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Original Message
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Hey, wait a minute! Don't dis the 390! |
By Dave Shoe - 06/11/2001 11:47:57 PM; IP 216.243.158.252 |
You may not have a 428 crank or 427 block lsying around the house, but a 390 kicks ass when properly prepared. If you find a nice FT block, you can reliably pop into the 400+ cube range, too.
A "short stroke" 390 will rev nicely compared to a long stroke 410. It's got 95% of the cubes a 410 has, but can rev higher to make up the difference. It's also got 91% of the cubes that a 428 has. It's a piece of cake to build a 390 that's faster than my 452CID FE, mianly because I don't have to cam it up much to make lotsa power. Also, a 390 can be made to sound frightening next to my mild big bore block.
Don't go discounting the 390 so fast. I'm tempted to play in the 352-390 area but have easy cubes laying around which sorta prevents me from doing so. You're lucky - you ain't stuck with the big stuff. You CAN build a 390 that'll outlast a built Windsor, outpower most any engine outside of modern mountain motors, and you can do it for cheap from the guts found under the hood of an old pickup or Galaxie.
If you got a hankering to leave the FE arena, it ain't for lack of cheap and available parts - it's either for a lack of understanding the FE, or perhaps because you find in yourself a need to take a more mainstream approach to engine building. FEs are not mainstream, but they don't have to be expensive, either.
Shoe. |
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