Ford truck engine swap issues

[keel]

I have a 1979 Ford E-150 that came factory with a 351W and a C6. Long story short, the factory engine had about 200k miles on it and gave up the ghost so I swapped in a roller cam 302 out of a 1996 Explorer. Stole the GT40 heads and intake off of that for my Fox and now the E-150 has an Explorer shortblock with E7 heads, still carbureted. Bolted up to the transmission and converter no problem and drives good for the most part. (Put about 1000 miles on it this year.)

Engine seems to run great but has some issues delivering the power at low speeds and RPMs. The first issue is that the transmission shifts really early when trying to accelerate and drags the engine RPM down too much to make any amount of power. I end up just manually shifting it if I need to accelerate quickly like getting on the highway. Once the engine has some speed it feels/sounds good.

Second issue is the engine struggles to get off the line quickly from a stop, especially going up hills. It feels like the converter is stalling at too low of an RPM and lugging the engine. Unfortunately I don't have a tach on the stock cluster so it's hard to tell how quickly the motor is spinning when this is happening. Should I have swapped in a higher stall speed converter when I swapped the motor? The 351W probably did have more low end grunt.

Anyway, if anyone can chip in and offer some advice on how to fix either of those issues that would be great. It's hard for me to tell if it is an engine problem or trans/converter problem.

 

[General karthief]

Ok, questions
What rear gear ratio
What is the timing set at
2 barrel carb
Stock intake
Vacuum advance hooked up and functional

 

[keel]

Unsure of rear gear ratio but it seems pretty tall.

Timing should be at 10 degrees BTDC.

Holley 4412 carb and a 2 barrel intake from Facebook marketplace not sure what it was sourced from but it is a factory cast iron Ford unit. Had to swap intakes because the 302 has the shorter deck height but the carb is carried over.

Vac advance is all hooked up should be working properly, has a relatively new distributor.

 

[General karthief]

"Should be" is the term used by us shadetree mechanics just before we fix something that likely was not the issue.
make sure "it should be" is actually doing what it's supposed to be doing.

 

[keel]

"Should be" is the term used by us shadetree mechanics just before we fix something that likely was not the issue.
make sure "it should be" is actually doing what it's supposed to be doing.

Haha yeah I know. I just say "should be" because I did the work and I'm always second guessing myself. I've ended up fixing a lot of poorly done work that I did in the past and I'm sure I will continue to do so as I figure this stuff out.

I'll verify the ignition timing stuff when I get the chance.

 

[General karthief]

A lot of my automotive issues have been self inflected

 

[Noobz347]

Engine seems to run great but has some issues delivering the power at low speeds and RPMs. The first issue is that the transmission shifts really early when trying to accelerate and drags the engine RPM down too much to make any amount of power. I end up just manually shifting it if I need to accelerate quickly like getting on the highway. Once the engine has some speed it feels/sounds good.

You're running this through a 2 BBL carb?

It sounds to me like the thing is starving of air.

HO cam? GT40 heads? Is this a roller block?

If the converter is out of a Mustang, it's expecting nearly 200 HP and 300 ft/lbs. A 4 BBL intake and a 650 might be a better match.

 

[keel]

It has the stock cam out of the Explorer with E7 heads and I reused the original converter. No way I was going to waste a good set of Gt40s on a van

 

[Noobz347]

It has the stock cam out of the Explorer with E7 heads and I reused the original converter. No way I was going to waste a good set of Gt40s on a van

I was a little confuseled about which car we were talking about I figured it was the Van.

PICS!

 

[General karthief]

Stock exhaust manifolds or headers?
Explorer cam with e7 heads will likely be lazy on the gettyup, I would drop a duel plane intake and a small 4 holer on it, long tube headers into the stock exhaust, that should get you some torque back, does the C6 have a vacuum modulator on the trans? If so get the replacement modulator thats adjustable to adjust the shift points.

 

[keel]

Stock exhaust manifolds or headers?
Explorer cam with e7 heads will likely be lazy on the gettyup, I would drop a duel plane intake and a small 4 holer on it, long tube headers into the stock exhaust, that should get you some torque back, does the C6 have a vacuum modulator on the trans? If so get the replacement modulator thats adjustable to adjust the shift points.

It has the stock tubular headers off of my 5.0 Mustang so they should perform a little better than the cast manifolds.

No vacuum modulator that I know of but maybe it should have one, I'll look into that.

 

[keel]

Here she is in all her glory. Pretty sweet camper, has a ton of space with the extended cab.

 

[Noobz347]

I saw a guy on YT once that ran a Camaro on a cheap china lawn mower carb off of Amazon.

It ran... Got good gas mileage but pretty much sucked everywhere else.

 

[Noobz347]

Here she is in all her glory. Pretty sweet camper, has a ton of space with the extended cab.

Dude... You need a full stroker for that thing.

 

[Noobz347]

If you need a set of plans for an Emergency Pneumatic Panty Launcher, I know a guy.