New 1996 E250 Project

[MSD]

Looks good! The food & beer is good at the burrowing owl 🦉 as well [emoji2]


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[greggearhead]

Yes, it is! I sold one of my VW Vans to one of the owners, so It's a van point-of-reference for me.

[greggearhead]

Alright - long time since i updated. The factory roller cam 351W cracked a head on the outside. Looks like it was leaking a bit of coolant from it.

I debated just buying another used head and having both of them rebuilt, but everything I read said that the heads (and intake and exhaust manifolds) were really restrictive. Soooo, I purchased some aluminum big valve patriot performance cylinder heads, and fully intended to put the stock manifolds and rockers back on to get running again as quickly as possible. That was 6 months ago.

The stock rockers wouldn't bolt on, so I bought 1.6 ratio (stock) roller rockers, stud kit, and the required taller steel valve covers. I had to cut off the oil filler tube from the old drivers side cover and weld it to the new one.

I also bought some manifold replacement headers - so they aren't as good as long tube headers, etc. but will bolt to the new heads and to the stock downpipes. So, they will flow much better than stock, but not crazy performance.

I also bought an Edelbrock truck intake manifold - #3881, even though all the applications said "Will NOT fit Van." I'm a sucker. Anyway, the big plenum, and end plate that bolts onto the plenum, hit the edge of the doghouse sheetmetal lip, on the passenger side, of course.

I had my machinist buddy mill down the mating surfaces on the top and bottom manifold pieces to lower it, and mill the plenum mating face a bit. I should get it back tonight or tomorrow.

I also bought a Summit Racing 3" cat back exhaust for an F250. So, all told, I've got better flowing aluminum heads, better intake manifold, better headers, a 3" exhaust, and about 9.2:1 compression instead of 8.5:1. I'll use premium fuel when towing, but I'm at 6500ft altitude, so the compression won't be a big deal, I think, even with the larger tires I'm running. I am guessing I should take the stock 210 crank horsepower to about 300ish crank hp, even though a lot of online mustang sites say it should be closer to 400hp. With the wimpy stock cam, I think I'm still breathing limited. Depending on the temps and behavior, I may install a small water-injection system to add some octane/keep the cylinder temps down a bit.

Excited to get it back together and drive it!!

I have also installed an air-fuel ratio gauge, a trailer brake controller, some inside tool boxes - basically over the wheel-well wooden boxes that still allow a 48" wide piece to slide in on the floor between them, and allow a bed platform to sit on top of them.

[greggearhead]

I know, I know. I'll post some pics soon.

Well, I got the manifold back, and it was short enough, but I still had to dremel off some of the ribbing on the plenum cover, and replace two of the bolts on that plenum lid with shallower head bolts.

There is a vacuum distribution head that screws into the plenum and sticks up at about a 45 degree angle. On the stock manifold, it sits low. On the Edelbrock, not so much. So, I had to cut and angle piece out of it and weld it back together so it would be flat when screwed in.

Then, of course, the EGR tube that goes from the exhaust manifold (now headers with correct fitting - phew) to the EGR valve mounted on the intake manifold, was too long. Cut it apart, take a piece out, weld it back together.

Lots of little stuff hooked back up, fuel lines, vacuum lines, spark plug wires, most of wiring, should get all the accessories back together tomorrow and maybe fire it. Sigh.

[MountainBikeRoamer]

Stay with it, man!!!
Impressed as heck with what you've accomplished already....

You've gotta know as well as anyone that the last stretch of a big project is the hardest....

Being a fellow driver of a dog-slow 351W E250 as well....I most be nearly as stoked on your project as you are! Definitely looking forward to hearing how it all turns out.


PS - yeah dude....LET'S SEE PICTURES!!!

[greggearhead]

Well, I haven't had much time to work on it (like usual) but took a few pics and am down to one vacuum line on the throttle body to connect before reinstalling those accessories.

I put some heat sock spark plug boots on the spark plug wires, and have some header socks coming as well (should have wrapped them when out, but didn't think I'd need to - ha).

I didn't mention it before, but the throttle body shafts had screws that stuck out at least 1/4" or more into the airflow - so I ground them down and re-peened them so they couldn't loosen up. Getting really close and really excited to get this done and feel the power.


OK, I just tried to post photos, but photobucket links can't be used? WTF? Why not?

[MountainBikeRoamer]

Originally Posted by greggearhead

OK, I just tried to post photos, but photobucket links can't be used? WTF? Why not?

Photobucket recently changed their hosting policy....they now want $400 a year if you want the privilege of sharing your photobucket-hosted images on other sites/blogs/forums. Maybe that's the issue you're running into?

Photobucket Customers Fuming Over Policy Change That Broke Images Across Internet

As an alternative --- you can always upload your images directly here to the photo albums the SMB forum gives you. They'll host (and post) here for free.

[greggearhead]

OK - thanks Mike. I should have known it would be something like that. Shouldn't have gotten irked.

I'll try to upload some photos in the albums here. I've gotten so much, I'd like to give back, even if it's just a little bit.

[greggearhead]

OK, in this shot, you can see the plenum cover I had to dremel down, and replaced a few square cross section allen bolts with some mushroom head bolts, to gain a smidge more clearance. Fingers crossed it is enough.

You cal also see the shorty headers (not great, but waaaay better than stock manifolds) and the spark plug boots I used to help protect them, since the manifold heater shields were pretty tweaked from removing them. I'll be installing some header boots as well to cut down on the heat a bit more.

I ran the PCV valve to the back of the plenum, because it was right there, and nipple coming out of the bottom of the plenum runs across to the gas vapor valve solenoid (to modulate the ingestion of the fuel tank vapors), again, because it was cleanest to route it that way.

On the back, center, bottom of the manifold, there is an expanding rubber plug that I had to install - Edelbrock uses that for PCV in some installs, I think.

[greggearhead]

You can barely see the vacuum tree at the top of the manifold in this pic - if it stayed straight, it would run into the sheetmetal, hence the need to cut it and reweld at a 30ish degree angle.