Thread: Whats good about the 351M

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I had one in a roundy-round truck I built. We shaved the heads .010, decked the block another .010, ran a healthy cam with a big two-barrel (mandated by rules) and headers. It had gobs of torque, and ran up front a lot of the time.

Good engines for their purpose. I bought a '77 LTD for $900 several years ago. It looked new and only had 58,000 miles on it. The upholstery was perfect. The only thing we didn't like very much was that it was that awful mustard yellow color Ford put on some of them.

I bought it from a buddy who was half-owner of a "we tote the note" car lot in Fort Worth. The car had belonged to a very elderly couple, and that turned out to be a problem. Those 58,000 miles had been put on one mile at a time. That engine was the most sludged up nasty mess I ever saw. Every time the love of my life started the engine smoke poured out of the tailpipe so bad we were afraid somebody would call 9-1-1. She was an Executive Secretary for IBM and had her own indoor parking place in a row with a Bentley, several Mercedes, and some common stuff like BMW's, Corvettes, Lincolns, Lexuses (Lexii?), etc.

Every time she fired "Ole Yeller" up in that place she was subjected to everything from giggles and exaggerated coughing fits to threats and cussing outs.

I was ordered to solve the problem immediately.

A rebuilt engine did the trick! The dang engine cost me more than the car did, but to be fair, we got another 140,000 miles out of that big barge before a gentleman who had "tee many martooneys" rammed us in the the rear.

Had that not happened I might still be driving the critter.

Jim