Why?????

I personally think the 352 would be good for the job. They were designed when things were expected to last a long time.

Ives, I would tend to agree about the longevity of a 352, lots of iron and a good design.

Problem is, he wants to whup-up on some ricers and I just don't think he'll have enough cubic inches to move that heavy Galaxie as fast as it will have to go to do it. I see ricers every Friday night at Firebird going 12's and 13's in street trim, so it's gonna take quite a lot of Ford motor to drive past 'em.

I think my solution to the dilemma would be a swap to a 460. I think Crites makes all the stuff to do it.....
http://www.critesrestoration.com/

Tyler the 352 and 390 share the same cyl wall core castings. Although the 352 has a 4.00 bore you can easily bore it out to 4.05 std 390. You can check the cyl wall cores through the freeze plugs holes in the block. A 17/64" drill bit shank should be a snug fit between the cyl walls. This is a simple test known as the "drill bit test". Short of a sonic check this is a pretty easy way to check. So in essence you already have a 390 block.

G.

Hey...
just to keep the discussion going;

I read in a couple of "how-to" books that ford made the distinction between big and small, by addressing the casting of the main block.

The fact that the FE block itself goes down all the way over the center of the crank-axle (having allmost the whole rotating assembly sitting inside the blockcasting) is what makes it a big block...
A small-block casting doesn't go that far down...

at least that's what I read was back then the argument at Ford for making a distinction between the enginetypes (so not the volumes)

come to think of it...cubes can't be the desciding factor in this, because I don't think stroking, for example, say a 351C (wich for whatever reason is a smallblock, ok?) makes it a bigblock after rebuild , now does it?

just a thought...

i have a 351C that i could swap in if you guy think it would be worth it. but i figured the 352 might be able to make a little more torque. if i did put the 351C in would i have to change the motor mounts? if so how hard would this be? my whole reason for wanting to keep the 352 is that you dont see too many 352's that have some balls (or at least i dont) so i just thought it would be cool and different

By all means build the 352.....or we'll have to send ya over to the small block fourm. LOL.....

G.