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South Central Kansas | I bought a 1982 Ford F-700 4WD truck with a Rotomix feed box and it has a 370 engine with 7:1 compression ratio. it's a pretty good truck but the engine is weak, but it works okay for what we need.
I had never heard of a 370 before and when I go to the auto parts places, they usually look at me with a quizzical look when I give them the engine info. Sometimes they have to dig around in the old catalogues to even find what I want.
I understand that this engine was used only in trucks and is the same block at the 429-460-514 engines.
If I got this engine rebuilt would raising the compression ratio make it run better? Any other thoughts on this engine.
First Ford I have ever owned, I bought it for the feed box and the fact that is was a 4WD.
Thanks for the help. |
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NE Mo | Have a couple of them here. True, they are weak. Usually used in school buses and state hiway trucks here. Put a rebuilt engine in one, and not much different in performance. |
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South Central Kansas | Woud putting 460 short block work with the same heads? That would raise the compression and should run better. |
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NE Mo | Unsure about that. The 460 carb engine here, was a very good engine. Some did have problems with them, but we liked the one we had. The 460 fuel injected engine was a disappointment for us. |
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South Central Kansas | This truck has a two barrel Holley on it. I have never seen to much crap under the hood on a truck that age. We have three mid 70s Chevys and they are clean and simple under the hood.
If I went with a rebuilt motor, I'd sure like to see if a bigger one would work. |
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| A two barrell?? I'd think a good 4 barrell would liven it up a bit...
Rod |
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South Central Kansas | yeah.........it's got one of those big Hollys.
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Alberta, Canada | I have a 370 in a 1987 ford F700 with a 4 barrel holley and I find it under powered. I had it on my hay moving truck then put a grain box on it and its still no power house. I swear our old chevy C60 with a 350 has more power.
Your right they have a pile of crap under the hood Mine has 2 air pumps, 2 powersteering pumps and an altenator! |
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Blanchester, OH | The 370's and the larger displacement 429's of that era were truly PIGS. Wouldn't even make a good boat anchor in my opinion, and used way too much fuel for what you got out of them.
Here's a good site with some seemingly knowledgable people on all things Ford. Maybe you might find some good info there.
http://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/forum53/ |
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NEIN | We put an Edlebrock (sp) carb on ours and took off all the polution junk and it runs much better. Still no power house and likes her fuel, but much better performance.my 2C |
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St.Clair Co. IL. | If you can find a old 391 to replace your 370 with they are a lot better and more power, but still not a chevy we replaced our old 361 in a Louisville yrs ago. lot more power but still sucked fuel bad!!! thinking maybe a car 390 may fit in a F series but not sure been a while since I researched know a car 390 wont fit a L series (dont ask how I know this as fact) good luck Bob |
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South Central Kansas | Thanks for the link, I'll check it out later.
Speaking of fuel, I fill this truck up every 6 to 7 weeks, takes around 90 gallons. I feed twice a day and never drive more than 2 miles round trip. I thought our Chevy truck 350s were gas hogs. This Ford makes them look economical.
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Blanchester, OH | Car 390 won't work in a heavy truck without lots of changes. None of the accessories (brackets) on front of engine will interchange. Snout of crank is larger on a truck. Water pump is different. Front cover is different, ect. ect. Your right though Brassring, IMO the 391 would be a better engine, but probably wouldn't be worth all the changes needed to get the FE motor into the truck in the place of the 385 series that's there now. The 385 can be made to run if one really needed to, just costs some $$. |
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Hagen Brothers farms,Goodrich ND | Bret (OH) - 1/18/2008 11:08
Car 390 won't work in a heavy truck without lots of changes. None of the accessories (brackets) on front of engine will interchange. Snout of crank is larger on a truck. Water pump is different. Front cover is different, ect. ect. Your right though Brassring, IMO the 391 would be a better engine, but probably wouldn't be worth all the changes needed to get the FE motor into the truck in the place of the 385 series that's there now. The 385 can be made to run if one really needed to, just costs some $$.[/QUOTE
Just to ad that car/ pickup 360 /390 will not balance with a truck 361/391 flywheel. Car/pickup 360/390 is internal balance, truck 361/391 is external balance. BTDT shakes like heck.
Also, Car/pickup 460 has a smaller hole in the crank where the pilot bushing/bearing fits (small block size) while the 429 car/pickup engines have a larger pilot bushing/bearing hole (FE 390 size), so may or may not be a problem, depending if the big truck pilot bearing fits in the crank or flywheel. |
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Ea. Washington | Learned long ago whenever your driving a Ford you have to let the fan do 2/3sd of the pulling. |
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West Central Saskatchewan | Have a 370 2b carb in 81 F-700 we use as a sprayer truck 1200gal tank 71ft boom, to make it run we had to pitch all the pollution control crap including the egr valve. We are using the air pump to produce air for the foam marker. I agree it is not the most powerful or fuel efficient motor but it does what I need it to. |
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Mid Michigan | Find an old mid 70's ford truck or car and rob a 400 M motor out of there and stuff it in there. They are cheap and plentiful and make about 200 hp stock. If you put on aluminum intake, rv cam, and headers they are quite strong. They have the same bellhousing pattern as the 429-460 motors. 460's are kind of useless too. They can be had by the thousands for very little cash but they are pretty lazy. You can make them run with aftermarket aluminum heads. |
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Hagen Brothers farms,Goodrich ND | davpal - 1/18/2008 23:15
Find an old mid 70's ford truck or car and rob a 400 M motor out of there and stuff it in there. They are cheap and plentiful and make about 200 hp stock. If you put on aluminum intake, rv cam, and headers they are quite strong. They have the same bellhousing pattern as the 429-460 motors. 460's are kind of useless too. They can be had by the thousands for very little cash but they are pretty lazy. You can make them run with aftermarket aluminum heads.
Problem with the 400M in a medium truck is that I don't believe there is a 400M flywheel that will accept a medium truck size clutch. Pickups never used a clutch larger than 11-12 inch, while most medium trucks run larger clutches. None of the 361/391 or 370/429 flywheels will fit or balance a 400M.
Big problem with that 370 is the low compression in large part is killing fuel efficiency. Problem is though that unless it needs a rebuild anyway,
you have very little chance of recovering the rebuild with high compression in fuel savings. |
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Mid Michigan | He may try a C-6 automatic in there if the truck has a divorced transfer case. Should hold up easily in a big lumbering old farm truck. I have seen them hold up to over 1500 hp race cars with over 1000 ft lbs torque. I think Bob Chandler uses C-6 automatic in his Bigfoot trucks. It will only be put under as much stress as the 400 M would put out. I think it would be a pretty good combo. Has to be better than that 120 hp wore out 370! |
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| Best thing to ever happen to my 460 was a 514 stroker crank, a good set of DOVE-C heads and lots and lots of cam!
You dont necessarily need aluminum heads to make a 460 go, but you do need a set of irons that will move air. |
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| .... and then he'd have to put up with a 400 windsor. Now wouldn't that be a trade off. Out of the pan and straight into the fricken fire.
If it was me and I wanted to do something serious to it to improve the situation I'd go find a Ford based bus from the 80's, buy it, and then take the 401 (6.6L) diesel engine and transmission from that and stick it in the truck. Around here you can buy the buses for 500-1000 bucks in decent running order since the school board won't give the papers for them. Parts is all they are, but still good running buses most times. Then you'd have something...
Otherwise I'd pull all the pollution crap off the 370, run the timing up as much as possible and let it go at that.
Rod |
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West Central Saskatchewan | I am using 900-20s dueled on rear and singles on front. Built this sprayer to do preseed burn off and in crop spraying. I should said in my other post that the truck has 4.88 gears and a straight 5 speed trany. I spray in third gear at 18 to20 mph. |
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Mid Michigan | Unfortunately that is the only engine made that is actually sicker than the 370! Ask my neighbor. He has one of those cheap buses and it can't hardly sustain 55-60 mph if there is a hill on the highway. He says he can't imagine it ever pulling a load of kids in there. |
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| The 400 windsor or the 401 diesel? |
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Mid Michigan | Since Ford Never made a 400 Windsor I guess it would be the diesel. They did make a 400 M and they were a stroked out 351 Cleveland and there is nothing weak about that. I had a 400 sb chevy in my jeep pickup built up. Friend had a 400 M Ford in his truck. They looked like a pair of twins sitting next to each other. Both half ton 4wds with 35 inch tires. The performance of the two was dead nuts even. Both ran very strong and got the both of us in way to much trouble. |
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Mid Michigan | I have been doing head porting for about 20 years and have done a lot of the Dove heads. Lots of 289, 302, 351 windsor, 400M, 460,s, 429. Have done them all. Lots of 350 and 327 Chevy stuff too. Problem with an iron 460 head is they have a horrible exhaust port. A 350 chevy head will usually flow as much stock as a modified cast iron 460 or 429 head. The intake ports on the 460 are really nice. The exhaust ports are so poorly designed that when you get done porting them they only flow about the same as a ported cast iron 351 windsor head. The 460 head stops flowing at about .480 lift so any more lift than that is useless. You can go with some major duration but the thing won't hardly idle. Best package I used on a 460 was the Eldebrock performer 4 barrel dual plane manifold with the matching cam and lifters. Had about .480 lift and 284 duration with matching springs and lifters. Was a very powerful package, idled very well and would rev 5500 rpm. That was using an 800 Holley double pumper carb. I have done quite a few sets of 429 and 460 heads for mud bogging trucks. 500 hp is about the max for iron heads, cobra jets a touch better. If you want more than that you have to get the Eldebrock, Blue Thunder, Dove, or Motorsport aluminum heads. Or just use Nitrous on it and that is my favorite item! |
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| Well, as far as the 400M goes, it may have had power... but I never heard much GOOD about it. A guy I know quite well that has run a garage for 25 years had a 400M in his wrecker at one time. I forget how many rebuilds he did on the thing, but I do remember him saying that he couldn't keep bearings in it, for whatever reason. He and I both have had Ford trucks all our lives and like them quite well, but tend to agree that the stuff Ford built from the mid 70's to the 90's wasn't much but trouble.
I can't see why on earth you would think the Ford 401 was a weak diesel engine either unless the pump spec was awful low. Those were damn good reliable time proven engines, and it was no problem to take well over 200 hp from them although I think 190 was their highest rating.
I know I spent a lot of hours on school buses in my life with a variety of Chev's with 366's, Ford's with the 370-4V and the 401 along with DT-360 and DT-408 powered IH's. The 401 certainly had the power edge over that entire lot. They were probably one of the better engines available in that segment at the time.
Rod |
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Mid Michigan | We actually had a 351 M in our 1978 Ford Ltd II that my parents bought brand new. It is still parked out behind my dads garage. He quit driving it with 345,000 miles on it with no rebuilds. It had power comparable with anything else at the time from any of the other manufacturers. The engine never had the heads off it. I don't think I know very many engines short of a semi truck that can log that kind of miles even now. Couldn't have been that bad! I have a 5.4 in my Ford Suv that will never make that many miles. The Bus I am talking about with the international diesel is my neighbors bus. He said it is the most gutless engine he has ever driven and the bus will not handle hills very well on the highway. It has low miles on it and he uses it as a recreational vehicle. Everybody has different experiences with things and to each his own. I was just trying to give the guy a suggestion on how to get his grain truck running. Not to have a debate about engines with you. |
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Ford truck.........370 engine
