G'day guys,

I own a 1986 Ford FE LTD that has Had a engine conversion with now a 302cleveland running on LPG and unleaded and C10 auto gbox and 2.7 diff gears. I'm repainting the car and retrimming the interior soon and taking it all apart...
I would like to get more power out of the engine but really not sure which way to go about it... I want to keep it a cruiser just with a bit of punch.. At the moment it's got absolutely nothing so slow not funny... I will do all labour myself aside from tuning etc... Keeping my options open so please any suggestions will be greatly appreciated... Would prefer to keep it a 302c not stroker... Don't mind getting rid of LPG but heard can get some good power out of LPG... cams? Carby? Exhaust? Manifolds? What's the best combo for a nice fairly quick 302c still maintaining reliability and cruising...
I am located in Perth WA

Come on throw em at me!

Cheers!!!

351C crank & rods. Keep 302C heads and run LPG or switch to BP Ultimate. A cam around 218 @ 050 intake duration. Headers & 2.5" twin system. Diff gears to 3.25. Edelbrock performer 2V intake. 600 vac sec holley for petrol, Gas Research for LPG.

Others will have different ideas, but make sure you assemble a package that works together. Mixing & matching will lead to disappointment

Thanks mate, that sounds alright, but with a 351 crank n rods wouldn i need shorter pistons?
and at the moment its still got the 2V heads.. so which heads will be better and ignition MSD? would it be better to just run it straight LPG... well yeh exactly mate i want a good package that works good together.. not a bunch of expensive crap when put together goes like crap..
cheers

Pistons are the same between 302 & 351C. 2V 302C heads are perfect. I use mallory distributors. A twin point vac advance would be fine, but so would a magnetic pickup mallory. Just make sure you have a vacuum advance can on it. Straight LPG would be good, so would Ultimate petrol.

First up choose one fuel or the other. Good power can be made with lpg but not in a dual fuel setup, they're always a comprise. Easiest way to make more power while retaining good manners is up the capacity, so find someone selling a 351 crank, rods & pistons or even consider a 383/393 stroker kit with a dished piston. Keep the cam quite small, the compression not too crazy and you'll have a great cruising engine with plenty of torque to get the big girl moving.

yeh 351 seems to be the way to go.. not to keen on stroking it.. as it will be driven abit, but will it need a rebore with the 351 pistons or a hone will do? Im keen to get rid of the LPG setup.. taking up my boot space.. so the combination i should go for:
-351 Crankshaft, rods and pistons,
-a decent street type Cam ( will contact crowcams)
-Holley 600 dp or 750?
-edelbrock intake manifold
-decent extracors and exhaust system?
-good ignition MSD etc
-3.25 diff gears
-the C10 auto should be able to cope nicely right?
-have already hooked up twin thermo fans
-i am still running the standard 4.1 efi in tank pump?

anything else i have missed??
so with this combination what sort of power figuires can i expect approximately

cheers!

Agree with Ash, a 600 is fine on a street 351. I have a question, though - with electronic dizzy's do you have the option of setting them up with switchable (i.e. dual) curves? What I mean is, can you set one up to have a curve optimal for gas and switch to a different curve for petrol? I read something like this somewhere, just not sure how common it is on electronic dizzys (I'm running lpg and just using a Pertronix points replace module which is great but ideally I'd like to recurve it for gas only or get a dual setup as described above..)

if you want to find out approx power figures go to
http://www.performancetrends.com
and download engine analyzer pro v3.9 . it will give you a 30 day demo and you can build your engine using stock from edelbrock , comp cams , etc it is extremely good for matching combinations because it tells you the rev range that certain cams & manifolds run at and then you can run a dyno simulation to see power output with each combination . I have built a few engines with the basis from this program and power always ends up within about 5 hp of the program as long as you dont s**t the simulator and use the parts in the program without modifying the specs. its probably why the program is about $800 because its one of the best.