On the engine I couldn't agree more. Once a man has to remove at least 1 cylinder head, a stroker kit is pretty much mandatory 
Len, you'll be disappointed that I decided against the stroker kit.
I think the engine has plenty of power as it was and didn't want to mess with a combo that worked well, other than the RPM intake I am putting on. And after talking with John Vermeersch about longer stroke truck engines, I think the shorter 3.78 stroke would be better. Without starting a debate, there was a reason that Ford used shorter stroke engines in trucks. I know many would have a differing view.
I've gotten the engine tore down now and found a few interesting things. Mostly good, one bad.
Here's how I took the head/intake off, in one piece. That is one HEAVY Hombre when they're attached!!
Valve tip wear didn't look bad and all the cylinders looked VERY nice. I was surprised that cross-hatch pattern was still visible. There is NO ridge at the top that you can feel with a fingernail, no scuffing except a couple of very minor small spots at the top of a couple of cylinders. Wear looked even throughout all the cylinders, top to bottom. I was VERY happy about this! No overbore and I'll be re-using the pistons with just a short hone and new rings
I used C3 Lowriser rods with the bigger rod bolts when I built the engine. The pistons still looked perfect, after 20 years! I was pretty stoked at this point! No play in any of the pins, no scuffing on any of the pistons. Everything will be getting cleaned and going back together just as it is.
The rod bearings showed a little wear. The bottoms looked good, but with a few signs of fatigue after 20 years.
The uppers showed the most wear, as expected. Here you could see the effects of lugging and working the engine hard its entire rebuilt life. I lugged the engine probably harder than I should have. I usually do that to save the clutch, which it did. Still, I didn't think they looked terrible, considering the age and use. That's not copper showing, but just a colored reflection. None of the bearings had gotten into the copper backing.
However, the crank looked GREAT. There were literally NO signs of wear, grooving, dirt, heat or anything on ANY of the rod throws or mains! They mic-ed perfect, so despite the upper bearings, It's getting cleaned, new bearings and going back together just the way it is.
The main bearings also looked very good, with just a couple minor abnormalities. Not enough to worry about, in my opinion. If it lasted this long with the crank looking great, it'll go another 20
Regular 3000 mile oil changes really showed as the engine was super clean everywhere inside. I used regular 10w-30 summer and winter.
The block is kind of an uncommon one. From what I know, a few 390s were only cast this way in '64 and this came out of a '64 Mercury Monterey. While I have never had the block sonic tested, my theory is that this is basically a leftover 406 block, but being machined as a 390. It has all the signs of it being cast from 406 patterns, like cross bolt nibs in all locations, and it has the 3 fingered side webbing. This could be built into a pretty stout block if cross-bolt caps were used. With the Lowriser rods in it, I figure it's plenty strong and could handle 500hp fairly easily. I had the rods straightened, new bushings installed, new rod bolts added and balanced back then.
And I wanted to address a myth about something. I have always liked and used the factory hollow shell lifters. Some people love 'em, some people don't. I do, for many reasons that can be debated. But ONE myth that always pops up is that the "light weight" feature of them is not the case when they fill up with oil. I've always said that this is bunk. How could anything moving up and down so violently retain any fluid in it? Well, I wanted to prove it by showing how they look anytime I've ever taken off an intake. They have VERY little oil in them. You can see by the screwdriver tip that there is about 1/4" that puddles in them, and much of that is just from drainback when the engine is shut off. Myth...BUSTED
Now the bad news. Every lifter cam out very easily and showed no signs of any wear. That is until the very last lifter on the right bank, which would be the exhaust for the #4 cylinder. The lifter would not just lift out. At first I thought maybe crud had built up, but after several tugs with my finger, it popped out. I could immediately feel the sharp edge at the bottom, where it should have been lightly chamfered, and when I flipped it over I could see the early signs of a lifter failing. I checked lobe lift and compared it to another cylinder and the cam card, and sure enough, the lobe was .020 down on lift. What's odd is that I hand checked the rocker gaps before I removed the assemblies and none of them felt excessive. While I didn't measure them, I've done this enough to tell by feel when a rocker gap is excessive. This is the first time I've ever had a cam/lifter problem and that really bummed me out. What I don't know is how long it's been this way. I haven't adjusted the valves in MANY years, so it would appear this happened some time ago, but how it didn't just fail is not understood. And just ONE lobe to boot. All the other lobes look good and all the other lifters look perfect on the bottom, just as the picture shows of the one beside the bad one.
What's even worse, after getting over the "failure", I just decided to replace it with the same cam because it just worked great with this combo and worked equally well in the truck as a mild performance/hard working cam, but Crane no longer lists or sells this particular cam. So now I have to find something similar, which so far hasn't been easy, or even possible. Everything has very aggressive ramps now to increase the effective lift time, but I liked this cam specifically because it had softer ramps, which is much easier on valvetrain parts.
