My 73 Thunderbird.

[bgd73]

Nice. Unique swaying heavy..lol
modern engine and its internals would be no regret. Even the carb cams and classic carbs would be nice...
That 460 was in my family for awhile in a 1976 ltd wagon. even the cylinder bores with full oil functions fed the bad fuel mileage ... a real drag (pun intended). That whole generation has bizarre bad engines. A modern smallblock would even outdo it. The tolerances could be guaged with width of fingernails (very very bad)

[Ford Man]

I know the 10 mpg feeling. I had a '76 Continental Mark IV with the 460. I got about 10-11 mpg on it on local trips of 20 miles or less and about 14 highway. There's just not much way to get much better mileage, but those cars were made for comfort not FE. There was no lack of power either. I too would make a restoration project out of it and garage it. They just don't make cars like that one anymore and with only 53,000 actual miles the drive train should be in like new condition and would make a great collector car. I remember in 1974 when I was 14 years old my dad was going to buy a new car and there was a new '74 T-Bird, white on white like yours that I tried to talk him into buying, but he wouldn't part with the extra $3000. that it cost over the price of a new LTD. The price on the '74 was under $8,000. new.

[Andyman]

I have something kind of similar that I bought more than 20 years ago. It's a Mercury Marquis with a 429 engine. The 429 is almost the same as a 460. The crankshaft and pistons are different. On long trips I could get about 17 MPG. My engine had about 10.25 compression ratio and I'm sure that helped. After 1971 they lowered the compression. After I stopped driving it I discovered that my distributor advance springs were pretty tight and it didn't get much spark advance until it was up to about 70 MPH. I loosened them to allow more spark advance at low speed but I can't report on what effect it had on fuel economy since I don't have that car registered.

An overdrive transmission with lockup torque converter would be a big help on the highway when you have a large displacement engine. Something from a Ford truck might fit.

[95badbird]

Originally Posted by Andyman

I have something kind of similar that I bought more than 20 years ago. It's a Mercury Marquis with a 429 engine. The 429 is almost the same as a 460. The crankshaft and pistons are different. On long trips I could get about 17 MPG. My engine had about 10.25 compression ratio and I'm sure that helped. After 1971 they lowered the compression. After I stopped driving it I discovered that my distributor advance springs were pretty tight and it didn't get much spark advance until it was up to about 70 MPH. I loosened them to allow more spark advance at low speed but I can't report on what effect it had on fuel economy since I don't have that car registered.

An overdrive transmission with lockup torque converter would be a big help on the highway when you have a large displacement engine. Something from a Ford truck might fit.

yeah, the 71 and earlier bigblocks, are a bit more sought after than mine.

I would like to change the heads to some D0OE heads, or some C9's(69 heads)....also the timming chain and timming is 12 degrees retarded in the 72+ 429/460's for emissions reasons.
Ford thought that back then, to make the engines run cleaner, that had to kill all the compression(mine is 8-1), and other things, which really made the power go down a ton.
Neighber down the street has a 71 lincoln mark 3, and his stock HP rating for the car is 360HP....where mine(same engines), is rated at 208HP.....

anway, thanks for the compliments..