Mopar 360 vs Ford 360

[joel d. snyder]

i had a '76 f100 with the 360. it ran fine, pulled or hauled anything, good in the woods & on the farm. 4 speed with the granny gear. but fuel consumption was out of this world!

 

[aaadave]

had one in a 69 f100 back when the speed limit was 55. couldn't get a better running engine, was just a little on the slow side. best i ever got on a trip at 55 was around 12 mpg. kind of reminded me of the old gm 307 power wise. if i'm not mistaken. they were a 390 block with a 352 crank. heard of people changing out for a 390 crank and making a 390 out of it.

 

[Bodyperson]

Ford used retarded camshaft timing for God knows what reason. If you read up on the history of it, some say emissions, some say to reduce cylinder pressure to aid in reducing spark knock. This was certainly true of the spark knock plagued 400 Ford engine. They used the 351C open chamber 2 barrel heads on it. Ford kept trying to reduce the cylinder pressure through dishing the pistons and retarding camshaft timing. Little was known then about quench as compared to now. Had someone had the bright idea to try the 351C 4V closed chamber heads on the 400, that would have solved the problem with quench......and made a 400 monster at the same time. That engine suffered from spark knock issues though, right to its demise in 1982.

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[Unconventional]

1975ish, I was racing Baja Bugs in the Mojave Desert and the Nevada deserts. An older gentleman we used to see all the time Darrel ..... raced the Truck class and was successful at it. Darrel stops at the Chevron station on the way to either Vegas or Jean Nevada with race truck in tow. We talked for a while "Alex, we just put this hot rod 390 in the race truck. It's an animal." I gassed them up and got them on their way. Darrel comes back to Barstow on his way home WAAAAAYYYY to early the next day. "Darrel, what are you doin back here so soon?" "Dammit Alex, we never should have switched that stock 360 out of the truck. The 390 was fast as hell, but we were having so much fun with it, we blew it up. Next time I see ya it will have the 360 back in it. I finished every race I entered with that motor."

 

[ramenth]

The 360 was Ford's FE (Ford Edsel) line. They included engines from 332 cubic inches to the 428. If they were such pieces of ****, Ford certainly had enough time to find that out, since they were made from 1958 to 1976 and put in just about everything Ford, Lincoln and Mercury ever made. The 360 was exactly what it was made for. A truck engine with bottom end torque right off idle. If one you had was a piece of ****, then something was wrong with it. None of them were made for fuel economy. Comparing the Mopar and Ford 360s is pretty pointless since the two engines are totally different in intended purposes. Since the Ford 360 never came with a four barrel carburetor, it got the same respect as the 351M and 400 Ford engines.......none. For those familiar with what those engines can do in good tune, it's no surprise that they were some of the best engines Ford made.

Beat me to it, Rob.

This is *exactly* it.