so im in the process of putting together something to throw under the hood of my maverick

ive got a '77 short block with a DSII dizzy and i just went down the j-yard this week and got a set of GT40 heads off a 1996 eddie bauer ford explorer. im keeping my eye out for a roller engine oe something with higher compression but if i go with what ive got does anyone have any recomendations about where i should go from here? i was hoping to explor options that dont involve the mechine shop since im trying to go low budget. im hoping that with such a lght car i wont need massive power to have fun on the street.

im putting a c4 behind it and swapping up gears is also on the adgenda. ive got 2.79's now    

Hello, I was just curious about those GT40 heads. I was just wondering who would buy and install a set of heads like those on a Ford Explorer family vehicle. I believe those are pretty expensive heads. That was a very good find if those are really GT40 heads. How much do you know about that 302 shortblock that you have? Did it run? Did it smoke? Did it knock? Does it have 180,000 miles on it? That would be a good start that way you know whether you have to do a total rebuild or not.  

ford racing makes an aftermarket set of aluminum GT40's but stock '95 cobras and 95-up ford explorers had the iron version of them(or the GT40p's). i hear theyre worth 200-300 bucks tho. i got these for $40. from what i hear these are rated very highly on the list of factory 302 heads

the engine ran good so im not nervous about the bottom end  

Well you have a 77 block right ? Flat top or dished Pistons ? If you have the Flats as I think you may , the GT40p heads have a very small Comb Chamber in the 58 cc range. So you may not need the roller block if you are just looking to increase comp ratio.  The factory 77 smog heads were quite possibly as big as 69 cc. That would make a pretty decent compression ratio with your Explorer heads and that block. The other question is which cam is in the Short block ? Then which manifold are you considering ?   Get a dual plane manifold there are several good ones to choose from so find one that you like . Just remember with a C-4 it is going to shift at 4500 RPM's and many times earlier so be conservative. I would stay small on my carb 500 or smaller as well.  Yes I know they put 600 cfm in lots of things, but having owned a 72 Mav  a 67 Falcon and a 82 Stang all with small block power I have replaced those "good" 600 cfm carbs with the lil Holley 390 CFM . 0-8007 list number and it was like a whole new engine. Throttle response picked up mileage went up and the car was just quicker over all . If you had a big cam and bigger runners and like 1.94 and 1.6 exhausts maybe the 600 . But you want street driveability and cruising fun correct ?

The suggestions I am making are not the sexy impress people numbers , but it works. As far as gears go 3.50's are a great place to start that will give you a instant kick in the pants .  

cruising fun is the main goal. its not a dialy driver. maybe a casual trip to the track but i dont have any ambitions as a racer or anything

the pistons have 4 little half circle valve recesses in them, not sure what the correct name is. the 96 explorer i pulled the heads from had the same thing.

my tech book rates a '77 maverick at 140hp with 8:1 compression

i havent even come close to deciding on a cam/inake/carb yet. i will be running headers and dual exhaust.  

A good cam like an E303, 9.5:1 compression, with those heads and that short block, you should have a good motor for your Maverick. Go with a single AFB and dual plane manifold.  

That 77 shortblock isn't a roller block, so the E303 isn't going to work.  If its a cruiser, just get yourself a cam in the .512" range or something like the old "blue racer" cam from crane.  The maverick is a light car and it isn't going to take a bunch of torque to move it.  Run a weiand stealth intake, a holley 600 double pumper, the cam that I suggested, and a set of 3:50 gears, with a set of small tube headers with a 2 1/2" exhaust system.  I've ran this combo before and it has a great exhaust note with the racey, lopey idle.  

If it were me, I would find a late model HO roller short block. It will get you a increase in compression, forged pistons, and a decent factory roller cam. Combine this short block with your gt40 heads and a good induction and exhaust. This motor should make a honest 280-300hp depending on the outhor parts used.  

I don't know how much money you have, but if it were me, I'd surf on over to www.toohighpsi.com and check out how the legendary Mike Sitar did a blow-through turbo for cheap on an SBF.

Then I'd go to eBay or the JY and find a turbo (or even two) and some other gear for the build. (avoid the cheap Chinese turbos, though).

You could spend all of your money on gears, compression, headers, loose converter and other "traditional" speed parts and still not run as quick or as cheap as Mike Sitar did with a stock block and some JY turbos.

And with $4.00/gallon fuel, keeping the 2.79s in a turbo 302 Maverick might be a good tip for the street.   Back during the last "energy crisis," Hot Rod's C.J. Baker found that switching from 2.73s to 4.11 in a BBC Chevelle was worth only about 3/10ths with a 3-speed Auto (he ran only the first two gears at the strip with the 2.73s -- sort of like a "poor-man's Powerglide").  

Of course you've got to have the torque to pull "Bonneville" gears, which you'd have with a turbo.   Garrett/Honeywell engineer Bill Watson claims you can actually "overgear" a turbo mill (see http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/turbo_tech_q_and_a_supercharger_comparison/index.html)

Watson says: "[I]n a turbo car, boost vs. rpm is a transient event . . . . By gearing the car steeper (4.11, 4.56, etc), engine rpm grows faster than boost can keep up if you will, so in a rpm-sense, this is slowing down boost response. Add on top of this the fact that the effective mass of the rotating group of the engine goes up with gear ratio squared. So there are two downsides to more gear, while the obvious up-side is the increase in torque multiplication (which is why people do it in the first place). This is definitely a juggling act, and turbo cars for this reason tend to do better than expected with slightly taller gears because they have two downsides fighting the up-side, not just one vs. one when you're normally aspirated."

I'd actually prefer a built AOD/AODE/4R70W or even a GM 700R4 to a C4 for the street because the overdrive with 2.79s in a light Maverick would pull some great mileage.  

Back 30 years ago, "NAPA" John Anderson took the late, great Gray Baskerville for a ride in a stock-block, draw-through,  non-intercooled, single turbo 302-powered '32 Ford coupe (steel) that ran 11.07!

If you watch your car's weight, a Maverick is not going to be much heavier (300-400 lbs. at the most) than the average '32 street rod.

Nowadays, with budget intercooling, advances in water/alcohol injection, ignition boxes and modern turbos, you ought to be able to do even more at home on a modest budget.

I'd also run some Rhodes Lifters to broaden the torque range (Gale Banks did in his awesome 700+hp twin turbo SBCs).

And a turbo V8 can sound plenty mean if you leave off or gut the mufflers.

A turbo car would also get a lot more attention at cruise night than another carb'd "all motor" 302.  

I did some quick "back of the envelope" calcs and you'd need a turbo or turbos that flow in the range of 48 to 60 pounds per minute, which suggests a pair of T04B H-3s or similar T3/T4 hybrids, or perhaps even a pair of the larger JY T3s, such as what Sitar used on his JY 351W.

A big single along the lines of a T70 would also get the job done.

You could go smaller if you wanted to trade top-end for boost response (and cheapness).  

Turbo Ted, you're having a bit of "brain fade" on "Napa" John Anderson.

Baskerville's story was "Little Spruce Coupe" in the March 1977 issue of Hot Rod magazine, starting at page 56.

Anderson's car was a '34 Ford Three Window Coupe.  It was a draw-through 302 with a single T04B turbo. Maximum reported boost was 17 psi (artificially high because of the terrible iron Windsor heads he was using).  The story doesn't say what fuel, but 17 psi in 1977 probably meant some leaded premium in the 94-96 octane range.  

Anderson suppressed detonation through a four-fold strategy of vaporization cooling (inherent in draw-through carb systems), water injection through a single nozzle into the air horn of the carb (windshield washer fluid (assume about a 30/70% methanol/water ratio)), heavy fuel enrichment (through the secondaries) and mechanically retarded timing through a modified vacuum advance can.  No intercooler.  

Anderson claimed the long block was "stock" (he said in a companion tech story entitled "Mythstakes" that he'd even quit o-ringing the heads on his turbo motors) and the exhaust manifolds appear to be factory iron logs.   The turbo was mounted near the firewall on top of the engine (similar to an older Buick Grand National or a Powerstoke diesel).

Anderson's Turbo '34 was an estimated 2,900 lbs. (not clear if that's curb weight or race weight with driver).  But it was a "resto rod"-style whip with a lot of heavy interior parts, true-spoke wire wheels, BFG T/A radials and an MGB-sourced IFS, so it was no drag car.  The transmission was a C4 and the rear gear was a mild 3.23:1.  

Baskerville's "rod test" reported that the '34 Turbo Coupe ran 11.07 at 124 m.p.h. at Sacramento.  That m.p.h. would require around 450 h.p. in the traps. To put this into perspective, a benchmark for a 1977 Super Stocker with AT would be 10.90 at 123 m.p.h., so Anderson's time was excellent for a non-Boss, non-Cleveland SBF-powered street car.

Baskerville reported mileage in the mid twenties.

BTW, isn't a T-70 a little big for a mild street 302?  

Thanks for the correction.

T-70s are a popular eBay import size (more so than the smaller ones that would work, and the compressor map plots work out well. You can usually get a new "buy it now" Master Power brand T-70 clone for a few hundred dollars).

Besides, I think Freiburger's F-Bomb used a PAIR of T-70s on a 406 SBC with good results.

My point was that there are a lot of good choices for a turbo 302.