87 mustang revisited

Hello,it was nice to see your story about the 302 mustangs of 85 to 95. i worked in the ford foundry and cleveland engine plants in those years and i watched countless numbers of these 302 blocks and heads and bearing caps and exhaust manifolds going down the cleaning lines and also countless numbers of them being machined and assembled and shipped in engine plant one.We machined the heads,blocks,crankshafts,lower intakes,exhausr manifolds,oil pumps,flywheels,water pumps,machined the cams from solid bars,and also stamped the valve covers,oil pans and stamped and hardened the rocker arms,all in one plant.I was surprized the author didn't mention the hydraulic roller camshaft,the first company to use it on an american car.i believe mercedes was the only other company with this,but the hydraulic roller cam was one of the key ingrediants that made this engine run so well and live so long.Also the sequential fuel injection which was developed and tested in plant one by ford engineers was the other big development that made this engine run so effiently and last so many years. In the 1986 mustang,i believe it was the intake manifold more than the heads that caused this motor to be slightly down on power,the intake runners where noticably much smaller along with the throttle body that year than in 87-95.The engine was bullet proof,and straightforward to machine and assemble,which kept the cost down. i remember people buying an lx 302 mustang in 91 and 92 for less than $13,000,OUT THE DOOR,on the A plan,fords workers discount program.The author sure is right about the heads,the ports were too small and the intake port took a sharp turn right before the valve which also were small,but it wasn't a 7,000 r.p.m. engine,so huge ports did not mean so much in its stock trim.i remember once we ran 200 special aluminum heads with crower rocker arms and a special roller cam,i was hoping this motor would be the new cobra,but it was only used for ford motor sports catalogue.Anyhow,thanks for the story,it brought back all those wonderful days when ford and our cleveland engine plant complex was on top of the world and we all had a bright future,so we thought.