devovino wrote:

Gotcha, so theroticially, I may never know if this is the original motor or not based even on casting codes.

Also, to have a "roller block" I would need a 5.0, could I not just just put new heads on a 289 with rollers and it would be so?

The "Roller" block mentioned refers to a roller cam.  That's a steel cam shaft with lobes specifically shaped to operate with roller lifters instead of flat lifters.  The block has taller lifter bosses for the  stability of the longer lifters and a system of parts in the valley that keep the roller lifters from trying to rotate...can't have any rotation like  with flat lifters.  The roller system goes nearly for ever and saves a lot of horsepower too.

Ford went to the roller cam system in 85 and that's when the 302 became the 5.0 (Actually, it's a bit shy of five liters but who's counting).  By picking up a core or even a running 5.0 you might save yourself a lot of greif and expense.  The heads will be ready to go for unleaded fuel.  It will likely have at least one good bore job left in it without exceeding the accepted normal limit of .030" over standard...deeper boaring can lead to heating problems  on some blocks.  Even if it has well over a hundred K on it, it may be perfectly acceptable as a driver for a few thousand miles until you decide to rebuild it (
(my donor Lincoln TC had 200k on it and I drove it 320miles home over the mountains and got 23mpg.  And, it had standard bore.  My 90 GT had 154K on when joshkbob drove it from western CO to Oklahoma City and only got 30 mpg.  An injected 5.0 will go many miles and not wear out.  So, if you shop carefully you  may  just  find a late 5.0 with miles  left in it for  pretty cheap.  You can pull all the injection stuff and drop on a  carb, add a  cheap C4 trans...I gave one away  last year  that ran perfect but leaked a bit...probably an easy fix, and you are running and enjoying.

Anyway, I just hate to see you waste $300 or $400 on something that might get you running  quick but will be something you want to replace down the road.

Good luck and welcome aboard.  There's lots of advice to be had here...some of it even good...the foregoing not withstanding.

BB
I

True74yamaha wrote:

JSHarvey wrote:

Just a bit South of SLC (Sandy).  Where are you located?

If the weather stays nice this weekend I may take it out for the first drive of Spring.

 
I'm in Riverton utah. Now I remember your from the vintage mustang forum you have the scarebird discs on your ride

Yes, my car was the test mule for the Scarebird guy to develop disc for the Ford spindles, my set is quite a bit different than what Scarebird is currently offering.


 

Kinda funny to see some guys on here that are from slc we should tell are friends and start up a car show