New FE in the '72 F250

[farmallmta]

My 19 yr old son (right) has a '72 F250 that had a 360 FE, T-18 4spd. My 15 yr old son (left) helped him remove the 360.

72 360.jpg

so the local machine shop magician can turn it into a 410 with a balanced 428 crankshaft and 390 pickup pistons. 9,3:1 compression is the goal.

Engine completed and ran great on the test stand!

72 410 stand.jpg

So the boys loaded it up into a '69 F250 and headed home with it.

72 410 loaded.jpg

See rest of pictures in the next post.

[farmallmta]

One bumpside helps spiff up another. Here, the 410 arrives back home:

72 410 home.jpg

72 410 install.jpg

After which we installed it back into the '72 F250. It runs great, and lots of power! A great project with excellent results. I think the 410 was one of Ford's best iterations of the FE. It's just a standard 390 with a 428 crankshaft and rotating assembly. With a 204/214 RV cam, it's a thrifty and very powerful engine, especially at lower RPMs. Regrettably, it was only available from the factory in full size Mercurys in 1966 and 1967.

Both boys really enjoyed the project. They are delighted with their results.

[390FE1972]

Great Job! Nice family project. I have two girls in their 30's and they could care less about working on a vehicle. This will give you all fond memories of working on this together.

[farmallmta]

Great Job! Nice family project. I have two girls in their 30's and they could care less about working on a vehicle. This will give you all fond memories of working on this together.

You're right! Not only that, they'll remember how trouble free the removal and replacement went. This is actually their 3rd FE, 4th engine R&R counting a 300 6 cyl in a '66 slick.

Dunno what the deal is with girls and vehicles in general. Vehicle repair and maintenance just seems way beyond the interest and ability of most. Sorry if that sounds all male chauvinist, but it's true. In the 19-teens, Girl Scouts introduced a "Motoring Badge." To earn it, the girl had to demonstrate ability to perform basic checks and inspections of a car, change a tire and oil, demonstrate knowledge of road safety and preparation for hazards while traveling, and budgeting for a trip.

The Girl Scout Motoring Badge was discontinued in the late 1940's because nationwide a grand total of FOUR such badges had been awarded. One of Girl Scouts least popular badges ever.

Says a lot, doesn't it?

[popeyes71]

How fun, I remember doing the same thing with my father growing up. In fact, I still get my father-in-law involved when he is able to. Those great memories will remain forever.

[Mach428]

I've always wanted to do exactly that to my 360. I don't know why Ford never offered this option.

[farmallmta]

Henry Ford II was determined that the Ford brand would look good in all sales and performance comparisons to Chevrolet. Which made for very curious decisions regarding Mercury. Mercury was supposed to be a step UP from the Ford brand, so the marketing implied. but in many cases, it was a step DOWN in performance and barely different at all in terms of comfort and luxury. At the same time, The Deuce refused to countenance discontinuing the Mercury brand because it was a legacy of his father. After the Edsel debacle, The Deuce wanted no more "my father's mistakes" shade thrown onto the company. Mercury was always something of a stepchild at FoMoCo, with weird things going on all the time. Mercury was the brand where Ford executives went to fail and be fired.

Until 1965 or so, Full size Mercury models were made on Lincoln assembly lines in order to increase utilization of the Lincoln assembly capacity which otherwise would have moved at a snails pace due to the very low sales volume and raised the cost of Lincolns far above that of Cadillac, with predicable effects on Lincoln sales. As a result of being built at a more leisurely pace, the Mercurys were believed to have a better build quality than a comparable model of Ford. However, the unnecessary duplication of factories building essentially the same model of car was very costly, so Ford executives hated Mercury for making the company's overall profitability and Ford sales number less than optimal. Since their bonuses were tied to profits, Mercury personally hurt their take home pay. Hence, Mercury tended to always suffer retribution in various ways from executives who could exact revenge.

Here's a famous example. When Mercury had the Cougar greenlighted, it was to be a more luxurious and elegant version of the Mustang. More legroom with a longer wheelbase. Ford engineers had squeezed out all possible cost of the construction and materials of the Mustang, but were forced by the corporate executive suite to use the same engineering on the longer and heavier Cougar. The result in 1967 was a flimsier overall car with much more flex and inability to stick to the road. It took several articles in popular automotive magazines of the day to finally get FoMoCo to correct the issue on subsequent models.

The 410 in 1966 and 1967 was a nearly cost-free way to modestly differentiate the full size Mercury cars from the Ford full size models, with the sales of them promoted to those pulling camper or boat trailers with their cars (remember those days?). Which leads to the question of why Ford never offered the 410 and 428 and (until almost the very last use of the FE) the 390-4v in pickups. Yes, they were promoting use of the 410 in cars that were pulling heavier loads, just as pickups would have been. Doesn't make sense, does it? Or... does it.

The answer is "because they didn't have to." At the time all US manufacturers put detuned engines (compared to car offerings) into their trucks because they knew that truck users routinely overloaded and overlugged their trucks. So compressions were kept deliberately low to prevent tendency of preignition which is hugely destructive to engines and would be very costly to correct under warranty. Both the 410 and 428 could have been detuned for compression, but then you're functionally back to the power output of the truck detuned 390, which wasn't that much more than the run-of-the-mill 360. The difference for cars was that the C6 automatic transmission would help smooth out transient overlugging of the higher compression engines. Automatic transmissions were not yet quite the overwhelming thing in trucks that they'd become in cars, so higher compressions in lugging cars were acceptable.

The fact is, though, that if you put a 410 or 428 in a pickup and drive it reasonably (without running the compression ratio through the roof during the engine build), you can get away with a 3.54 differential ratio in combination with a manual transmission (at the time, the 3.54 ratio Dana 60 was available only with the automatic transmission) while still having plenty of lugging power when you need it. Consequently, fuel economy can actually increase with a properly prepared 410 or 428 compared to a 360 or 390 if the engine and truck are set up right. 90-91 octane gasoline is nearly.mandatory, though.

All of our 410's (actually 416 thanks to .030" overbores of the cylinders) are flat tappet RV-cammed, Autolite 2100 2V carburated, duel exhaust without headers using the 390 pickup truck pistons. The best performing one has an Autolite 2100 from a '64 F600 292 with manual throttle and smaller jets. That particular 410 has a BW T85-OD transmission and gets 20 mpg or so around town due to constantly coasting and some other fuel saving driving tricks I use. The mileage is closer to 16 mpg on the highway*, still pretty decent for a powerful truck with the aerodynamics of a 4x8 sheet of plywood.

*June 24, 2020: 260 miles on level stretch of I-40 using full passenger side 17 gal auxiliary tank @ 75MPH and modest load, no trailer = 15.3 MPG.

[jzjames]

it's a thrifty and very powerful engine, especially at lower RPMs.

..which should make it very much fun for in-town driving!

[bellamor]

It seems like you are ready for a new adventure.

[sargentrs]

Great article! Thanks for posting this!

[My427stang]

I bet it's an amazing difference, although not the biggest power-maker, the cam you chose is my go-to for just a happy torquey cruiser. They work so nice and just run so well.

For future upgrades, I would recommend a distributor recurve and ceramic coated headers, adding those two things will give you almost an equiv jump in part throttle performance especially.

Of course it's like stone soup, add some more, will have more flavor, after that is an Edelbrock RPM intake

Beautiful work done by some talented boys!