few questions about 302 5.0 installation

[Jeff65]

Originally posted by David Fulford
I may be wrong but if you use the water pump from the serpentine system with the v-belt pulleys, it will be spinning the wrong direction for it to work.

I don't know if someone already answered this or not but I used a distributor from an old engine in a crate motor so your old distributor should work.

Serpentine is reverse rotation for factory serpentine belts - I have seen home brew serpentine systems using normal rotation water pumps but in this case the serpentine belt does not do the reverse wrap over the water pump, rather it is used like a v-belt.

There is a difference in distributor shaft length between 5.0L HO engines and early engines. The gear is also different. If you have true 5.0L with steel roller cam, then you also need the correct steel gear. Others including the early gear will eat themselves up in short order. I'm sure you could modify an early distributor to work but its simpler to use an aftermarket distributor made for the 5.0L engine. Everything you need comes in a ready to use package.