I'm at the point where i'm starting to think about engines. how much torque can an old stock c4 handle? If the answer is "not much" then i'm probbly going to have to put off the engine until i get that taken care of.
Old stock C-4, not much is probably accurate. If your just spinning not too wide tires it will last ahwile. If your thinking of sticky tires and real power it will frag.
I built from the rear forward, the motor was the last part of my equation.
Rear end, suspension, drive shaft, tranny then motor.......
it really depends on how much power your talking and the condition of the trans. I have a 69 faskback and I droped a roller cam H.O out of an 88 gt in it Ford E303 cam, eld. rpm manifold, port-polished intake and matching heads,1.6 roller rockers, and a 670cfm holley carb Id say a mild motor. The tranny is a c4 with a rebuild kit forward and reverse pack. its the cheapest way to go and that would hold up 350hp easy. If you do go and blow it up its not like they are all that rare..junkyard!
Thanks! but really, it doesn't look so great in person (the paint is terrible).
well my plan was to either get a 347, a 351, or a 408. and i don't really want to put any money into an automatic. i was just hoping i could get the engine and make the c4 last until i'd have the money for a tko, but from the sound of it, it looks like i'll be getting the tko first.
Thats because pre 70 they used .788 24 spline input shaft and in 70 they used a .839" 26 which was the HD of C4 which was later changed after post 70 to a 26spline on the converter and the converter end had a 24 spline. Ive acually been looking for a 82-up C5 which is more efficent or so they called the newly redesigned C4 which had a locking converter, diff. valve body ,and bell housing which can be swaped out with C4 Componets to make a pretty HD tranny, now your looking at supporting up to 450 hp stock and with a hardened input shaft you can run more ponies to the rear wheels.
This'll give you an idea. My dad bought a 69 E330 Chateau Club Wagon new in 69. It was in the family for a tad more than 10 years. Motor was a 2 bbl 302. Rearend was a Dana 60 with 3.73 gears. In those 10 + years we put over 100,000 miles on it. We also had the heavy duty C-4 it came with rebuilt 5 times.