Slick 60's

First a little background. I bought my truck about a year ago. She's a 66 long bed with what I believe is a stock 352 with 3 on the tree OD. It's sitting as a shortblock right now. I ran a compression test prior to tear down and had good numbers on all cylinders. The engine ran well and I recently put a kit in the autolite 2 barrel carb. The engine had a bad rear oil leak and exhaust leak on passenger side which were the main reasons for teardown. The heads looked to be in ok shape but have them with a mechanic buddy who is going through them. I'm installing new freeze plugs, motor mounts, oil, fuel and water pumps, and new gaskets. I have an Edelbrock performer intake and 600 cfm carb as well as long tube headers to go back on. I was going to check the timing chain and button it back up. However, I'm really wanting a little bit of a lumpy cam lope. Nothing radical as I'm not building a race car. I've been considering a 268 Comp cam kit with cam, lifters, springs & retainers, and timing gear & chain. It's supposed to have an operating range of 1500-5500.

Wanting your sage wisdom. Is this gonna get me what I want? What say you?

I am running a standard bore, oem pistons in my 352 now and building another 4.030 352 now. In my opinion that cam is a little big for a 352 unless you run a 4.10 gear. The aftermarket 352 pistons are .063+ below deck, lacking quench and compression. I think that alone has made the 390 swap more popular. If you have the resources have a 332 piston mocked up on your 352 crank with 390 rods. I do not know if the piston will clear the crank throws but it will only be .016 above deck. With .051 FelPro head gaskets you will have the ideal .035 quench. The 352 is a fairly stout engine if you can get quench and compression up.

In my "stock" 390 I'm running a Comp cams 280H and I just love the way it runs!! I had the 268 and just was not happy with it....

Robert

chris401 wrote:I am running a standard bore, oem pistons in my 352 now and building another 4.030 352 now. In my opinion that cam is a little big for a 352 unless you run a 4.10 gear. The aftermarket 352 pistons are .063+ below deck, lacking quench and compression. I think that alone has made the 390 swap more popular. If you have the resources have a 332 piston mocked up on your 352 crank with 390 rods. I do not know if the piston will clear the crank throws but it will only be .016 above deck. With .051 FelPro head gaskets you will have the ideal .035 quench. The 352 is a fairly stout engine if you can get quench and compression up.

The tag is gone off my rear so I need to pop the cover and see what ring gear I have. I bought the Felpro complete gasket kit so I will have to see what head gaskets are in there. What cam do you suggest considering my wants if I keep the stock crank and pistons?

My cam opinion is kinda boring but the truck seems happy, right now I am running the factory 1966 4v cam 4° advanced, D2TE-AA heads and the Edelbrock SP2P intake. When it had the Q-Jet and .021 steel shim head gaskets it would get 13 mpg running around 75 mph. My goal is fuel economy in the heavier F-250. I have a couple of big truck cams, a 69 2v premium fuel 390 cam and a 58 2v 332 I will try if they check out ok. I ran the 265DEH for 200 miles then swapped. It sounded good but was sluggish off idle and sucked gas. Duration 265/275, Lift .484/.510.

The trick to getting the 268H to work correctly is dialing in the vacuum advance. It will like the 4bl just fine. I put one in an engine that was a pig but playing with the advance really woke it up. I have used a 268H on 2 different engines and liked them a lot.

Everyone has a different favorite, good luck!
SPark

I talked to the owner of the 352 Galaxie Cruise-O-Matic we discussed. He never checked vacuum and said the performer cam ran pretty smooth and thought the 268H would be a pussy cat. However he said he got 11.5 mpg average. I think the Galaxie had 3.25 or 3.50 gears.

He had .040 quench.