So the first FE that cut my teeth was my fathers 68 F100 4x4 short box. It had the Dana 60 5 bolt rear, NP435, and was delivered with a 360 that he bored, cammed, worked the heads, and hated the engine with a passion LOL
By the time I was old enough to understand, he had hired another mechanic in the shop that was an FE racer. He ran a hot CJ Fairlane/Cobra-something, I was young hard to remember. However, my dad took his takeoff parts and built a 390 with CJ heads, intake, 600 Holley, headers, 2.5 inch glasspacks all the way out the back, and 3.50 gears with back then L78-15 tires (I think that was the old numbering system) basically short little truck tires.
That truck ran incredibly strong, and more than that, he got 200K out of that engine with only one rebuild on the 390 and 400K out of the whole truck and he worked it.
The truck died in a garage fire we had, 15-18 vehicles and a shop cat and dog lost. Dad felt worse about the animals than all the vehicles. I had a 389 Lemans fold into the fire too. I swear we would have still had that truck in the family if it didn't burn
Here is the cool part, I tore that 200K motor apart and the crank was still standard and turns out it was a $ crank, little did I know he had a good one from the racing buddy. I had to cut it .010/.010, but using that crank, his truck lived on through my Mustang's 427 the first time (1996-2006) and after I stroked it, it sat on the shelf and last year went into my bench build 390 (tight quench 4V with CJ big bolt rods and the good crank)
Guess what, that cheapo bench build runs like a champ too, must be the spirit of the "green truck" as my dad used to call it
