Yes, but it is those tornadoes that help to keep midwest towns clean.  Helps to have God's Vacuum cleaner come through every few decades and force a good cleanup / rebuild.  My little town up in the Northwest corner of Minn-e-sota is alot nicer after getting flooded in '96 and again in '97.  Forced the powers that be to make some tough decisions that ended up with a much stronger and more vibrant community in the long run.  Yeah, those two Aprils sucked though.

Not that any one was running them, but the rule also outlawed Cadillac 472 / 500 ci V8's and Packard 352 / 374 ci V8's, both of which had 5.000" bore spacing. 

FrozenMerc,

Do you recall the part number for the QuickTime bell you utilized, RM-9057 or RM-9058?

RM-9057.  I have only ever played with the older, non-electronic AOD's.

  I emailed Broader just a couple weeks ago about an AOD for my F100. Their response was that they don't build the AOD anymore, rather the 4R70W. Not sure why as an explanation wasn't given.

I can't speak for Broader, but I have had a few transmission shops tell me that good rebuildable AOD cores are getting quite hard to find.  This may have something to do with it.

I have done it on a couple of vehicles.  Both were street only, mileage eating cruisers. No strip action, whatsoever.

1962 Mercury Monterey Wagon.  352 (325 Hp, 375 ft-lbs).  Broader built the trans, used their adaptor to bolt the Cruis-O bellhousing to the AOD's pump after removing the AOD's stock bellhousing.  Removed the AOD's lock up feature and went to a C6 style 2 piece input shaft rather than the AOD's 3 piece.  This required a custom torque convertor and we were able to get the stall to come in at around 1800 rpms with the 3.6:1 rear axle ratio.  Note, the Cruis-O's relatively small housing limits the torque converter size to 11" or less.  It is difficult to get small convertors to run low stall speeds, but with the relatively small (352) motor, it worked out well in this application.  The car cruises happily in OD all day, running about 2200 rpm at 75 mph.

1976 F-250.  390 (370 Hp, 450 ft-lbs).  I built the trans this time, again removed the lock-up feature, also added a TCI constant-pressure valve body.  I ordered a Quicktime AOD-FE bellhousing after the Holley tech told me that the Quicktime bell would support the stock 12" convertor and I knew I would have a harder time getting a smaller 11" convertor to have a low enough stall with the more powerful 390 and heavier weight of the F-250 over the Merc.  NOTE:  The Quicktime Bell will NOT support a 12" convertor, despite what Holly says.  I had Broader build a 11" convertor, but after multiple attempts, we could not get the stall low enough to have good street manners.  It would overheat the fluid, especially towing or at interstate speeds and eventually I pulled it and put a C6 back in. 

If I were to do the F-250 again, I would have used the Bendsten's adaptor plate and just dealt with the trans moving back 1.5".  This would have at least allowed me to run a larger convertor and to hopefully get the stall down to an acceptable speed.  I still think eliminating the lock-out and going with the 2 piece input shaft is a good idea when dealing with a high torque FE.  This is the AOD's main weakpoint, but it does require a custom torque convertor.  I have a friend running the Bendsten's Adaptor in his '64 Marauder, with a very healthy 500 hp 428.  It required some floor and firewall massaging, but other wise works well.

Broader AOD with Cruis-O bell.

Besides a handful of FE's, I have built a few flatheads, a couple of Windsors, a rather fun 300 Six, a 325 ci Dodge Hemi, a 266 IH V8 (nearly as expensive as a Flathead for the same amount of power), and am responsible for keeping an all original (un-opened) Packard 327 Straight 8 in proper running order. 

I am currently playing with forced induction on a MEL and a 6.9 IDI.  I also have a 332 Lincoln Y out of a '60 C-600 that I would like to do something with, not sure what yet, but it is stewing in the back of my mind. 

I have an odd itch to build a gnarly 392 IH just to do something different.  Did someone say torque-rise? 

It's not that the exhaust is any quieter than any similar displacement gas motor with straight pipes.  It's that the injection pumps on IDI's are so damn loud that the pump masks the exhaust note....

It is always fun to see the reaction of someone driving past me with their windows down when I am out and about in my 6.9 powered '85 F-350.  That IP at full song will just about make them jump out of their seat.

On a more serious note, the rest of what you are noticing may be related to the cam spec.  Someone correct me if I am wrong, but the cams in these engines have a narrow lobe separation angle (103 deg) and very little overlap, which would help to keep the noise level down.

Paint the heads and intake.  If you want to get fancy, fill in or grind off any identifying or offending brand names.  An untrained eye won't be able to tell the difference between stock and not stock. 

What are the pistons?  Pretty common to use 390 pistons in 300 sixes as a way to bump compression.  The rods may work in a 240, but are much too long for the 300.

https://performanceparts.ford.com/download/pdfs/EngineDimensions.pdf