guys i had a big disapointment today i checked the timing order on my 5.0 and it turned out to be for a flat tappet engine so to be for sure i took the intake off and low and behold it sure was a flat tappet BIG!! disappointment guy i had just ordered a mallory unilite distributor listed for 81-95 5.0 engines but im not sure what year this engine is it had the 5.0 Ho fuel injection intake and smog heads i was told it came out of a 91 thunderbird now it had the thunderbird shorty headers so what happened did someone change it out ? i did also pull the valve cover off AND looked for numbers and i couldnt but i did see mexico wrote on the head in between the valve springs has nayone ever seen 302 heads with mexico wrote on them
post some picks of the lfter valley it ay still be a roller block.....they did install some flat tappet cams in roller blocks and I have seen a coupleand if IIRC it was a t bird.....does it have holes drilled in the liofter galley for the dog bones that retain the roller lifters?
im not sure ill have to check later and see ,but i still would like to know if my mallory distributor will work with the flat tappet here is the part number if someone can tell me if it will #3770401 it list for a 81-95 5.0 trucks,gran marquies,mustang and linclon but doesnt say so i thought it might have a gear compatiable with both cams dunno know for sure
im guessing it will work, but the cam gear is what's important. roller needs steel/bronze Flat tappet needs cast iron
yes its the cam gear im concerned about i know there is a cam gear thats out there that will work with steele or iron but i cant think of the nam eof it
so if it is a roller block can i change to the 5.0 roller cam and lifters if i use the spider ?and do the push rods have to be changed also if anything else let me know or i may be way off on my thinking here...lol
If it did come from a 91 T-Bird then it's not the original engine. All the cars had roller cams after 86. Could be it's a short block from a pickup or van, these had roller blocks but didn't get the cam til 92. Look at the middle of the lifter valley, there'll be two bosses in the center for the spyder hold down bolts, although they may not be drilled and tapped. The casting numbers are also an indication.
gotta call bs on this one because I have seen a couple in t-birds they had the roller blocks but no roller cams and they were original motors....same with corwn vics......ford had left overs....
You can call BS all you want, but according to Ford all had roller cams. That's not to say somebody at the engine plant couldn't have switched long blocks from the truck line into a truck heading for the T-Bird plant. And his posting about the firing order was also wrong. The Crown Vic/Towncar/Marquis all used the old firing order with the roller cam they were equipped with. Same cam was also used in the 92-93 truck/van 5.0.
I am well aware that the t birds used the reg firing order.....but I am also aware regardless what some book says.....that I have seen them with my own eyes......come with flat tappets
I'm not going to say whether they did or didn't, Because i have saw some strange things Ford has done. But i in all my years of FORDIN have never saw a(factory) roller cam with the 15426378 firing order. Were these cast or billet cams?
I had one on my Falcon. The shortblock was of unknown origin, and as I was setting lifter preload, I figured out it had the 289 firing order. It idled real nice and smooth, but up top it dished out an extra helping of weak sauce.
The so called "base roller" uses the old firing order. These motors are the 86-91 Crown Vics, Towncar and Marquis 5.0's. Same cam was used in the 92-93 truck and van 5.0. All the other factory rollers use the 13726548 order.
I'm well aware of oddballs too. Like 410's that turned out to be 428's, and at least one 390 that was a 410 in a 70 F100. And finding a 289 Hi-po block in a 68 Galaxie's built into a 302. Just saying that his motor is supposed to be a roller cammed 5.0.
