Building a street 390. Just got into cars so need some help.

[Caydoncym]

I'm building a racetruck     It's a 68 f100. Have a stock 390 and a c6 transmission. I just need some build tips and guides because this is my first time.  So please tell me what's the best. I want a street monster that would rip at stop lights. And of course I have a budget.

[thatdarncat]

Drag racing I assume? Question one: What's the budget? If you don't have a specific dollar amount yet what's an estimate?

How much of the budget for engine and how much for truck?

What's the goal? Do you have a specific class you're trying to run at the track? Or is this just stop light racing?

[Caydoncym]

Budget is between 3 and 5 grand. For engine and truck.

Don't have any tracks around here so pretty much street racing.

Goal is a fun race truck to beat ricers on main. Also thinking about a nitrous motor.

[Drew Pojedinec]

$3-$5k?

Shoot with that as my goal, I'd just try to get everything running.

[fastback 427]

With that as your budget there won't be a lot left for speed parts. Does the engine run and how well? What year is the motor, has it been rebuilt? Assuming everything runs good, I'd throw some 4.10 or deeper gears at it, set of cheap headers to start. Tough to give suggestions until we get more info. Get us some casting numbers from the intake, heads, and block to start.

[NIsaacs]

Is it 4x2 or 4x4, short or long bed? It takes a lot of money to make a stock 390 "rip" with a heavy pickup. It might be cheaper to find a stock 428, it will launch that pickup pretty good, stock.

Nick

[ScotiaFE]

How do you know it is a 390?

[My427stang]

1 - Rebuilt tranny with shift kit and potentially a little more converter
2 - Gears, posi, and traction aids (traction bars, latter bars, anti-hop of some sort)
3 - Biggest stickiest tire
4 - Headers, good exhaust, open element air cleaner, and recurve the distributor...maybe even a fresh set of performance valve springs and dump the rotators if the budget is at its limit
5 - See how the money holds out and go inside the engine (heads, cam, intake, stroker, etc)

Written another way
1 - Make it drive
2 - Make it launch
3 - Make it launch better
4 - Let it breathe and tune the best you can with what you have
5 - Make more power (not really worth doing on the street until the others are done)

Done this way it gets noticeably more fun with each change, without really slowing it down like a big cam without supporting parts will.  If you start from 5 and go backwards, all you get is a hopping, spinning, unhappy noisemaker.  I do think that with proper shopping and if you do the stuff yourself, the first 4 can be done in your budget with a little leftover.

[bluef100fe]

Sounds like a fun learning project... Here is the link to my 390 truck learning project http://fepower.net/simplemachinesforum/index.php?topic=227.0 ... Shopping around for good used parts is key if your on a budget. X 2 on what the others asked. Does the truck/engine run/drive/stop well now or is it in pieces? I've got a lot more than 5k invested in mine but a lot of that was spent on learning what works and what doesn't. No two situations are ever exactly the same between builds or builders. It is possible to build a bolt together FE combo to push a truck like mine (3900 lbs/2wd/short bed) into the 12's with some time and smart shopping and mostly factory parts... Getting the truck to wheelie and run in the 11's with a 390 starts to get expensive though lol...  Good luck.

[Caydoncym]

What kind of shift kit/converter you guys think is the best.
For a c6

[Drew Pojedinec]

I like Transgo sk6 kit, I run parts and converter from Broader Performance.

a recent c6 build I did:
http://fepower.net/simplemachinesforum/index.php?topic=2316.0


good luck

[My427stang]

Really whatever your tranny guy likes, he is the one standing behind it

I like Transgo stuff, as far as a converter, off the shelf street strip stuff is fine from everyone, but really needs to be matched to the curve of the motor, so I wou'ld not go wild and DO expect to replace it sometime if you change the build.

[bluef100fe]

The best converter is a custom one that would just about blow 1/3-1/4 of your budget. Anyway, for spirited street driving in a heavy truck a TCI street fighter works good in my experience. I ran a TCI breakaway before the street fighter. When I made the change it was a night and day difference. It idled easier at stop lights and just had a bunch more low end off the line punch.  My cam was a little rowdy compared to what most people like on the street. Anyway good luck with your quest for a fast truck.