408 Stroker 351

Among the the things my dad left behind is an 82 Bronco that he reported was parked with low oil pressure.  I talked with my mom and I am going to keep it (tentatively anyway).
I picked up a book about boring and stroking those engines for a variety of applications.  I was thinking since that 351W may need a crank kit anyway (maybe not, but that is a topic for another post) I might consider a nice "square bore" bore and stroke to 408 for gobs of mid range torque and to build a back up tow vehicle.  I have towed with this vehicle before.  Some pretty decent loads given its basically a 1/2 ton chassis.
It turns out this sort of thing is so common for these small block Fords that there are a number of off the shelf kits for it.  Pistons, rods, crank all packaged together.  Its not cheap, but nowhere near as expensive as I would have thought either.  There are bigger bore and stroke kits, but they are intended to run at higher RPMs.  The "square bore" is a common term for high torque engines across multiple genre. In fact one of the common popular engines for load carrying Harley EVO baggers was a 100" square bore from S&S.  I don't know if S&S still makes EVOs since they have their own v-Twin engine now, but that's not the point.
My primary use will more likely be hunting and fishing in hard to reach locations where I don't want to tear up my F250.  If it doubles as a backup tow rig well, then I can probably justify all the work.
Anyway, if this is something you guys might be interested in I'll be happy to post more often about it if/when it gets started.  I expect it will be a lot of work to restore to 100% functional having sat for 20+ years, but there will likely be some metalworking.
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Bob La Londe
CNC Molds N Stuff
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