blykins Brent you are right to most of the point. I worked on U-Haul trucks alot for about a year. Some had a 4,000 rpm govenors and top speed of 64 mph on them At 3,000 rpm they had no more power. Gearing 10 spd trans amd 2 spd rearends. The trucks came loaded with coolers for all fluids on them. They made great torque to get them moving. They had heavy flywheels for stored energy to move the truck. The cam shaft was all about building torque at 1,000- 1,200 rpms. The 352 and 391 FT and 390 in the light trucks. The truck blocks where stronger in webbing and possibly core material, ( higher nickle content ) IMO all came with harder bearings than street motors. Most truck had 100K on them and running good. No knocking, No smoke, just alot of
oil leaks.
Your mustang is designed with 2 major things, 1st 0 emmissions with todays needs. 2nd to make the bigger powerband possible for the car to run in. As you said pull from 1,400 rpm to 6,000 rpm. Turbos or supercharger make this alot easier than straight motor. Gas mileage will suffer about 2-3 mpg. Your Mustang motor is a torque motor with a light valve train to give it the extra rpms in top end. This is what gets me, when I talk about Beehive springs. They have been in GM car since 95 with little to no failures and motors running over 150,000 miles. I have run them for 3 years( 98% racing) and love them. Again it's about matching parts for a certain power range. Diesels where not that small back in the 70's remember? It was the 80's when the first diesel was in Olds cars. 350 block with diesel heads, They also had a V6 motor. Noisy, Leaken, No Power BUT 35 mpg and could pull 20" + trailers with full loads. It couldn't get out of it's own way. Today 500-1,200 HP, 550- 2,000 FT of torque. 7,000 pound plus Dually running low 11's in the 1/4 mile. Now thats a diesel.
Lug your motor if you want, I will pass, IMO it hurts the motor.
Rick L.