My personal experience with ATK is that they almost always fall well short of their advertised HP/TQ numbers. I've helped two guys put their 347 "410 HP" engines in their cars, one a 4 speed Falcon and the other a Fairlane. Both were disappointing to say the least even after a few months of tuning on them, and when we dyno'd the Falcon we found out why: it put out a touch over 220 HP at the wheels through the manual trans....your 502, if it's the "515 HP" only has a hydraulic flat tappet with 225/235 @050 .536in/.541ex on a 112LSA. Pretty small, and along with that carb, and depending on your headers and intake, isn't going to be a real ripper on the top, but it'd be great in a F100 or the like. The base of the engine is good, just needs some stuff changed out in the way of a custom cam/intake/carb swap, and a good set of 1 7/8"-2" primary headers.
1966 Fairlane With 502
Installed a ATK 502 525 HP engine in the Fairlane. Had some over heating problems at 1st......fixed that with 2 elec fans and water pump fan.......... Now seems not to be producing 525 HP. Should be a screamer but not living up to ATKs HP claim ?
