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Now I'm in for it.

I don't know any of that. I was told it was a 302 out of a mid 80s mustang GT, and the block casting and intake manifold casting numbers would agree with that. When I tried to put a new set of spark plugs in the heads, the 14mm plugs that should fit a 1987 ford 302, fell right through. So if the heads have 18mm plugs, they can't be any newer than 1976. So if this motor had different heads put on, what else may have been changed? Does it have a different cam? What is the compression ratio? Does it have a stroker crank? I will soon find all of that out.
 
I am so glad I took the engine in for testing before I put it back in the car. There is either a bad lifter on one of the cylinders or a badly worn cam. They are taking off the intake manifold to investigate further. They think this is an engine out of a mid 80s ford pickup. It has the older firing order. I will have them fix the lifter problem and then they can figure out what the engine makes for HP. I will then decide if we need to make any other changes, possible different intake, heads or cam. I don't need this engine to make a ton of power, but it will be easier and cheaper to make any changes now.
 
OK, more news from the engine shop. They found it was a bad lifter. The engine does have a roller cam in it, so I don't plan to change that, but the shop is going to replace all the lifters, button it back up and run it on the dyno. Again, glad this was found on their dyno, and not in my garage.
 
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I just got back from watching my engine run on the dyno. With the new lifters, it was very smooth and quite at idle. I am so glad I took it in for testing before I put it back in the car. It makes a modest 200 HP, but 295 ft/lbs of torque. It should be more than enough to move my alpine along at a rapid pace. I will be picking the engine up tomorrow and bringing it home.
 
Pretty sure Ford rated (SAE gross) the 2-barrel C-code 289 as used in the Mk-II Tiger at 195 HP and 285 ft-lbs and it was plenty of power while still being very driveable. I think you will be very happy with 200 / 295.
 
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Yep, The 260 in my Tiger has headers, edelbrock manifold and 500 cfm carb. Dynos 185 hp at the rear wheels.

Puts a smile on my face and nobody has run away from me on the open road. Won't win drag races with Teslas but who cares.
 
Ford Boss 302 engine
Ford 302 H.O.
Output
Power output290 hp (216 kW) @ 5200 rpm
Specific power59.2 hp (44.1 kW)/Liter
Torque output290 lb⋅ft (393 N⋅m) @ 4300 rpm
You have a standard 302 engine, good thing it came with roller cam. Are they solid or hydraulic lifters? Shame you don't know the compression ratio or cam specs.
 
Hydraulic lifters. My best guess is that I have a stock 87 pick up truck engine other than the older heads. This is likely 8.9:1 compression. I do have a new 600 cfm holley carb on it. It does not have the HO cam since it has the old firing order.
 
Aladin Sane said:
Hydraulic lifters. My best guess is that I have a stock 87 pick up truck engine other than the older heads. This is likely 8.9:1 compression. I do have a new 600 cfm holley carb on it. It does not have the HO cam since it has the old firing order.
Click to expand...
Yes the output and the spark plug size you discovered indicates not a GT motor.

You will lose some HP with the motor in the engine bay and then the loss via the drivetrain... So probably about 180 at the wheels....but it's the torque, especially the low end torque in a short wheelbase, relatively low weight car that makes them lively...

A stock mkII with 200hp gross on the engine stand and with crappy 165 cross ply tyres and no traction bars would still hit 0-60mph in 7.5-7.8 seconds
 
So i went out to work on the car some on Sunday. I noticed a drip of brake fluid under the problematic union I thought I had fixed a couple weeks ago, so I set to making another chunk of brakes line. I was on my fourth bubble flare, and not happy with any of them when I dropped the little anvil from my crappy flaring tool. It disappeared into another dimension. After an hour pulling cabinets away from walls and sweeping under my work bench, I admitted defeat and took it as a sign that I needed to buy a better tool. I went in the house and bought a turret style lever action flaring tool. It will be here tomorrow.
 
I finally got around to trying out my lever action brake flaring tool. Wow, was that money well spent. It makes a beautiful flare and once again, I think i am done running brake lines. I have not yet bled the brakes again, but am confident all will go well. I purchased this tool off of Amazon for about $100. If you are still using the old screw down style flaring tool, save yourself a bunch of headache and get one of these. The only downside is you cant use it under the car. Not that I had much success using the old tool that way. 20250209_124757.jpg
 
I had grand plans to get some work done on the car yesterday. We were expecting a high temp in the low single digits, so I went out to the garage and turned on the heat. I came back to the garage about 3 hours later and found it was still colder in the garage than I cared to work without gloves on. I have two electric forced air heaters mounted in the garage, which normally do a decent job of warming things up, but we're only able to raise the temp about 30 degrees. Next weekend we should be back near freezing, so I should be able to get the garage up to shirt sleeve temps then.
 
I finally got back out in the garage and under my Alpine. I still had a minor brake fluid leak at one of my fittings in spite of my beautiful flares made by my new flaring tool. One of those little copper gaskets fixed that up. Finally all done bleeding brakes and the pedal feels good. I then added a little sound deadening to the inside of my door skins. I also adjusted the striker a bit on the drivers door. It now opens and closes much better. I think it is about time to lower the car off the cribbing and see about dropping the engine back in.
 
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I took a run at getting my recently dynoed engine back in the engine bay. As you can imagine I didn't go smoothly. I was using the same cherry picker I used to pull the engine out several years ago. For some reason, I didn't have enough reach to get the engine in. I thought about it for a bit and recalled the bumpers were not on the car when I pulled the engine. I didn't want to pull the bumper, plus I thought I would have better access if I switched to the chain hoist I use to lift things into the attic of my garage.

I put the Alpine on casters so I could move it under the hoist. This seemed to be working well until I couldn't get the flex plate and the block spacer past the engine mounts, so I pulled it back out and removed the flex plate and spacer, forgetting that pulling the bolts out of the flex plate would drop oil out of the end of the crank. I got the plate off and bolts back in to stop the oil leak.

I lowered the engine back in a third time and this time the headers hit the engine mounts so pulled the engine up again to remove the headers. While I was pulling it out I finally figured out why i could not get the engine in. When I pulled it, it didn't have the water pump, harmonic balance or alternator mounted. Removing all that will free up about 6 inches north to south that should give me the space I need. So, tomorrow, I will pull all the accessories off the front of the engine. It will of course be a pain getting all the parts back on once the engine is seated again. Oh well, progress is being made.20250607_151112.jpg20250607_151719.jpg
 
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I've never done it but i recall someone saying it was easier to drop the body down over the motor?
 
You really don't need a lift to do this. I used to, in another life, take the front suspension off the
car ( an Alpine w/ a 4 cylinder). Then I'd put the engine & trans on a dolly w/ the crossmember.
You can jack the car from the middle with a floor jack.
Put it right on the front edge of the plate in the middle of the X frame. Jack the car up, roll
the engine under and lower the car. You have to have the front end also on a dolly and then roll that under the car
and bolt it up. You probably have to pull the engine up to attach the front suspension.
If your car has similar motor mounts as a Tiger you can pull the engine up and attach it to the
mounts, then with the car on jack stands fit the front end back on. It is a bit of work, but that's how I do it with
Tigers.
 
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