Warming Up A 260

tiger260

Gold forum user
Messages
425
Back in the mid 70's my friend Mark got a stock Tiger for his birthday. He also wanted to "warm it up", but since the car was stock, he did not want to make major changes. A well respected Tiger mech. of the day, suggested he try a Holley 500 2 barrel, Corvair Turbo mufflers ( no Flowmaster then), and a recurved dist.Thats what he did. What a difference, great throttle response, and 20 mpg. About 3 yrs. later I got my Tiger. It was NOT stock. The PO had a pro built 289 block with 302 crank, rods, pistons, 4v heads, crane Boss spec. cam, Offenhouser intake, holley 600, and LAT headers. They also changed to a wide ratio gear set. My car was much faster than Marks, BUT the BIGGEST difference was first gear. A while back I was reading one of those mustang/hot rod ford fourms. A member was building a high power 351w, he asked about putting GT40p heads on it, one member responded with 302 parts= 302 power, well if your building a 351 that might be discouraging, but a 260 with 302 power, that's warm. A 302crank and rods will give you about 273, then a set of milled GT40p heads should be lots of fun. No matter what you do, the wide ratio first ,will make it faster. Of course you could do this.
http://www.hotrod.com/how-to/engine/1408-make-503hp-with-a-350-junkyard-302/

That is a good question.

This all started because I need to get the valves reground on the heads.
The heads have not been converted to unleaded but it think it has run on unleaded for a long time before I bought the car.

One thing has lead to another and I am now at the point where I am seriously considering a rebuild.

It is likely that the cam needs renewing, so a performance upgrade in the cam department would be practically free as it needs replacing anyway.

I figured that as the engine is going to be in pieces, it would be worth exploring what options are out there while the opportunity to embody them presents itself.

I don't have any set goals in my head regarding performance but I thought it would be nice to know my options.

One of the problems of course is that being in the UK parts and services are not as readily available as they are to you guys.
You guys are brought up on big capacity V8s.

Thanks.
 

0neoffive

Gold forum user
CAT Member
Messages
2,853
FORGED PISTONS

What pistons to use and their availability ?

Dale A. (No Affil) provided us with an excellent set of forged flat-tops in .030 for a mild 260 build. Did some old school hand filing of the rings, but all worked well. I understand that the pistons start out as a dome and get machined down to the requested height.
 
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