Mild 302 Build

Farmer83 · Dec 1, 2012

Rmoore45 said:
Hello fellow forum members, My name is Clayton Moore but my nickname is Ranger.

I need some help with a 302 build and figured I would pick your brains on some things.

A guy that comes into where I work gave me a 1992 302 long block (roller block). It has 180,xxx miles and needs a rebuild. I would like to do a mild build on this motor: decent heads, cam, intake, headers, rockers, etc. . Its going to be a carbed motor not FI for simplicity, I don't have a fuel injection system. This is going to be a budget build, if I can't get one thing I'll settle for something else. I'm going to be putting this motor in my '67 mustang coupe currently with a 289 and T-5 which already has all the accessories and also aluminum intake, headers, 4bbl carb, timing cover. I'm going to swap stuff from the 289 over to the 302 when I pull the motor. This is a 5.0 motor so I thought this is where I should post this. Shooting for around 300-325 hp nothing fancy, just a good rebuilt motor that can be a daily driver so I can build a monster motor down the road

My plan so far is to reuse the crank, unless its no good or would cost more to machine it than just buying a new one, and buy a rebuild kit from summit. I'll go to a machine shop in my area and have them put in the crank, rods, pistons, cam, and set everything up so I can finish it from there.

I need to figure out some things so I can be on the looking for deals.

Cam- I would like a mild roller cam that will work good with a carb. Preferred HO firing order

Heads- I can buy a set of reman heads and port&polish them for around 600, I would like to find a decent set of heads for around that price. Trying to find deals on a good set of heads. Also do they have to be heads from a roller block? Or can they be any 302 heads?

Right now I'm just trying to get a game plan for this engine, I haven't done anything yet, I'm just thinking it all out so whenever I start this project I'll know what to do (also gives me time to save $$$)

Any comments are much appreciated, I'm not an idiot, I'm just looking for suggestions and ideas (possibly ways to save $$)

Thanks, Ranger

Are you going to reuse the stock pistons?They should be forged but the rings are more $$(metric).If not look at what D.S.S. has to offer,they have larger valve reliefs & this opens up your cam choices(more lift).Save your money for better heads,entry level aluminum heads can be had for not much more than your 600$ budget.Check out comp cams Xtreme energy line,I believe the XE268? might get you to 300hp with the right hci combo.I would recomend comp for your complete valvetrain.How large are your headers?What intake do you have?What gears are in the car?Hope this helps you out.

2000xp8 · Dec 2, 2012

Save yourself a ton of money and time.

Find an explorer gt40p engine in the junkyard (around $500), swap out the cam, change the valve springs, get some gt40p headers, put your carb and accessories on it and be done.

Rebuilding a 302 with basic parts just isn't worth the time or money when there is a million perfectly good explorer engines out there.

You will even be able to sell off the intake and recoop a few bucks.

If you want better heads, sell off the p heads (worth about $200) then put that money together with your $600 and get yourself some used twisted wedges, or throw in a few more bucks and get new ones.

Then use the long block you have to rebuild as a 347 over time. At least the block, the heads turn in for scrap.

7991LXnSHO · Dec 2, 2012

The E7 heads are not bad, and I bet will outflow most old ones. If you want a mild jump in performance, you should be happy. I had a pre roller block to 4bbl carb on a roller block and E7 heads replacement motor in a car. But even worked over, I saw tests where the various GT 40 heads out flow them easily.

The advice above from the others is sound. I just would get specifics on the cam and your intended RPMs before I asked them for which port size to order. Beware of balances on the flywheel and harmonic balancer, or big vibrations WILL be an issue!

John Grunwald · Dec 3, 2012

If you want cheap heads I would say procomps 190cc 62cc combustion chamber alum.. They get bashed alot because of them being Chinese made and sometimes the casting isnt great but honestly I haven't ran one pair of heads that I haven had machined and cleaned up. I found my pair on eBay for 382$ complete then had a friend machine them... I'm running about 400hp off a 331 stroker with them so I can't complain

65ShelbyClone · Dec 4, 2012

Rmoore45 said:
1.) It has 180,xxx miles and needs a rebuild.

2.) I'm going to be putting this motor in my '67 mustang coupe currently with a 289 and T-5 which already has all the accessories and also aluminum intake, headers, 4bbl carb, timing cover. I'm going to swap stuff from the 289 over to the 302 when I pull the motor. This is a 5.0 motor so I thought this is where I should post this.

3.) Shooting for around 300-325 hp nothing fancy, just a good rebuilt motor that can be a daily driver so I can build a monster motor down the road

4.) Cam- I would like a mild roller cam that will work good with a carb. Preferred HO firing order

5.) Heads- I can buy a set of reman heads and port&polish them for around 600, I would like to find a decent set of heads for around that price. Trying to find deals on a good set of heads. Also do they have to be heads from a roller block? Or can they be any 302 heads?

1.) The block may not need to be bored at that mileage. If the pistons and bores are with useable limits, I would probably just go with rings and bearings.

2.) What intake and carb? Cable clutch, hydraulic, or z-bar?

3.) At the crank or at the wheels?

4.) I would be more concerned about getting a cam that worked well with the heads and induction.

5.) You don't have to use heads from a roller engine, but they're going to be the better ones to have. At the very least they will have hard seats.

There are going to be a lot of other little details to work out with the swap, too.

ratio411 · Dec 4, 2012

Your 289 will have 3 bolt accessory drive/balancer, and 28 oz balance.
The 302 will have 4 bolt accessories/balancer, and a 50 oz balance.
Same with swapping the flywheel/flexplate, 28 vs 50 oz balance.

You will obviously need to keep the 50 oz balance if you want to use the 5.0 short block.
That means you won't be able to swap many parts over from your 289 when it comes to accessories.
You'll need to swap to 5.0 serpentine stuff (reverse flow water pump), or find 4 bolt balancer compatible v-belt pulley stuff that is also compatible with your 289 accessories. Not hard to do, but you need to know about it, and then avoid little pitfalls like water pump inlet locations, direction of belt travel vs water pump, and timing cover compatibility. Lots of little stuff to plan out.

You can use any head on a roller block, however, the pushrod lengths will change.

You also have the choice of the 69-73 351w head. The best iron head from the factory, and on par with many aftermarket heads when ported.
The P-heads are in the same ballpark ported vs ported, but you have to worry about header fitment with the relocated spark plugs.
On the other hand though, the P-heads will work with pedestal rockers (think budget), while the W heads will require machine work to adjustable valves and guide plates, no ifs, ands, or buts. (think extra money) So there are drawbacks to either. The buy in price for W heads is cheaper than P heads. Just things to think about.

The roller cam may also need a different distributor gear drive. So do and some don't. It all depends on which cam you use. I haven't kept up with the details on this. Used to be that all roller cams needed a different distributor gear, but I think that is changing depending on manufacturer.

If your car is old school manual tranny, the equalizer bar will need an adapter as the 5.0 blocks do not have the bolt boss on the side to mount the equalizer. I have seen adapters that bolt to the bellhousing bolts and provide an equalizer mouting point. If you have P-heads at this point, and you are probably familiar with the pipe routing on 289 headers for manual trannies, I doubt very seriously they would work with the plug placement on those heads.

Gearbanger 101 · Dec 4, 2012

Threads merged together.

Clayton, do you want it to remain here in the 5.0L Tech section, or would you like me to move it to the Classic Tech section. Your choice.

Farmer83 · Dec 4, 2012

Summit racing(

ratio411 said:
Your 289 will have 3 bolt accessory drive/balancer, and 28 oz balance.
The 302 will have 4 bolt accessories/balancer, and a 50 oz balance.
Same with swapping the flywheel/flexplate, 28 vs 50 oz balance.

You will obviously need to keep the 50 oz balance if you want to use the 5.0 short block.
That means you won't be able to swap many parts over from your 289 when it comes to accessories.
You'll need to swap to 5.0 serpentine stuff (reverse flow water pump), or find 4 bolt balancer compatible v-belt pulley stuff that is also compatible with your 289 accessories. Not hard to do, but you need to know about it, and then avoid little pitfalls like water pump inlet locations, direction of belt travel vs water pump, and timing cover compatibility. Lots of little stuff to plan out.

You can use any head on a roller block, however, the pushrod lengths will change.

You also have the choice of the 69-73 351w head. The best iron head from the factory, and on par with many aftermarket heads when ported.
The P-heads are in the same ballpark ported vs ported, but you have to worry about header fitment with the relocated spark plugs.
On the other hand though, the P-heads will work with pedestal rockers (think budget), while the W heads will require machine work to adjustable valves and guide plates, no ifs, ands, or buts. (think extra money) So there are drawbacks to either. The buy in price for W heads is cheaper than P heads. Just things to think about.

The roller cam may also need a different distributor gear drive. So do and some don't. It all depends on which cam you use. I haven't kept up with the details on this. Used to be that all roller cams needed a different distributor gear, but I think that is changing depending on manufacturer.

If your car is old school manual tranny, the equalizer bar will need an adapter as the 5.0 blocks do not have the bolt boss on the side to mount the equalizer. I have seen adapters that bolt to the bellhousing bolts and provide an equalizer mouting point. If you have P-heads at this point, and you are probably familiar with the pipe routing on 289 headers for manual trannies, I doubt very seriously they would work with the plug placement on those heads.

Pertaining to roller cam compatability out of the box,Dizzys are available from MSD & Summits private lable brand(made by Mallory).

Rmoore45 · Dec 4, 2012

Gearbanger 101 said:
Threads merged together.

Clayton, do you want it to remain here in the 5.0L Tech section, or would you like me to move it to the Classic Tech section. Your choice.

I would prefer it in the Classic Tech Section since this is going to be a motor for a classic mustang.

Thanks

btw the Hulk avatar is cool

StreetsideStig · Dec 6, 2012

I don't have any advice, but I'm eager to watch this build. It sounds awesome!

7991LXnSHO · Dec 9, 2012

Mr. Hulk, Sir,
This also applies to any early V-8 Fox body. The 28/50 oz balancer and flywheel issue is exactly what I was thinking about in an earlier post. What is the year of the switch??? Do not let your Chevy mechanic or builder buffalo you into using the wrong parts - the motor will shake like California on a bad, bad day. I won't do that again. (I found out they took "coffee" at the bar by 10 AM. No one told the new guy in town until I had troubles.)

I may withdrawl my advice on the E7 heads. I caught your power goal this time, and you will likely have to up the compression old school style, do porting, have a healthy (maybe even squirrely) camshaft, a single plane intake (if with a carb), and have some RPM to make this number range. With inexpensive but good heads available (that were not so easy to get when I did the swap), I think you will be happier to reach your goal aftermarket style. Lower RPM cruising and power is more fun for a non track car. Mine is as high strung as this motor described. It's loads of fun from 2000 rpm up, but it's cold blooded and I hate when I have to go slowly in it. SLipping the clutch that much and trying not to leave black marks in front of a school gets old. It is just not a happy car unless the tires are spinning or it is going fast. Besides, the 25-50 lbs weight savings off the front compared to iron Gt-40 or E7's is not a small amount to consider in a small car.

Good luck and have fun!

Rmoore45 · Dec 9, 2012

Update

I bought some cleaned,painted, and rebuilt Gt40 heads off of eBay from a reputable seller with good feedback. I told him that I didn't want the valve springs or rockers because I don't need them and got him go a bit lower on the price. I went with the Gt40s because I didn't want to have to worry about my current headers not fitting with on the P heads. I'm also going to try and port and polish these heads while I'm saving money to buy other parts. One more thing, I'm going to measure the combustion chamber of these heads so I can figure out my compression ratio.

As for the 50 vs 28 imbalance thing I have figured it out. My 289 is a 28oz imbalance motor, my 92 302 is a 50oz imbalance motor. When I changed over from a C4 to a T5 I planned ahead and got a billet steel flywheel with removable weights, right now it has the 28oz weight on it, all I have to do is swap it out with the 50oz weight and the flywheel is done. I did some research on the harmonic balancer and found one on summit that is for a 50oz imbalance motor and has 3 holes for my crankshaft pulley. Problem solved.

7991LXnSHO · Dec 9, 2012

What size clutch does your solution allow? I think it stepped up a half inch in the process to 10.5" when I did it.
Let us know how the heads turn out.

This is what I am seeing for the 28/50 oz stock switch over answer - but this is second hand info for those wanting used parts. "The 5.0 was introduced in 1982 when Ford decided calling 302 a 5.0L when they went metric system. Roller type did not start until 1985."
As far as the 3 or four bolt balancer/pulleys, I'm glad you got what you need.

Rmoore45 · Dec 9, 2012

7991LXnSHO said:
What size clutch does your solution allow? I think it stepped up a half inch in the process to 10.5" when I did it.
Let us know how the heads turn out

I went with a king cobra clutch which is 10.5". It does not feel like a stock clutch at all but I eventually got used to it.

65ShelbyClone · Dec 12, 2012

7991LXnSHO said:
1.) What size clutch does your solution allow?

2.) This is what I am seeing for the 28/50 oz stock switch over answer - but this is second hand info for those wanting used parts. "The 5.0 was introduced in 1982 when Ford decided calling 302 a 5.0L when they went metric system

1.) The T5 only has room in the bell for a 157t flywheel which will only take up to a 10.5" clutch.
2.) They didn't "go metric" so much as simply adopting the metric naming convention. 5.0 engines used fractional dimensions throughout until 2001 when it was dropped completely.

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