I have a completely stock 1972 351W and it's the early year 72 block, the car was bought of the showroom floor late 1971, and am going to rebuild it during the summer but wanted to start collecting parts now. The car i's going in is my daily driver a 1972 Custom 500 I've been debating weather or not to bore and stroke it. I plan on having it use a Carburetor, none of this turbo shenanigans, thats why i was thinking i could get away with boring it over big. What I want is something that has huge amounts of low end torque and is relatively fuel efficient in the 15 to 18 mpg area. My original harebrained idea was a 427 stroker but the more i read about that the more dangerous it sounded and i would like to not have to buy a new block any time soon. But if i can safely get it up into that cube range then i'm all for it. I'm looking at a bugget of around $3,000-$4,000. Let me kno what would be best.
You really don't get the atomization in a carb that you get with fuel injection. There are a few bolt on fuel injection kits that are actually self tuning. A mild cam to extend the duration of the valve lift, maybe porting the heads will also boost your power, but the real efficiency comes from how well the fuel is atomized before it enters the cylinder. It's how the Ecoboost gains so much power over it's predecessors. I've got a 91 5.0 with EFI in a 73 pickup with 4.11 in the back and I'm getting around 15 on the highway with it. And I've got a ton of low end torque.
I've thought about EFI but i don't really know the system that well i've never really looked into it's inner workings but do you know of a simple EFI system that could bolt on and not need a lot of wires sent every where. How ever I do like the idea of fuel injection. I was also thinking about a slight bore and stroke to 383cid. I did the math and it would be bored 4.032 and a stroke of 3.75 which is within my budget and that is with the standard Winsor length rods which I've heard are quite strong but i was wondering if it would be to my advantage to get longer rods and such to accommodate that or just stick with the factory rods.
Never dug into the deck height to find out how much you can stroke it, but I'm sure there's someplace on line that can make recommendations. Personally, I think I'd throw my money at heads and a cam first, then maybe a bore and stroke later.
. The ONLY way you're going to get a noticable increase in low RPM torque is lots MORE CUBIC INCHES. Check out the various ways to get to a stroker 408"W... You can keep the stock heads (I'd do a little porting/correcting with a die grinder) if you're not after much more HP, just mainly torque... get the compression ratio up to 9.5-10:1 range... add a mild cam about 204/214 - 210/210 range... the stock heads can't flow enough for any bigger cam, you would just lose low RPM torque...
. If you just want to dig off the line quicker, put KB flat top pistons, Summit 214/224 cam, and 4bbl. carb./intake in/on the 351W and change to a 3.73 - 4.33 range posi rear end...
. Another possibility that is in vogue now is switch to a Ford 400 engine which is cheap in junkyards. It just needs 4bbl. carb./intake, 351C pistons, and a cheap 214/224 cam for musclecar torque/HP power! Some early ones have the smallblock tranny bellhousing pattern, otherwise 429/460 tranny. The 351"M/'400' also works by adding the 400" crank to the above formula.
. The ONLY way you're going to get a noticable increase in low RPM torque is lots MORE CUBIC INCHES. Check out the various ways to get to a stroker 408"W... You can keep the stock heads (I'd do a little porting/correcting with a die grinder) if you're not after much more HP, just mainly torque... get the compression ratio up to 9.5-10:1 range... add a mild cam about 204/214 - 210/210 range... the stock heads can't flow enough for any bigger cam, you would just lose low RPM torque...
. If you just want to dig off the line quicker, put KB flat top pistons, Summit 214/224 cam, and 4bbl. carb./intake in/on the 351W and change to a 3.73 - 4.33 range posi rear end...
. Another possibility that is in vogue now is switch to a Ford 400 engine which is cheap in junkyards. It just needs 4bbl. carb./intake, 351C pistons, and a cheap 214/224 cam for musclecar torque/HP power! Some early ones have the smallblock tranny bellhousing pattern, otherwise 429/460 tranny. The 351"M/'400' also works by adding the 400" crank to the above formula.
I've thought about the 400 and i know they can be cheap in yards for the block, and for the total drive train I'm going with a 9inch with 3.90 and an AOD transmission how complicated would it be to swap out the 400 for the 351W or would it be easier to just put the 400 crank into my block, would that work easily? I'm guessing though i would also have to use the rods from the 400.
I thought I'd give a little more in depth description of what parts i'm more leaning towards using. I like the idea of fuel injection but that's just not in my budget right now. I'm sticking with a carburetor for now, I was thinking a Holley 4165 spread bore to keep low fuel usage while cruising but have the large secondaries for that full throttle power. I was definitely thinking aluminum heads, intake anything that can be aluminum will be. I want to make this thing as lite as can be. With the heads i was definitely thinking about bigger ports to help with intake and exhaust. The biggest problem I've encountered it fitting headers into a 72 Custom 500 engine compartment. If anyone knows 2 1/2 to 3 inch headers that will fit let me know. If there's any other details that anyone wants to know just leave it in a comment.
Actually you'd be surprised as of now i can barely fit my fist in between the stock manifold and the upper control arm. so I'd guess there's about 8" of space between the block and the control arm maybe less. I might be able to get some pictures up in the next couple days and the K member is also pretty big so there's not much space to go down either. Anyway hopefully I'll get some pics up soon. Thanks for all the info guys.
Actually you'd be surprised as of now i can barely fit my fist in between the stock manifold and the upper control arm. so I'd guess there's about 8" of space between the block and the control arm maybe less. I might be able to get some pictures up in the next couple days and the K member is also pretty big so there's not much space to go down either. Anyway hopefully I'll get some pics up soon. Thanks for all the info guys.
*EDIT* sorry for double post.
Last edited by 72Custom500; 01-05-2013 at 17:12.
Reason: double post
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