Ok so i have narrowed my choices down to the 4.9 and the 5.8, yea i know two totally different animals, heres my reasoning,the 4.9 and the 5.0 are mearly .1 liters of differnce and two cylinders difference. Everybody i have talked to will swear by the straight 6 over the v8 because it has allot more torque which makes up for the hp difference. Now on to the 5.8, The biggest engine offered and believe me i love my power and i know whagt this engine is capable of in stock form.One thing that has me leaning to the 4.9 is its mileage advantage and nearly identical performance to the 5.0 so heres my dilemna...4.9 or 5.8. Another question i have is the automatics behind these engines, normally i am a 3 pedal guy simply because you cant trust an auto, but there are so many more automatics out there than manuals in these 150's. How do the slushboxes hold up campared to the manuals?

Stick with me im a noob to newer vehicles

 

The 4.9 does not have "nearly identical" performance to the 5.0. Running empty and otherwise equipped the same, the 5.0 will be about a second quicker in the quarter. Hook them both up to a 5000 trailer and the 4.9 will win.

The M5OD tranny used with the 4.9 and 5.0 is a piece of crap. It has less than half the trailer towing capacity of the E4OD. There was no manual tranny option for the 5.8 in an F150. All the late-model manual tranny trucks are stuck with ford's bizarre annular slave cylinder built into the throwout bearing. It is an idiotic design and a maintenance nightmare. The E4OD had some serious development problems but the 95-96 versions are a very good tranny.

You can replace the M5OD tranny with a ZF 5S47 out of an F250HD/F350 and solve the capacity issue but you're still stuck with the annular slave cylinder