Hmm … 302, very light weight truck, sounds like an awesome combination !!!
Bruce, I still have a 1968 289 or 302 here in my 61 willys pickup. Couldn’t tell from the serial number as they were in transition right then. It always made too much power and the original jeep clutch would slip if I punched it. I keep it just in case the world comes to an end :o). Sorry to hear that that engine went out again. It was probably biodegradable plastics on the tensioners but I am curious if there was something else. We religiously change oil at 3000 miles now to help the crappy plastic in the replacement parts. I don’t care much for fords and I think you replaced the timing chains a while ago. I fire my gasifers up from time to time to cook them down as well. Best to keep them below the nozzles and sometimes to open the system up to let the vinegar vent … Mike
Hey Woody I am sorry for your loss. R.I.P.
Yeah once the chain slaps loose shattering all of the the guide rails hard to tell if the looseness originated from from a broken/prematurely worn guide rail or loss of an oil pressurized tensioner.
Two things I’d be curious about though - was the oil pump pick up screen clogged with plastic guide debris from previous? This may be as settled debris now in the bottom of the oil pan.
Second if any of the piston rings show carboning up sticking from the woodgas soots?
So are you thinking now a mid-90’s 302 V-8 with the good SEFI rams horn metal intake manifolding operating without the EFI and just on straight woodgas? You could “maybe” hang a side draft gasoline carburetor out front for starting up, idling and power boosting. Coulds go side draft propane on this too. No computer for spark control a late 70’s - early 80’s DuraSpark dist. w/harness and amplifier box “may” just drop fit in. Check the Bronco offroaders groups on this interchange possibility. $20. here for a take it off yourself complete Dist. system with harness/amplifier on a rig headed into the scrap shredder’s. I have one set aside to back up my '86 with the module on the side of the distributor “TIF” pickup system.
Regards
Steve Unruh
Bruce, There are usually two or more grades of replacement parts. The cheap wheel bearing is what a dealer puts in just to get rid of a car. 20,000 later it has to be replaced again. Same with timing chains. The blue cavalier is on it’s third chain but who knows maybe the first one that went on us was already a replacement. I had to drop the pan on the engine so all that plastic crap got wiped out of it anyway. It’s on it’s third set of front wheel bearings also. The second set didn’t last even 20,000 and they both went at the same time. Good luck on the changeover … ML
Sorry for your loss Bruce.
I lost my first gasser just last month. I feel I was given bogus instructions. Said to put the rod in upside down from the way it was factory assembled.
That body must be in fabulous shape to go through the trouble of engine swapping.
(leave room for your supply pipes!)
Terry
Hey all
Pics. as promised I must say that with the several thousand miles on woodgas and as many times we tarred this engine experimenting with different things this engine was quite clean. No build up of any kind can be found on the intake or exhaust sides of the engine. All I did was wipe off excess black oil before pics. were shot. You can see in the pics. where the intake valves touched all four pistons. This was due to slack in the timing chain that caused the chain to jump and knock the engine out of time.
Matt that’s a nice Honda you have there what size engine did you go with?
I am looking into a ford 302 for the ranger of the mid 90’s era this will solve the OVER HEAD CAM issue
Regards Sean
Hi Sean,
Yeah this was the same as Woody’s situation with the ex stream cost in rebuilding or replacing the stock engine. I had an old 350 laying around with 700r4 trans. So I choose to shoe horn it in there. I did a 93 Toyota years back and shoved a 283 in it. That actually got 6 mpgs better than the stock 4 banger and it had plenty of power. I could bake the tires of in third gear. The Honda on the other hand went the other way and lost about 4 mpgs. But it was fun, the Honda I had to fab my own kit to make it work.
So yeah if you put a V8 running on wood gas that will one to show for sure. I had lots of fun showing off the V8 in the little trucks and having a gasser will make that much more fun. 
just wondering why you guys want the 302’s instead of the 351? same sized block but more cubes, jw what the advantages are in running the 302…
but thats just me always trying to maximize everything
also ive read that trying to put an HEI sort of distributor in with the computer harness doesnt work on these ford sefi and bank fire computers
one of the things i noticed the last 351w i built was the head port sizes and valve sizes, they were very small compared to the sbc heads ive worked, i would recommend porting and maybe bigger valves, or a better set of heads altogether, my bronco had a brand new 351w i put in the first time i rebuilt it, i couldnt go 60mph with the 6inch lift and 35’s and a headwind, and past 1/2 throttle it felt like there was nothing left, i believe it was the cam and poor flowing top end, some of the best things you can do for these engines is get a better coil 50kv (and make sure its grounded well along with the capacitor at the base), e3 or bostch 4 plugs, FAT wires (seen the skinny ones arc everywhere at night), 180 thermostat, electric fans, eleminate the silly air injection system and cat and egr but keep the electronics plugged in, eleminate the air pump, after this your engine vacuum line system is shortened up quite a bit, headers, cam, and free flowing intake, if your doing all that a mill on the heads will bump the cr, and you should have a really nice combo. for gasoline or woodgas, but the main thing is let the cubes breath, ford was going for torque with the long bent runners with narrow port cross sectional area, but i think they went overboard and killed power,
also your distributor has the timing chip, you can use this to get it into"set timing mode" for a timing light and when the chip is removed or the circuit is broken when you advance the distributor so does the timing, with the chip in the computer tries to adjust the timing constantly and a timing light is useless,
another thing i cant remember who makes it but theres an aftermarket fuel pressure regulator you can adjust from the cab
also i read an article about rolling rockers of bbf and sbf, they showed no hp improvements, unless a roller cam was used but we all know the roller cam has less resistance a better profile, just thought id share since im not bothering to buy them based on that, and if you mill your heads make sure to shorten the pushrods or get the right length, this will make sure you dont mess up a new top end
All this talk makes me glad winter's coming (sort of). I think I'm going to add another quart of oil to the Prehistoric Van and be glad he keeps on burning.
Really too bad about your engine, Bruce, but I will enjoy watching the rebuild. Sounds like a good idea to me. Would a 302 burn less wood than a 351 or does it all depend on everything else?
John
Hmmm. Well I am certainly not a Ford Tuner expert. Ha! Ha! Gave that up when I turned 30 yo and got out of HPing 4 cylinders on SU’s and Weber carbs and R.Bosch D, L and K Jetronics FI’s. Changed over to a paid Mr OEM Tech then to make a living.
I do know Ford spent a Billion dollars in the early 90’s on their 302 development program to make this engine work for them for the next 10 years through the OBDI to OBDII transition period in as many of their chassis as possible.
Yes Brent you are correct the pickup 302 like mine is manifolded and cammed for the for the best low end torque. Mustangs for horsepower. Explorer and sedans for somewhere between these extremes. My 94 pickup IS full sequential injection as should be a mid 90’s and later Explorer engine. The factory change to roller lifters was for less drag and longer guaranteed emissions stability.
Be very careful on the Bosch 3E and 4E recommendations. I have seen in many post 96 OBDII’s like Toyotas, GM’s and Chryslers go into fits of misfire codes to the point of limp-in running on these. The misfiring was real, and corrected going back to a specced standard electrode type platinum plug. ~2003 and later GM’s especially use detected spark circuit feedback for EGR management and will only run well on their special iridium plugs
And as a Mr OEM have to disagree on the cooler thermostat recommendations on anything gonna be using the factory computer mapping. This will not allow full timing or fuel flow control until the computer see a fully expected 195F to 220F warmed up engine. IT does NOT want to over-rich pollute. Tuner/remapping or re-chipping then you the one who sets this all up.
96 and later based systems it is the Federally mandated programmed in self testing EVAP system going to give you fits to try and work around. Won’t cause limp in. Just a never out check engine light. Tape cover the light - some systems you need to keep this in circuit to keep out of limp-in!. Use a scanner routinely to see what’s going on.
Regards
Steve Unruh
yes steve with the thermostat i know there is a limit to this, ive ran a 180 and 190 fine depending on summer or winter, i like a 190 in the winter bc the heater gets toasty, ive ran a 160 on the 351 and that was aweful chewed through a ton of gas and had no power, but with the 180 i found idling with the ac was alot better without overheat, if your in a hot place you can run 180 but the 160 is a waste of time and a pain with the computer, i didnt know about those plugs causing problems though, thats interesting info, i do know those iridium plugs are decent (my dad drove a set on the 5.3 in my truck before handing it down to me and got 90k miles out of the stock plugs!!!), i found a really cool japanese company that makes these rediculous spark plugs i want to try someday, the arc was literly expanding from the center point everywhich direction to the ground ring around the electrode, the spark was HUGE and pretty haha, i just go around trying to maximize everything haha more spark more fuel more cubes ect… but this is truely great where everyone can share info and reach the best conclusions through real world experience and other data