1979 f100 302 c/6 ordered that way from the factory.

replacing it with a 1980 302 that i bought (didn't fully break down the casting number but the D0 dates it to 1980 which jibes with the receipts). engine has machine shop receipts with lots of details but missing some key information apparently. no cam specs, didn't replace the crank, just fixed the old one but no details on it, cleaned two sets of heads and worked up one set but i don't know anything about them, edelbrock performer 4 bbl intake and now it has a 4 bbl edelbrock carb. lots more details on the receipts but i don't know if any of them are important at this point.

dropped it in, bolted it up, it had no flexplate or flywheel on it because it was going in front of a manual transmission and i don't know why it didn't have one but whatever. the distributor in it was points, the oil stick was in the side of the pan and falling out and siliconed in so i changed the pan to my truck pan and the timing cover and water pump to the one off my 79 motor to relocated the oil dipstick becuz mine's in the timing cover and still tight. in doing all that, we pulled the harmonic balancer and put the one off the 79 on it, and the flexplate off the 79 on it because i read that they're externally balanced and not fully understanding at the time, thought that well they worked together so they'll work. i'm also on a limited budget and well, didn't wanna buy a new flexplate unless i had to. apparently, wrong answer. i put my distributor in it which isn't points. we pulled the cap, looked at the position of the rotor and placed the other one in it as close to the same direction as possible (wouldn't go exactly straight forward but just a little bit off either side so i guess we picked the wrong tooth or something) while the pan etc was off so we cld turn that dumb oil pump drive shaft and make stabbing it easier. the PO had already pulled the plugs before we got there so we cld look in the holes at the piston heads so i cldn't tell you what the firing order was before we did this even if i would have thought to look, which i wldn't have honestly. apparently bad idea. the PO gave me a holley 4 bbl to rebuild and put on, it doesn't have a choke butterfly and apparently you can't buy those so i bought an adapter and put my motorcraft 2 bbl on it. again, bad idea. i'm pretty full of those if you haven't noticed.

i get to the point where i've got the carb on, the firing order checked and double checked, everything hooked up i think and ready to go and i can't get it to start much less get it in time. long story short, i take it to a mechanic because i'm frustrated after three weeks, frozen toes, and hundreds of miles going back and forth from where i work and where the tools and truck are, and he tells me first day he has it that it's got a 351 or a 302 HO cam in it becuz it's got the 351 firing order, hence why i can't get it timed cuz i'm using the 302 firing order..... IS THAT POSSIBLE??? that and i somehow managed to get it 180 off.... oh, and my carb adapter's broken and she's sucking too much air to run long enough to get it all timed right. so i go and buy an edelbrock 4 bbl carb and send it with my mom down to him. that's day one at the shop.

today he comes back and tells me he's got it running but there's exhaust coming out of a hole in the back of each head that's supposed to have something attached there (i can't remember what it was he said but if you know i'd really like to know) and so now since it's got a bolt hole beside each of those holes he's going to block it off. other than that he says it's got a vibration to it because i've got the wrong flexplate on it. i explained what i did and why and after asking me what year it is etc i ask him if he cld tell which flexplate it's supposed to have based on the old harmonic balancer that was on the engine when i got it. he said he couldn't and while most people say there are only 2 different ones, there's really like 4 and that i should drive it around, and when i said to see if it smooths out he didn't disagree with me. this call happened while i was at work and i was trying not to be distracted he's not much for conversation anyway and who cld blame him talking to me who doesn't know my butt from a hole in the ground apparently.

so now i've got an engine that is apparently going to be pretty hot if i ever get it right, i don't know what those holes in the back of the heads are supposed to go to, i don't know what the repercussions to blocking them off will be, i don't know if it's even possible to have a 351 cam in the thing or how i cld have the 351 firing order on a 302 w/o knowing if the crank was changed which wld help me find out which stupid flexplate/balancer combo i'm supposed to have, i don't know a whole heck of a lot and i'm about to pull my hair out.

so now knowing the short version of what i know, is there any hope to finding out what flexplate i'm supposed to have because, thought i probably shouldn't, i'm assuming that the balancer that was on it was the right one because supposedly, the story of how this engine came to me goes like this. man in the rich part of town restores an old mustang, has this engine built for that, gets it and gets it in, drives it two days, wrecks it, pulls it, stores it for 3 years, sells it to the guy i bought it from who got it for his mustang project, kept it stored inside until i bought it this year. the machine work was done in 99 per the receipts and the story. i don't know if it was in front of a manual transmission in that mustang or not but i do know that the bill of sale from guy #1 to guy #2 says no driven miles on it thought guy #2 told me the dude drove it for a couple days. *shrug*

Any and all help is appreciated because i'm so lost i don't know even where to start!

 

The firing order, yes, they probably used a 302 HO roller cam (does it have roller lifters?) which is the 351W firing order.

The exhaust coming out the back of the heads is the air injection.

What I'd do is go to a junkyard, get the air injection plumbing from any 302 80's up (even rotted out), take the fittings/blocks that bolt to the back of the heads and just seal them up with brazing rod. Bolt them to the heads, exhaust problem solved.

 

The vibration issue, I WOULD SOLVE RIGHT AWAY.

It can ruin the main bearings in a very short amount of time.

Should be someone along who knows the flywheel things with the small-blocks. I'm a novice with small-blocks - only did one 302-to-289 swap into an '82 LTD, but I had the flywheel and dampner balanced with the rotating assembly when I rebuilt the motor.

 

mr mechanic said it vibrates the worst at abt 1200 rpms and that it wld be perfectly fine for me to drive it the 5 miles to my parents house from his shop since he's going on vacation tmw and i only wanted him to time the stupid thing and flush the block and he ended up putting on a carb and timing the dumb thing etc. he put bolts in those holes in the back of the heads. it smoothed out the faster i went but i never got above about 40 mph and she ran WAY smoother at 40 than she did at take off up to about 25 or 30 when i was babying it just barely pushing on the pedal.

i found my cam specs by doing a random search on google for the part number off my machine shop receipts. it's cs1067r and since i don't know or care if the company is a sponser i'll avoid getting my butt chewed by just saying i clicked the first result of the search and found my specs. it specifically states that it has a 351W firing order.

i have the balancer that was on it, and providing the story is right that this engine was driven for a couple days before original guy wrecked his restoration project then i'm hoping to figure out which flexplate i need to match based on that. or identify which cranks this balancer will work on, bla bla and go from there. i'm assuming that the one i pulled off the 79 was a 28 oz since it's a 79 and since i put the balancer and flexplate off the 79 on it thinking that would work cuz they work together (wrong answer btw) then i should prolly go get the 50 oz flexplate but i've also been told there are more than just two oz's on these things.... i'm really lost. the part number on the balancer that came off of it is E2TE D3A. i don't have a clue about the flexplate that i've got on it because the other one i've got (long story but they're the same thing, just one is damaged) doesn't have any markings on it, or if it did, they're under too much rust at this point to tell so i don't know how to tell which one i've got on it right now to eliminate that from the list of possibilities.

also, does anyone have a link to the engine decoders i know used to be floating around here. my block number is EOAE D3C *2J9* and i'm wondering what's up with the d3c because i can't find anything that says anything about only having 3 digits....???

 

I done probbly about 25 small block engines the smog holes in the back of the head will be fine if blocked off they sell pluges at the dealer ship for about 15.00 they woulld be hard to put in with engine installed they screw in to the hole.the fly wheel needs to correct balance weight for 80 ho motor.need same number of teeth that your old one has .If you cant find one you can take one to the machine shop and they can re balance it to the 80 ho weight

 

just block the holes off.it must have an 81 or up crank.you need the flywheel for those years.

 

he put bolts in it, bent the firewall a little bit to do it but he bolted them up.... it sounds like it's got an exhaust leak though so i don't know if maybe the bolts aren't tight enough or if it's somewhere else. i only drove it the five miles home last night real slow in an attempt not to tear it up. the vibration is worst about 1200 rpms he said and it smoothed out higher up so i babied it and didn't go more than about 40 home. he said it'd be ok to drive it that far home....

i'm hoping he's not a moron...

 

That imbalance is a bad thing... long-term. And even shortterm, I'd think.

 

We decided not to use a harmonic balancer on out 351 racing engine. We used an aluminum hub. We were on a quest for less rotating mass. Long story short, half way through the season, we had a 3 piece crank shaft, and a jillion piece connecting rods. You need to take care of that vibration asap.

 

that's why it's parked after the five miles home. that's farther than i wanted to go but i had to get her home somehow and the brother in law was doing something else with his truck. i'm just hoping i didn't tear something up in those 5 miles.. i tried to take it easy....

i bought a flexplate today and i'm really hoping it's going to be the right one.. i spent over an hour lining up bolt holes and teeth... i guess we'll see

 

Definitely report back!

Merry Christmas!

 

FYI the FRA 214 is not the right flexplate!!

it's too concave or some such nonsense and it pushes the torque coverter back too far into the pump so when you start bolting up the bell housing it won't pull together and it binds up so the engine can't be turned by hand.

now i've got the FRA 231 and it should, if i've eyeballed and measured and thunk correctly (yes i said thunk), fit. i hope.

other than that i'm going to have to get a plate to go under the carb to raise it up so that things aren't hitting and laying on my valve covers. *BLA!!!!*

if it's not one thing, it's another and i swear i must be murphy's favorite person!!!!

 

I've had this problem before... the new flexplate is probably right, but your torque convertor slipped out just a bit... you will either crack the bellhousing or break the pump. Its hard to get it back in there far enough.

You are just on a steep learning curve, but you sound like you are doing the right things to get it fixed right. Good luck!

 

we pulled it out a little bit on purpose because when we dropped the motor in it was like the stupid thing was too far back because even lined up we cldn't get it through enough to catch a thread to get a nut on.

so this time we pulled it forward and pushed it back and wiggled bla bla. dad did have it out of spline once or twice the first day but he put it back. i hope it can only go in one way so i know he got it right.

the second day i got on the other side of the truck cuz he doesn't have the vision. he can't see in his head by looking at two pieces how they will go together or if they're lined up or how if you fold a piece of paper 10 times and cut a hole in a wierd spot how the paper will look when you open it, whatever...

either way dad thought we had it out of spline is why it was getting to tight to turn so we pulled it down and checked to make sure it was in spline and put it back and pulled it down. it was a visible difference when you layed them down where the gears were sticking up in the air and side by side.. nearly a 1/4" it turns out.

so now i've got one, like i said, that matches on all dimensions and has what i'm assuming/hoping is the right weight on it and have to wait 3 weeks for dad to get back with the damn tools. i'll be lucky to get it running before my birthday and she's been parked since mid october and waited a month to put the stupid engine in. i'm frustrated beyond belief, in 6 years i've never not been able to get it fixed within like a weeks time and get it right back. my truck's like my placebo. i can get behind the wheel and go and forget abt everything that's bugging me because i can play, relax, sing at the top of my lungs, and not worry about who it's gonna hack off.

so for now it's a waiting game because even with the jack i'm pretty sure i cldn't get it lined up and in by myself. we were still lifting by hand to get it lined up to get bolts in and none of my friends wld bother to help me. makes me wonder why i help them so much sometimes. *shrug*

 

Sorry to hear the bad news... hope it all comes together, and it sounds like you are working very hard on it.