before starting, this is something you defenitly should considder:

my main bulk of knowledge came from these books:

"big-block ford engines" by steve christ...
very good and detailed book on many howtodothis-questions, from engine removal, right along untill first start

"Ford performance" (revised), by pat ganahl, brought by s+a design...
from 289 smallblock to 460 bigblock, all ford...very interesting, especially the part about customizing the oilingsystem of your FE, all done with simple tools (the oiling seems to be the weak link in FE-family blocks)

"High performance ford engine parts interchange" by george reid, brought by s+a+ design...
again from 221 smallblock to 460 bigblock, all ford...uge collection of expainations about interchangeability of parts within engine families (you'll be amazed how much parts for FE's can be switched between engines)

"how to build max performance Ford v-8's on a budget" by george reid, brought by s+a design...
tons of knowledge on how to do it for a good price, not cheap, sane...

besides the tech-essentials, these books all have very good and interesting histories on ford's accomplishments in performance and racing...you'll probably become the local know-it-all on ford engine's if you read all that.
but remember, reading on how to do it right, just isn't like doing it yourself, I already bumped into that one! that's where this forum kicks in with great support and knowledge!

have fun!