Top 5 Ford Crate Engines for both Street & Strip
3. Pushrod 302 Variants
No discussion of the best Ford crate engines would be complete without including the venerable pushrod 302. And Ford offers a variety of choices here, from a milder 302 rated at 340 horsepower and 330 horsepower up to a pair of 347 and 363 cubic-inch options. For a street/strip car, however, we’d go with the top dog 363, which pumps out 507 horsepower and 450 pound-feet of torque with a reasonable 10.2:1 compression ratio.
4. Ford 351 Windsor-Based Strokers
Another fantastic option is Ford’s 351 Windsor-based stroker lineup, which consists of four different crate engines – two 427 cubic-inch motors and two 460 cubic-inch mills. You can’t really go wrong with any of them, as the 427s crank out 535 horsepower and 545 pound-feet of torque out of the box, and the larger displacement version offers a stout and even 575 horsepower and 575 pound-feet of torque. All four are sold as a forged rotating assembly, so you’ll have to add your own top end, however.
5. Ford ‘Big Blocks’
Ford guys hate it when people refer to any Blue Oval engine as a “big block,” because it’s really a Chevy term. But Ford calls its line of 572-inch crate engines big blocks, so we’re going to roll with it. These two mighty mills are rated at a lofty 655 horsepower and 710 pound-feet of torque right out of the box, naturally-aspirated. They also come completely ready to drop in your street/strip application and are fitted with iron blocks and forged internals to make them virtually bulletproof. They aren’t cheap, but some things in life are worth the splurge.
Photos: Ford Performance
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