Ford 460 engine

I have a 96 F450 with a 460 engine in it and it runs great but the fuel milage is bad,if I take out the cadilac converter will that help the fuel mileage or is there
anything else I can do to help it a little?

What kind of mileage are you getting? I don't think taking the cat out will help the mileage at all. In fact it may hurt it as the downstream O2 sensors will run cold and the computer may try to add even more fuel trying to warm it up. 460's are big and thirsty by nature.

Greg

(quoted from post at 19:20:36 08/13/15) I have a 96 F450 with a 460 engine in it and it runs great but the fuel milage is bad,if I take out the cadilac converter will that help the fuel mileage or is there
anything else I can do to help it a little?

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earing will alter your mileage by more than anything else you can do, but depending on what loads you deal with, that may not be an option either.

I ran a 460 for several years in an F250, old enough to have a carb. It got 11 hauling and 13 empty. Considering what it was I was OK with that mileage. IIRC it had 3.73 gearing. Thing is a lot of folks not knowing what they needed ordered the with 4.10/11 or 4.35 gearing. The 460 produces enough low end torque it will haul a significant load with gearing set up for better economy.

Rick

I just finished fixing up a '89 f250 4x4 with a 460 and am looking into the same thing. They do make an overdrive transfer case for them but at 3 grand payback would be a long way out.
I was on another forum where they were talking about running a second transfer case turned backwards, worked but weak.
They also talked about running a transmission backwards, sounded like a lot of work.

I had one in a 1069 New Holland bale wagon and it liked its gas. It didn't have a catilytic converter. On the other hand, it had lots of power.

I had a 1990 dually with 4 (overdrive) on the floor. It loved 10! Don't know what the gears were but they were short.

Gear Vendors makes and overdrive unit that is a bolt in other than having the drive shafts cut and lengthened and shortened accordingly. But, it's about three grand too. They are tough though. Might look for a used on on ebay or craigs list. Not much that go wrong with them. They use an electric sprag clutch that is pretty bullet proof. A gear change would probably cost about the same amount if you can't do the setup yourself.

Greg

Minimal difference, I would actually expect very little is left inside your converter by now.

Overdrive would me the most difference

I had an 83 F-250 4x4 with a 460 4Barrel auto trans and 355 gears, got 8mpg pulling 20 ft gooseneck and tractor. Traded for an 89 f-250 4x4 460 EFI with same gears and trans, only got 5.8 mpg with same load! Neither had the guts in the catalytic converter. Would pull anything I put behind it though!

I had a 88 F359 dual rear wheel 4x4 with a 460 five speed with 4.10 gears and a flat bed I pulled a 28 foot goose neck with it and only once saw less the 10 mgp . Bought it used and abused and fixed it up . I did have to replace the fuel regulator and we changed the ecm cleaned the egr and adjusted the timing for a total of 36 degrees at 2000 RPM ran high test in it and plum run the bag off that truck . never hauled more then i could load on the trailer and never drove it any faster then it would run. Changed oil every 3to 3500 miles and some weeks it was and oil change twice a week . I retired it at 287000 miles and it was still going strong . empty truck would do a shade better the 14 mpg empty truck and trailer 12-12.5 fully loaded trailer with 2 706's on and what ever else i could stuff under or around them 10-10.5 . The only time i got down to around 5-6 mpg was the one night i pulled out of Plymouth ind. with a gleaner K setting on the deck with a two row corn head on the combine and the grain head was up on the goose neck . I backed the K on the trailer and off i went . Wind that night was out of the east and blowing hard and the load was draging harder then the time i hauled a 1066 and a 806 both with dual and loaded with weights . I was having a hard time keeping it at the double nickel and the gas gauge was going down fast . I had to fuel on the east side of Ft. Wayne . Once i was fueld i pulled into the back lot and unloaded the K and turned it around and stuffed the corn head up under the grain head and chained her down and head on east . That made all the difference , next stop for fuel was Canton Ohio and i still had 3/8 of a tank left . Maybe i could have made the rest of the way home but at that time of night and in the hills nah i would not chance it i really hate walking . It really sucks when you have a 1/4 tank or a shade less and you run out of fuel on a hill. and oh the 460 in your truck uses the same cam that they came out with way back in 68 but the timing set is not the same . Won't say a word more on the subject.

I have a 1988 Ford F-350 crew cab dually with a 460 and a 5 speed,4.10 gears.....Empty at 70 mph it gets 10 mpg....Pulling a empty 25 ft gooseneck it gets 8-9 mpg....Pulling a loaded 25 ft gooseneck it gets around 6.5 to 7 mpg..

Our F-450 had 5.13 gears. Not much you can do but feed it.

Not much you're going to do to tame that beast other than give it new gears... I will say that if the converter is plugged and you can audibly hear the exhaust hissing... then yes, replacing or removing the catalyst from the converter will help mileage and power.... but only if it's plugged. Do be careful about removing them tho... as they are required for inspection in some places and if you have emission testing it's obviously required. What some folks do here is just drill a hole in the converter and drain the catalyst out then weld the hole back up... problem solved.

Rod

Right now it is getting about 4 or 5 miles per gallon empty or loaded.

Wow I would think it would do a little better than that, but if it is geared really low that may be it. Being that consistent I bet it is geared pretty low. Years back I had a 82 Chev 1 ton with a 454, 4 speed and 4:56 gears in it. Same deal there. the gas mileage was always the same. BAD. I finally changed gears to 4:10 and it helped some. It went from 8 to 10. Had I put 3:70 in it it may have gone all the way to maybe 12. The good ole days when I could care less how much gas I burned.

Greg