There is no truth in that allegation and I don't know where it could possibly come from. Here's the scoop - prior to 65, diesel engines were conversions of gas engines; for example, you'll occasionally hear of a broken crankshaft in a diesel 600 or 800 series. When they introduced the 2000 to 5000 family in 1965, Ford designed the engine from the gound up as a diesel engine. This meant the gas engine was a conversion of the diesel, the pistons, connecting rods, wristpins, crankshaft, block and head are far heavier than required for a gas engine. There is a downside, the diesel engine uses a crossflow head (exhaust on one side, intake on the other); when using that design for the gas engine, there is no way to heat the intake manifold with exhaust gas so they used a water heated iontake manifold. There's not much heat till the coolant reaches operating temperature and the gas engine tends to be a little rough and hesitant till it warms up.
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