I like the Fifth Avenues for a lot of reasons, most have to do with the car itself:
1. 2-barrel carb is small, engine never developed a lot of cylinder pressure so rings, bores, etc. are not worn out.
2. The cars came with 2.24 rear ends, meaning the engine didn't see much high rpm use.
3. They were "grandma" cars, meaning they were driven easy.
4. Many of the "grandma" cars I have encountered were very well maintained. Grandma knew she couldn't afford a new car so she took it to the garage every 3000 miles.
Other things:
The cast iron used in these engines is pretty hard.
The hydraulic roller cam stuff is already there.
You can have the stock cam (it's a single pattern cam with 110LSA) reground by Bullet for something like $120. The largest lobe that will fit is the 209 degree@ 50, 0.316 lobe lift. That's from Patrick, who is the patron saint of this engine. A note about going to a higher lift: Retainer-to-guide clearance will probably have to be opened up, the tool costs less than $50 and I did all mine in around 15 minutes. Also, valvesprings become an issue because of the short installed height of the stock setup. Patrick used Hughes 1110 springs, IIRC. On my engine I used Crane 833 springs, and actual valve lift will have to stay under 0.474". There's also the old favorite Comp 901s, and those too have a maximum lift of less than 1/2 inch. The stock retainers worked just fine on my Crane 833s and will work on the 901s I have on the shelf.
Another note: The 318 roller cam valvesprings are stouter than stock 318 flat tappet springs and would be a cheap upgrade for a mild cam in a flat tappet 318 or 360.
About the 302 heads: They have a lousy stock valvejob. They are quite easy to open up to the 360 gasket size, at least on the outside side of the runner curves, where much of the flow is. There is quite a lot of material clogging the topside of the port around the valve guide. The air holes into the exhaust port can be plugged with 1/4" setscrews or bolts. Run the correct size drill through the hole before tapping and be careful tapping. I broke a tap off and had to use some goop to plug the hole. The AIR holes in the exhaust manifolds are not connected to the exhaust after you plug the holes in the heads.
The 5-blade fan clutch assembly on the Fifth Ave is the same as the MP low drag fan.
R.
