It'll never be in competition of any kind, and I'll probably never drive it over 85MPH. My goal for #50 is to have a 'toy' vehicle with tons of get-up-and-go for driving around town and up steep mountain roads, and the occasional 0-60 experiment while getting on the freeway. I'm looking at the Gear Vendors overdrive in particular. Next summer I'll probably do some upgrades to the driveline to improve it. It's not a super calculated and planned setup. I didn't pick it all out to work together in any special way I'm just putting this engine in my truck with the existing driveline as a summer project. I understand that the driveline isn't the best match for the engine. Thanks also for being honest about what you think of the setup. Oh yeah, as far as headers go, get something at least 14ga metal so they last a while. You can see the dyno sheet on the mustang thread in the general forum. My '93 mustang would have higher HP with 3', but it's built for low end torque and the 2.5 forces the pulses to be stronger so they make the X work harder vs a 3' system. I also figured you would run the exhaust all the way to the bumper.Ģ.5' exhaust is fine up to around 375hp. With a 2.5' system the pulses are stronger when they come out the pipe (with mandrel bent curves reducing the restrictions). Another good side of the 3' exhaust is it will be more mellow sounding. They'll drone a good bit around 2k, but the cam won't want you cruising at that low of an RPM (it may get to bucking). The magnaflows are going to be loud when you are on it hard, but aren't that bad cruising. A peaky motor needs lots of gears to keep it in the tight powerband (gonna be harder to drive with only 3 gears).

Remember, the goal is to move air through the engine efficiently to create a flat torque curve so you have a usable powerband from off idle to 6k or higher, especially in a heavy truck. The H pipe is going to help it have more torque before the cam kicks in to get your truck moving. The 3' exhaust is correct for a 400hp naturally aspirated 396ci motor, it needs all the help it can get moving air through the engine. The T18 isn't going to shift very well either at high RPM's. I'd recommend a tremec 3550 or TKO 5 speed and possibly 4.10's in a locker depending on you tire diameter, that way you have more usable gears and OD so it can run the interstate if needed.

The cam selection is going to want to rev to move and have a pretty tight power band (peaky), the T18 is a glorified three speed with a granny gear, not something I'd want to try to drive in traffic with this motor. You have so many threads going it's hard to keep track of all the info and thought that went into this build. OK, since I'm not sure what you want out of this truck, try not to hate me when I say that IMHO the engine doesn't seem right for the driveline or the driveline doesn't seem right for the engine.

Tad cummins caught