got to drive a 79 town car

[1987cp]

Strut rods? Really?

10-14mpg sounds reasonable. I looked at the fueling records my dad kept for my mom's '74 Cougar (it had a 400-2V, or so I've always been told), and all the entries I remember seeing reported economy right in that range.

[Pirate]

Strut rods? Really?

Really really. I thought someone had a swaybar kit for these cars, but I haven't looked in a long, long time. It helps a bit....but it's still not something I'd want to corner all that hard.

It's one hell of a freeway flier, just as long as you remember to brake really hard for any corners coming up....I almost wish I could have snagged the white '77 coupe I put together for my stepfather, the gas mileage wasn't too bad, and it did really good burnouts, lol....

and how much more fuel was it burning though? I'd actually like to soup up a 400 a bit in one of those cars. I know they can perform, but I suspect that a warmed over 400 would not only have more power, but be better on fuel too.

I'm curious if the huge piston and resulting large flamefront across the piston of the 460 are more of a detriment to efficient running; my two 400's that I built were comparable to a modded 460, and got better gas mileage as well; however, this requires that the 400 be removed from the vehicle and be completely gone through; I could get similar results with a late 1970's 460 by merely doing a H/C/I, using D0VE heads....in addition, a good 408W will keep up, from a power standpoint, to almost any strongly-built 460, it usually takes serious cubic dollars and stroking the 460 to pull away from a 408 so far as power production is concerned.

I still think about building a 460 occasionally, but the only reason for doing so is that I can get acceptable results by going with a mild rebuild of a 460, instead of having to buy a stroker kit, an $1900 set of heads (AFR205 at least), etc, etc....but you don't have the roller cam selection, either, as 460's never got a roller cam from the factory....and it ain't cheap to get a hydraulic roller setup for a 460, either.

[1990LTD]

What's a decent 4bbl for the 400?

[1987cp]

I think the main difficulty might be finding a 4V manifold ....

[1990LTD]

yeah, true enough. a better 2bbl would probably be easier to find

[gadget73]

its not the carb thats a serious problem, the intake isn't too great, but the cam is awful and the heads have combustion chambers the size of half a grapefruit. Just sticking a carb on top is not gonna fix anything.

[1990LTD]

ah I see. I know nothing of these engines.

[sly]

port it and drag it with a 1050 cfm :p


*I know nothing about what I'm talking about

[ford man]

There's tons of intakes for 400's... Edelbrock performer 400 is what I went with. Heads are better than any 302 or 351 got from the factory. Cleveland 2v or 4v heads bolt on too. You can easily get over 400hp with stock heads. You can use any Cleveland intake with spacer plates too. It's also a dry intake so you don't have to worry about coolant and changing the oil when you change the intake. Any Cleveland camshaft works also.

Yes the stock intake is a turd. It's one HEAVY mother. You get a big performance boost with an intake and carb.

[gadget73]

The heads flow, no doubt about that, just the compression ratio is real low. Shave them down so the chambers are a more reasonable size and you've really got something to work with. The 400 is basically a stroker Cleveland engine, and with a little work it will perform as such.

[1990LTD]

[1990LTD]

you weren't kidding about those chambers.

[1987cp]

yeah, true enough. a better 2bbl would probably be easier to find

That'd surprise me more, actually, but of course now we have reports of 4V manifold availability. I'd forgotten about the concept of spacer plates, too.