[grey88gt]

My first hot rod was an old 74 F100. I took a 400 from a wrecked Montego. Put a Comp Cam 268h in it, Edelbrock performer 400 intake, Holley 650, new timeing gear set and with 2deg advance at the gears. Everything else was stock, truck had 3.25 gear C-6 all stock. When put in truck it had 87,000 on engine. Drove it all thru high school, tons of abuse(put another 80,000 plus miles on it) and lots of street raceing. Always shifted at 5800 ran 14.60 in a 4600 lb truck. Never had any lower end problems with it. But I do agree with the other guys you can build a 351w cheaper and they are alot better on fuel. With mods your doing to yours you be lucky to 10 mpg out of it that. The windsor is all so easyer to keep cool. 400s like lots of gas, even stock. Lots of guys around here run 400s with ARP bolt kits and they hold up fine, but they are in trucks mud bogging and hill climbing. As partial to the 400s that Iam i do belive Id go with the 351w. One other thing if you decide to use the 400, put a t fitting at the oil preasure sending unit and run a high preasure line down to the oil rail on the side of the block. 400s oil the cam bearings first then the mains, If you do this the lower end will hold up 100% better, and get a good high volume oil pump. Just my 2 cents.