Hello,  I'm completely new to FE engines.  I have a 1971 F250 with a 390 engine, which was rebuilt prior to me purchasing the truck.  I decided to do some upgrades before I take the truck on some family vacations towing a 24 foot camper.  I did find that the truck has a 3.5 something rear gear (can't remember how I found it, I think I read a tag with the info) and a C6 transmission.  I want to save this truck and pass it down to my son, so I decided that I could spend some money on it to jazz it up a little.  I purchased the new Edelbrock Pro-Flo 4 EFI system, headers, Hughes XTM towing torque converter, and some misc upgrades like a classic auto air AC system.  I decided to pull the front end off and yank the motor so that I could clean up the frame a bit and handle some rust on the inner fenders and install the torque converter.

The previous owner told me that an "RV cam" was installed but there are no specs at all.  Since I'm going to have the engine out I thought I'd upgrade the cam...and a friend of mine at work is retrofitting an LS into his old Chevy truck.  He was getting a new roller cam and so I thought I would also.  I purchased a cam and lifter kit from the Lunati website.  The cam is a small roller cam and the specs are:

Advertised Duration (Int/Exh): 262/270
Duration @ .050 (Int/Exh): 211/219
Gross Valve Lift (Int/Exh): .559/.559
LSA/ICL: 112/106
Valve Lash (Int/Exh): Hyd/Hyd
RPM Range: 1600-5600
Includes: Cam & Lifters (#72336-16)
Part Number: 20330710LK

I've done cam swaps before this in other engines (Chevy) but they were small flat tappet cams.  After the purchase I realized that I didn't know JACK about FE engines and that I had no business buying a cam when I don't know anything about FE valve train.  I just purchased two books: Ford FE Engines: How to Rebuild and How to Build Max-Performance Ford FE Engines (Performance How-To).  I'm going to read those books and see if I can figure out what parts I need to buy or what machine work is needed to run this cam.

I'd like to get in contact with some folks who know FEs and get opinions on where I should go next.  I tried to call Survival but I didn't have any luck getting through (I'm in PST timezone though, so maybe I need to call earlier).

Could anyone offer a kind word of advice to someone who needs training wheels with FE engines?

At least I didn't commit the biggest sin and stick and LS in it :-)

Best Regards,

Dan