Well guys, onto my first question. The worn 302 in my truck has always had that worn out rattling sound since we bought it, almost sounds like a diesel when you are under the hood. Recently I did a little tuning, fixed a couple vacuum leaks and took it for a spin. To my surprise, I was able to drop it in first and do a pretty respectable burnout with the hugacious mud tires on it, something it's never been able to do before, and I just cruised around the city for a couple hours. I was pretty confident that this thing was finally fixed, but when I got home I checked a few things out and took a good listen and from what I can tell it's coming from the top end. I was thinking valve train? I don't think it's too bad of a problem but don't want to risk running it much more without checking it out. What do you guys think? TIA.

 

its likely the rockers need adjusted, assuming you dont have collapsed lifters or bent pushrods! had an 84 F150/302 and after changing the timing geard and chain, adj. the rockers and a tune up i ran like a raped ape!!!had close to 250,000 on it too!!

 

That's what I was thinking. After I did the tuning it ran almost perfect, except that small rattle. Took it for a 100 mile drive this morning going about 80, no problems at all. Still needs a little carb adjustment but other than that I could not be happier with the way it runs.