fastbackford351

You can buy a brand new 302 from Ford for about 2500.00. Brand new w/ factory warranty. Of course is will be a bone stocker but if you get a set of good heads for about 1k, a nice bump-stick, intake, carb, and ignition you can have a really nice setup for about 4K. By the time the smoke clears on your rookie-rebuild (no disrespect intended), you can easily scare the hell out of that amount.

Check out Ford's offerings in their SVO catalog. Their engine prices are actually very competitive.

my77stang

everyone has to have their first time eventually

67mustang302

The problem with some of the Ford OHC engines, is that you HAVE to have the special tool to set timing for the cam position sensor, it's designed that way. I've seen it on some of the V6's, it's a hole, like where a distributor would go, but has some mechanism in it where you need to drop this special tool in it to align it properly. And you can't keep it aligned by hand etc, becuase it's designed in such a way that you need the tool. Like I said, retarded. If you look at the picture in that link, the particular tool I'm talking about is just a round cylinder looking thing with several slots cut up the sides.

All that said, GM stuck with a single freakin cam and 16 pushrods with the LS engines, and they're obviously better in every respectthan anything Ford has right now.

david01130

yea Im trying to go with originality. Its a 65 coupe GT with 170,000 miles on it so I want to use that some block. Im sure its rebuildable. It still runs ok but the water pump is going out. $1200 is not bad.


Can anyone recommend a good rebuild kit? Ive seen a few over at summit. Im looking for rebuild kits for both the heads and block.

67mustang302

Depends on what you wanna do with the car. The basic rebuild kits are decent and will run better and make more power than stock, but if you want to really build goos reliable street performance, you have to spend more money and go beyond the basic rebuild kit.

jlp66stang

Don't expect the machine shop to send your parts back clean enough to eat off.

Starfury

They will if you ask them to. My machine shop charged me twice for cleaning; once for before any work was done, once for after. Cleaned, dried, then dumped into an engine bag.

david01130

I am looking for just a basic rebuild kit. Im not looking for performance just a rebuild for my 65 gt coupe. I am trying to go back to originality not performance.

As for the machining I will look around for a reputable shop. I know a few mechanics around here I am sure they know of the good ones.

Starfury

The basic Sealed Power kits at Summit are fine for a stocker rebuild. All you should need are pistons, rings,bearings (all in the kit), plus an ARP engine hardware kit and ARP rod and head bolts.

The machine shop can cut the crank and resize the rods if needed. I'd also recommend align honing the mains. You'll need to have themachine work done before you can pick up the rebuild kit as you'll need to know the required piston and bearing sizes. Have the machine shop balance the entire rotating assembly once you get the kit in. This will ensure vibration free revving and prolong engine life.

If you want the heads redone, farm the whole job out to the machine shop. Heads aren't really something you can do easily on your own. Get hardened seats installed while they'reat it. I would definitely recommend port matching the exhaust before you ship the heads off, though. Easy to do with a die grinder and carbide bit, and it's probably the best bang for your buck improvement you can make in the intake/exhaust, good for 10-20hp.

my77stang

for a stock build arp headbolts are not needed, but i ALWAYS recommend dumping the stock ford rod bolts. also your mains will 99% not need a line hone, so unless you cooked a main bearing or something leave that alone.

you want the following done:

block hot tanked, or baked and shot peened
block magnafluxed
block bored and honed, honed with a torque plate is best but not required (they will need pistons to bore, but you can let them use a bore gauge to find out how oversize you will need to go. usually .030 does the trick but you never know)
block decked (resurfaced)

rods fitted with arp bolts and reconditioned

crank reground

rotating assembly balanced

valve job, hardened exhaust seats. this is a perfect time to get screw in studs installed and have the guides cut down so you can run a positive style seal and in the future a double spring if you decide to add a bigger cam. money permitting, its wise to coin up for some sort of slighty stiffer valve springs, and to go to at least 1.84/1.50 valve sizes