The 95 Bronco's 351 Windsor (5.8L) is at the point where a rebuild is the honest answer, and I wanted to plan it as a mild daily-driver build rather than chase peak horsepower numbers that do not matter for how the truck actually gets used. The target is roughly 280 to 290 horsepower and 380 to 400 lb-ft of torque on pump gas — enough to feel like a real improvement in everyday driving without pushing the build into territory that fights the stock EFI.
Keeping the stock EEC-IV computer is the constraint that shapes every other part choice. The same EEC-IV that I have been recapping in the build for the truck's original engine computer has an adaptive range it can compensate within, but it cannot rewrite its own tables for wildly different airflow or fuel curves. AFR aluminum heads, a hydraulic roller cam, and an Edelbrock Performer RPM intake were chosen specifically because they land inside that adaptive range rather than outside it — the upgrade has to fit the brain that is already there, not require a standalone engine management swap.
I have been working through sourcing for a Charlotte-area machine shop and parts, since a rebuild like this lives or dies on whether the boring logistics (boring the block, balancing the rotating assembly, machine work turnaround time) actually line up with the parts list and the schedule.
Budget is set at roughly $5,000 to $5,500, which is the number that keeps this a mild daily-driver build instead of creeping toward a stroker or a standalone EFI conversion. That number is doing real work as a design constraint, not just a spending limit.
Notes for next time: 'mild rebuild, stock computer' is a useful design constraint precisely because it rules things out early. Every part on the list got checked against whether the EEC-IV could still tune around it before it made the cut.