PoppyMod,
I got the 5.0 Explorer engine with"P" heads, "pre-assembled" from a Ford MotorSports dealer 11 years ago and it sat on a stand, in a bag for 10 years.
after getting it running last year, with 1.7 rockers, it was very fast/strong, but I started noticing a few issues and had suspicions. IE: Stinky rich idle, dark tan spark plugs, power band rpm too high for practicality and horrendous (11-ish mpg) fuel milage,even with a light foot. I swapped to 1.6 rockers and used a degree wheel and piston stop to find TDC. Cam was installed dot to dot with only one keyway on the crank sprocket and it came up almost 2 degrees retarded, after multiple checks. I put on a new Cloyes timing set and set it to 4 deg advanced at crank (2 deg at cam) and this lowered my power band rpm a bit, but I'm still pretty rich/stinky at idle and fuel milage went up to about 14 mpg. Before advancing the cam, I istalled the timing gears "straight up", dot to dot, for a test and got O deg advance or retard. Rockers are non adjustable ((except by shims) pedestal mount, roller rockers and were set according to torque spec while measuring preload with a dial indicator. They came out to a range of .039"-.041" at specified torque. I suppose I could put in a larger shim to "loosen up" the preload a tad but pretty much dead center of the .020"-.060" range seemed like it should be about right. Your thoughts are appreciated.
Thanks,
Gene