We aren't speaking diesels here, my friend.. please leave diesel comments out..

 

Actually, we are *sorta* talking about diesels. An engine is an engine, regardless of what type of fuel it burns.
And, in many ways, the 300 shares many of the same traits as the big inline 6 diesels used in semi's. Low end torque to do the work, but not much HP by comparison to a V8 of the same displacement.
Don't go making blanket statements that are not true, and expect to not get called out on them.

 

Sixty-four year old punk here, with his 2 cents worth:

If you want to go fast with the least money and effort, you can build a 350 Chev, all of which came with better flowing heads than nearly anything Ford built (until very recently; and all I know is the older stuff), cheaper than you can build a Ford or Mopar or whatever. I hate to say that, because I'm pretty much a Ford guy, raised in a Ford family.

But what you young punks might consider is this. When you go to your local carshow or cruise, what do you see most? Endless rows of Cameros, Tri-Fives, some Vettes, some Chevelles, all with smallblock Chev engines. I've seen so many SBCs over the years, I hardly even look, even though the owner may have worked his fanny off to build a primo car. I used to help owners of Fifties and early Sixties Corvettes restore their cars, and I don't care if I never see another one of them, either.

So why try to hop up a Ford Six, which as you say doesn't like to be revved very high for very long and which can't be made to breathe very well? BECAUSE IT'S A GREAT CONTRARIAN'S ENGINE, that's why!!! Because you won't see another one at the local carshow. I'm not too excited about the current "rat-rod" fad, just because what I admire is the craftsmanship and creativity of a skilled do-it-yourself owner. But one thing I definately like about the rat-rodders is their preference for out-of-the-ordinary engines. Ancient straight-eights, any kind of flathead (including tractor motors), good ol' Ford Y-blocks, old furrin' motors from Peugeots or whatever else is lying around in the weeds. Now the rat-rodders, some of them, seem to feel that if they hosed off the dirt before swapping the old engine into their ride, that's good enough. Me, I'd rather see the old Pontiac straight-eight (for example) hot-rodded with a set of sidedraft Webers, home-welded headers, etc..

So that's why I like to see guys hot-rodding their Ford sixes. Not because they are going to blow away all of those blankety-blank Cameros (not without a blower or nitrous), but because they did something creative and unusual. And even if you're building a Ford six for an everyday work vehicle, as I am shortly going to do with the 300 in an old step-van I just bought, you can use a lot of the hot-rodding techniques to make your engine torquier and more fuel efficient. I would never do a factory-stock rebuild of any engine . . . why waste a golden opportunity to make improvements, many of which cost very little up front, and save fuel from then on?

Contrarians DON'T rule . . . but they ARE cool!!

 

Well said smitty.
I'm not exactly a young feller myself (got a son that is 18) and I too am a fan of the non-ordinary stuff. Might 'splain why I have 3 rotary powered Mazda's and an old Ford I6.
Sure, swapping a V8 for either of those engines will make more power for less money, but anyone can do that..... I'd rather confound people by telling them I have a 1.3L engine with a 600 CFM carb that's actually too small, and see the looks on their faces.

 

I know what you mean about going to car shows and only seeing camaros, chevelles, etc with SBC's. As a matter of fact, I have a 1974 chevelle on the backburners for a rebuild at this very moment (my first car). But on the other hand I also have a 1959 ford custom 300 with the original inline six and I plan on keeping it ALL original. Basically I like anything with a "wow factor", no matter how that is achieved. I just enjoy well built cars, no matter what is under the hood. I know what goes into the body work, the countless hours of achieving perfection. I love seing creative ingenuity as well. I understand the concept of the "uniqueness" in a car, but there are many ways that can be achieved. I guess I'm just going to give this one up, the more I think about it the more I realize that everyone else is pretty much just like me, they will do whatever they want to their vehicles becuase it is THEIR vehicle, not mine. Sorry to start the controversy. Have a great week guys.

 

Look up the Frenchtown Flyer.

 

What's wrong with controversy (friendly controversy)? If a guy can't rant with or even at his internet mates, abuse them a bit (mostly in fun), he's in pretty repressed company. Bring it, Big Ugly; we old has-beens love to grump about you punks!

Yeah, FF definately knows how to make a big six turn a quick quarter mile. And I understand some of the dirt-trackers like the big six for their purposes.

Personally, I think all those hot-rodded cars from the Thirties, with their long narrow hoods, look a lot happier with a long narrow I-6 than a V-8. Less weight in the nose is another advantage here.

 

You have a v-8 Zombie mentality BECAUSE YOU STATED that an I6 CANNOT be Built to be a Performance Engine unless you Spent Big Bucks & Doing So Isn't Worth the Effort.
Along w/ that the 300 I6 should Only be Used for What it was Designed For, a Truck engine to Haul stuff around w/.
Also that v-8's are the Only engine worth turning into a Performance engine because they've 2 more cylinders & Cheap to build into one.
You're replacing the v8 w/ the I6 because you wish the FPT that it puts out & have Totally Ignored any of the Posts by Me & Others that've made statements to the Contrary that HP can be had for a Decent price.
You should reread your Own statements before you Critique others about their Critique of yours.

 

This is one of the best and most versatile engines Ford ever put out. I don;t think u or anybody should underestimate the 300. Not to mention I can climb in the engine bay and close the hood, just in case I ever need somewhere to hide from the G/F. these are very tough engines. I think there was another thread about the same topic just a week ago, but i think u should know. U should slightly appreciate this since u might be an owner of one. Everyone Ford should respect this engine. Almost everyone has a V8. A lot of my friends that had one wish they never got rid of it.. If horse power is the case than i'll race a V8 with my 65 VW sand rail with a 36 hp air-cooled and blow ur mind!

 

Col Flashman, What exactly would you have had to do differently to get that 500hp?
I'm definitely interested!!

 

As am I......I'm just curious on how the he'll to get 250-300hp.....Praytell the secret please....

 

SideWinder, the details of Col Flashman's 300 hp build can be found here. At least the parts list, anyway.

1958 Mercury M100 4x2 - '58 Mercury M-100 & Panel

 

Sure you can. You can have high torque numbers at low RPMs, and never get to a zone where you would produce high horsepower numbers. Horsepower is really nothing more than a constructed number from torque.

1 horsepower is defined as 500 foot-pounds/second. the generally accepted equation for determining horsepower is (torque x RPMs) / 5252 = Horsepower. Thats why almost every dyno chart you see has the torque and horsepower lines crossing at 5252 RPMs. Its the commonly accepted equation that dynometers use.

So, on a low revving engine, like an inline six, or a diesel, that rarely, if ever, spins to 5,000 RPMs, you can easily have more torque than horsepower.

The reason that the six doesn't like to rev that high (it can, its just not its generally intended use) is a combination of a long stroke (something that helps produce torque, but inhibits HP), problems with airflow through the non-crossflow head, generally mild cam designs (roller and custom cams excluded), and a lot of rotating mass (it does have six journals, as opposed to four...).

But, that extra rotating mass also provides momentum, which is also important to building good, usable torque, which is the reason so many big rigs, and competition diesels, use heavy, billet flywheels.

But then again, you didn't want to talk about diesels. You just wanted to tell everyone your opinion and have it read like the gospel. My bad...

 

If you finish to the end of most of that Parts List, you'll find if something was done to that particular part or not.

 

It has six ROD journals, and seven mains, so it has maybe a little more rotating friction than a four-main I-6 (Mopar slant six, for one), but not necessarily more mass, and very likely less than a four-main six (altho' more than a V-8, which may have been the point). The big problem with revving any six is the long, whippy crankshaft. Smokey Yunick told us that if you could see inside a running racemotor (and he was describing a V-8 with a shorter, stiffer crank) and slow the action with a strobe light, both the crankshaft and the camshaft would look rather like snakes twisting and squirming and trying to rip themselves free of their supporting bearings. The block itself is also twisting end-for-end; a guy I know actually watched a six-cylinder racing outboard visibly twisting its block in this way as it ran on the dyno. All of these engines, which look massive and stiff as they sit there on your rollover stand, are flexible flyers when you try to pull a lot of horsepower.

The big six is my sentimental favorite of engines, but I don't entirely agree that it is "very tough" in factory trim. Machine shops have torn down a goodly number of 300s with broken pistons, and both the 300 and 240 will shred the teeth off their phenolic timing gear (mine did). The timing gear usually will hold up until after the engine's design lifetime, over 100,000 miles; the 300 pistons may break sooner.

But so what! EVERY engine has its strong and weak points. The job of any decent rebuilder, as I see it, is to IMPROVE any engine he goes through. And the big six doesn't need an awful lot of work compared to some engines. Get better pistons. Get a metal timing gear (replace that old phenolic gear even if it hasn't started to chip the teeth, even if you just install a new phenolic gear). Replace your used rod bolts with new ones (from ARP if you intend to work the motor hard). If you want better fuel efficiency (you don't think we have seen the last of sky-high gas prices, do you?), replace a 300 smog head with a fuel injection head or a 240 head, and shave the block deck to get the squish-height down to .035-.042". And further improve fuel efficiency and power by upgrading the crappy, restrictive exhaust and intake manifolds (EFI 300s excepted). Keep in mind that this engine was Ford's baseline, economy engine, so they didn't hang the better, more expensive intake/exhaust systems on it, as BMW, MerBenz, Datsun, and Volvo did with their straight sixes. But you can! If the vehicle is a keeper, why would you NOT do these things, which are inexpensive and pay you back?

And if you want to buck the conventional wisdom and build a racer or street screamer out of a big six, that's cool too, long whippy crank or not! Some of the hottest racemotors of the Thirties were straight-eights, with even longer, even whippier cranks (Deusenburg, Miller, some of the European makes). Those old timers just didn't wind their engines real high. Talk to today's big six racers (Frenchtown Flyer!) and see what aftermarket harmonic dampener seems to work best on that long crankshaft. If the smallish ports hold you back, shove the air through them with a blower or turbo; guys who've done this say it transforms the engine.

I love the big six, and look forward to building my next one, next spring.