru that has a truly impressive resume and has built cars and engines that would blow your minds. He has an incredibly subtle mid eighties Thunderbird that he drove to the Silver state classic, pegged at 190 mph plus for I don't know how long and drove it home after the race... really, really impressive stuff. Anyway, I told him I wanted low and mid-range power. Yeah, I love an engine that winds to 7,000 RPM, but I'm just not going to drop the kind of coin required to make an engine live there. I'd rather build a modest engine that can get the job done without cranking out major RPM and gear it accordingly.

His advice was to use the stock roller cam that Ford spent millions of dollars designing or at most, the stock Mustang 5.0L cam. He felt anything more aggressive would put the power band higher than I wanted or needed it.

That's not to say the E303 cam won't work great, but you have to be aware of where and when it'll make power and make sure you have the gearing to work with it and not against it.

P.S. I went with the stock 351W roller cam and love it. It works better than the Crane "RV" cam I had in the previous engine.

[philofab]

For everyone mentioning the E303 cam, what are your thoughts on it? I was under the impression that this cam didnt turn on until rather high in the rpm range. Im currently building a motor that has that cam in it. I was told to advance the cam timing 2degrees and that helped a ton. The other side of the argument was that i would totally be unhappy with the power range and lose a ton of low rpm torque.


What are everyones suggestions?

I would degree the cam to the spec card included unless you really know what your doing. I've always thought of the E303 as a "mild" cam. It idles rougher than stock but still had usable vacuum.

To add on to what Steve said, you can make over 400hp out of a 302 with the stock cam. Car Craft did it with AFR 190 heads.

[Agilt]

E303 is a decent cam but there's more modern split patterns that would likely work better. The stock cam as Steve said is really pretty good if you're not going too crazy with the rest of the motor.

I was running a crane cam 44211 that was a bit more duration and a good bit more lift than stock. Had just a tiny bit of lope that you really had to listen for.

When I swapped heads I went to a trick flow stage 1 cam. More duration a bit less lift and 112 degrees LSA. A definite healthy lope. (full disclosure: I had cooling issues after the head/cam swap which might or might not be attributable to said parts. It seems to be solved now but did caused some headaches for a while.). The lope sounds sweet and I did gain a bit of power up higher where the truck initially felt like it was a bit weak. And i'm still undergeared with the stock 3.55s and 32's. However everything is dependent on what other parts you're running. It's better to be a bit on the mild side and maybe move up than go high side and end up with something undrivable.

[Drilim]

Yeah. Thats what I've heard. In my searches, i've read and seen numbers that show that the mustang and truck roller cam is the absolute best bang for the buck. Ive had a low mile, perfect condition 5.0 mustang cam on the shelf for about 3 months, and I'm confident that my gut choice was best. With the rest of the motor (alum heads, forged internals, full roller rotating assembly) will be most beneficial on a stock roller cam that focuses on a low power range AND has no drive-ability issues on thousand of built motors all over the place.