292 all the way! Great bottom-end torque, very reliable, smooth runner, odd
sound with louder exhaust, EASY to work on, good selection of performance
mods, great room to work on except in the front for obvious reasons, will
almost always make a good bit more TQ than HP with streetable mods...

I have known 300HP/400ft/lb VERY streetable 292's doing allot of heavy
working.

I have no faith or trust in the power or reliability of 305's from allot of
experience with them. Even the early Camaro/Firebird TPI 305's were nothing
impressive.

You should have seen 292's in their prime from 1965 thru 1970 or so.
They were real stump pullers and had good power to. Heck a 250 of the
same time frame had more power than the later smogged 292. I had a 66
3/4 ton chevy in early 70's with a 250, a 4 speed and 4.57 gears. That
thing would pull anything you hooked up to it. Trucks were trucks back
then.
-----------------
TheSnoMan.com

I will agree the 292 is a pull the house down engine, gobs and gobs of
torque, but
then inline engines always produce good torque, always have. Down side is
just like the ford 300 if it sees a fuel tanker it wants to nurse, due in
part to its long stroke design. The only major difference between the 292
and the 230 is the stroke..

I think the 305 gets a lot of bad press. it is what it was, an entry level
small v-8 engine. It wasn't going to pull like the 350, but it also would
go further on a tank of gas. I think that's the real reason for the
hammering it gets, it aint no 350.
I got a thing for 283 engines, in a small light vehicle like a box nova or a
Vega, its a terror, do a little work on it in the same body and its a rat
slayer, put the same thing in a Impala, Chevelle, caprice, and it aint so
hot. The advantage of a V design engine is more displacement in a smaller
engine bay.. But there is more power waste in the v design, because the
banks do fight themselves somewhat for lack of a better way to say it there
is more rotational resistance. European ford tauras models and tanus (that
one that never made it over here) used v-4 engines for a smaller engine bay
with more displacement, and more passenger room in the same wheel base and
over all dimensions. The Opel Rekord was about the same size as the Taurus,
base engine a smaller inline 4 , but it would walk the dog on the ford, for
that mater the ford escort with the 1100cc inline engine would beat up on
the tanus with its 1800cc V-4. Both cars were slightly smaller than a box
nova, about the size the 61-62 American Ford Falcon(the Rekord and Taurus).

Whitelightning

AMEN!!!

The stroke is not the cause of the poorer MPG it is the overall engine
tune and low compression ratio that reduces thermodynamic efficency
and increase gas usage. 6's of the 60's were pretty thrifty before
emission controls hit them and the 250 and 292 got hit hard by them.
(the old chysler 225 slant 6's were a bit of a stump puller too back
then and smooth as silk and good on gas and they had a really long
stroke too) The 230 and 250 share blocks but the 292 has a tall block
and it is easy to spot because on the larger/taller valve lifter
covers on side of engine as well as taller block. When I worked in
construction back is 70's driving a dump truck frequently, I met the
old retired man that used to do some contract hauling for 40/hr when
we needed extra trucks on a job. He had a 1958 Chevy C60 single axle
dump with a 261 and a 8 speed (4 x2) and it was cherry and not even
rusted at all. He would haul 8 tons at a time and average around 8 to
10 MPG doing it (higher number on longer trips). It never seemed to
lack power for what he did and was quiet to when he would roll up with
its stock exhaust and engine was as smooth as could be too. They made
some really great 6's back then and V8 only really took hold as base
engines after emissions killed the 6's and bigger engines were needed
for the same general level of power.
-----------------
TheSnoMan.com

I had forgotten about the deck height, that's how they gained clearance for
the longer stroke..

And I wouldn't consider 10 mpg good. Look at Fords 300, it will out pull
torque wise
a 5.0 V-8, but burns way more gas doing it.

Whitelightning

I had a early 70's F-250 300 in six with a 4 speed manual trans. It was a
great truck, lots of power, easy on gas. I loved it. So in 87 I bought a new
F-150 with a 300 in six, HD 4 speed manual. It was a DOG. Was almost
impossible to get rolling without zinging the throttle, got 15 MPG on the
highway. Had it back to Ford a number of times and they kept telling me
"they're all like that." They told me that was the first port injected six
and Ford had no fix for the problems.I screwedd around with it for a while
trying to figure out the problem with no luck, so I sold it. The gal I sold
it to came back a few days later, the fuel tank switching valve went nuts
and fuel was running out of one of the tanks. Ford had a recall on it but of
course it did not cover the 87's. Did I mention the paint started falling
off at about 1 year? Ford decided to re-paint it about six months after I
sold it.

Al

8-10 MPG hauling a GVW of around 28K it really good MPG. the Ford 300
was a good engine too back then but I would have to side with the 292
because it had better top end power and did not run out of breath as
quickly as the 300 did. V8's like the 289, 302 and 283 and such did
not have the needed torque at lower RPM's but the had a 327 truck
motor that did pretty good. Back in the 60's they used to put a data
plate in the cab on inside kick panel (left side under dash) that used
to stated net HP of engine option not gross HP
-----------------
TheSnoMan.com

400ft/lbs?!?!?! I need to know about this engine!

~jp

Not real hard to build IF you can still find all the pieces. Clifford
research has some really GOOD parts for the straight sixes that made
some reliable power out of them. I built a 250 into a beast for in my
old Nova and it embarrassed quite a few folks to be left behind by a
puny 6 cylinder... The weak spot in it was the crankshaft. That got
replaced with a billet steel part that could stand the pressure. When it
finally got dyno'd I had almost 250 HP at the rear wheels. That was
through a Powerglide and a 9" with 4:10 gears. You couldn't mistake it
IF the hood was open. The factory didn't fit the 6 with 3, 2 barrel
carbs or a split tri-y header with 4" collectors. Had a very distinct
exhaust note.

http://www.cliffordperformance.net/

--
Steve W.
Near Cooperstown, New York

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