OT 95' 5.0 F150

[averagef250]

The lightning has a completely different motor than the regular trucks do.

I don't think the 351W is a bad motor, but the regular EFI truck ones really seam to suck. Every flat tappet EFI one I've been around has awful lifter ticks, leaked and been a slug in general.

[mad2smile]

if i were you, id go 302, preferably with a 5spd, then beef up the rear leaf setup a bit and call it a day. fyi, my brother-in-law has a 1995 F-150 302 auto thatll spin the tires without even trying... and its bone stock with 150,000ish miles!

if you can spare an extra thousand or so, a mid-90s F-250 or F-350 with a 460, or a late-80s/early-90s F-350 with a 6.9 or 7.3 International definitely wont disappoint.

[19674x4]

now yall got me torn now. iguess ill jsut have to test drive a 5.0and see what i think

[averagef250]

Seams a matter of everyone has thier own opinions of what power is and what a truck should drive like. There are lots of 90's 302 trucks out there. I'm sure most people on this site have atleast ridden in one if not owned one.

The way I see it is I've ridden with many people who've bragged about how powerful thier truck is. They mash it, it makes a whole lot of noise and accelerates enough to get out of it's own way. A 302 will do that for you empty. That 95 F-150 was not even remotely quick even after all the work that was done to it, it was always to the floor to move the truck down the road, got 10 MPG, but it was loud running to 4500 RPM in every gear to move it down the road. Seamed like most people who rode in the truck with me actually thought it was fast. It would spin 40" tires pretty easily with an E4OD, 4.56's and the 302. It wasn't remotely quick though. It took most any hill in 3rd or 2nd.

I put a good 20K or so in a 91 F-250 4x4 351w/ZF/3.55 geared 31" tire truck using and abusing it for awhile. The deciding factor for me to junk the truck out was when I picked up a 1000 gallon offroad diesel tank and stand that weighed about 1000 pounds on my 3500 pound trailer. The truck weighed 5400 empty, so that's about 9900 pounds altogether, a decent load, but my 89 F-350 dually cab chassis 7.3 N/A truck weighs over 11K empty. It accelerates rather well and doesn't care how much weight is in tow. That stupid 351W F-250 was actually to the floor, the gas pedal to the floorboard in granny gear trying to pull that trailer through some windy, hilly 45MPH backroads. I actually stopped, put the truck in 4lo and was able to start out in 2nd gear. It wouldn't even pull 3rd gear 4lo. To me, that's utterly pathetic. Nothing was wrong with the engine, it ran good with 140K on it, didn't burn a drop of oil. A bone stock 2V 360 will start out no problem with a 10K pound trailer in tow in 3rd gear 4lo.

The Ford EFI small blocks do not impress me much in pickups. They make OK drivers, but small block and towing just don't belong in the same sentence. If you want a nice good MPG gas engine driver that will also tow get a 300 six.