Well spoken Seattle Smitty....Well spoken.....

 

I was going to say the same thing but it appears they you beat me to the punch! Well said, might I add...glad to see somebody knows some actual engine theory or even an equation and is able to bring it to the discussion for a change.

I'll add that it doesn't matter what end of the fuel spectrum one is dealing with, diesel or gas, the theory remains the same concerning the physics and the numbers that go into discerning HP and TQ. If you (and I doubt it, as you're an "18 yr old punk" as you so gracefully put it ) have been around any kind of over the road semi engines or heavy machinery such as tractors or construction equipment, you'll notice that (modern day) every last one of those motors are I6. I'll tell ya something, I work on a feedlot that has a semi with a dinosaur Detroit V8 2 stroke motor. This old dog certainly has a pair, a rather large pair at that, but only when you have the son of a gun pegged in the red on your tach. Its the same for any V8 diesel I've driven in any pickup. Yes, they have power, but at a much higher RPM than a Cummins I6 of similar or even less displacement.

Same principle applies to the gas engine world as well. I've been around dirt track racing a number of years and there is a guy at one track that has a 300 that keeps up and even whoops the hell out of half to 3/4 of the 350's on the track! It certainly isn't because of HP, those 350's are throwing numbers in that category that the 300 probably won't see, but take a look at the COLD HARD TORQUE they lay down compared to the others out there. ever since then, HP is a mean nothing number that is derived from torque, to me. go ahead and build yourself a 400 hp motor, I guarantee that my motor with 400 ft-lbs of torque is gonna win everytime. most V8 (and SBC) guys don't like hearing this but, hey I'm sorry, its the truth and numbers don't lie.

Now of course, one must factor in gearing in your trannys and rear ends (and tire size...and even altitude if you wanna be reeeeally technical) to make this all a completely fair comparison, but dyno sheets tell all, my friend. When you go "mono y mono" on cubes, an I6 is usually more efficient because of the fact that its more balanced of a configuration than its V8 counterpart and it can lay down the torque. This doesn't mean that there is no replacement for displacement, a 460 is still going to out pull a 300 any day of the week, I'm just trying to help put things into prospective. A couple of years earning a degree in diesel technology, a few more years in a shop, and my whole life on the farm actually operating these machines with these engines verify everything I've said.

I'm not going to lie, the "shock and awe" factor about a 300 turns me on, but I also love them because of the fact that its a simple motor, easy to work on and despite popular belief, no more expensive to outfit than a V8 (with the exception of the Chebbie 350). I'm not trying to turn my I6 into something its not, I'm turning it into something the factory wouldn't let it be... 120 cfm carb on a stock 300? Please...

 

VERY well said.

 

NavyMIDN08,

I agree with most of what you said. However, I would not say that a long stroke helps produce high torque and inhibits HP. Torque comes from cubic inches displacement. All else being equal, a cylinder with a bore of 4" and a stroke of 3.98" (like our 300) will produce exactly the same torque as a cylinder with a bore of 4.5" and a stroke of 3.144" (both displacing 50.01 cubic inches). This is theoretical. In practice, things like rod length and other geometrical factors can affect torque slightly.

The thing about our 300 that makes it a low RPM high torque engine is not its long stroke. It is the fact that the intake and heads were designed specifically for efficient filling of the cylinders at low RPM. It was intentionally designed by Ford to do this. If you port the stock head so it is more efficient at filling the chambers at higher RPM and use an intake manifold designed for higher RPM, the engine will run perfectly at those higher RPMs. Put a full fledged race head on it, and the 300 will spin right up there with the small block V8s.

 

If we're talking apples to apples, the only advantage a 302 has over the 300 is being able to call Summit and buy a steel crank, AFR heads, and roller cam off the shelf.

Big hp numbers out of a 300 = <S>nonsense</S> big dollars and cents. FIFY. That formula applies to any engine. Go price a 500hp 302...

 

In case anybody is interested, this is a pretty neat clip. Take a 1/4 mile ride with The Frenchtown Flyer in his Ford 300 powered dragster at the NHRA Nationals. I think he made it to the 8th round before he was beaten, and he beat 7 hot V8s to get there. If you watch the tach you will see that he winds his 300 out to 7 grand in 1st gear.

YouTube - M2U00057

He has a number of clips on Youtube. If you want to see more, go to the search box on Youtube and search for "ftf300"

 

Yeah, but I bet FF will tell you that a V-8 should last a good bit longer at that rpm, and can wind higher yet.

What's more, IF I wanted to make big hp numbers with a 240/300, naturally aspirated, I'd find a pair of aftermarket race heads (probably meant for an SBC) and cut and weld them into a great-flowing crossflow six head, as others have done.

But that's racing. My personal interest is in heavy hauling power and efficiency in work vehicles. But if I wanted to build a cool and unusual street sleeper, I'd get something like a '66 Fairlane 500GT, sell the 289 (I think it was), and put in a built 240. And I want you to think about this:

The Europhile car buyers have bragged up their straight six Beemers and Benzes (and there are those 240/260/280Z motors that came across the other ocean) as if they were something particularly great. Well, in my bald-headed opinion (and I own an old MerBenz), the Ford Big Six is not only bigger, IT IS JUST AS GOOD! Remember again that our six was the economy option, with the cheapest manifolds (at least until the EFI engine, and even its manifolds are somewhat sub-optimal for street performance). By contrast, the sixes in those Euro-cars were their top of the line motors, with the best induction and exhaust and other stuff. So, what if you put all the good parts on and into a Big Six; how does it compare? VERY favorably!! The Beemer boys will brag about their overhead cams. Hey, those don't matter at all at the redlines we'll have. Pushrods are dead-simple and work JUST AS WELL below 6000. PLUS, we don't have that long chain that stretches and snatches and gets wierd standing waves and odd harmonic effects that move the cam timing and spark advance unpredictably! Not only that, WE don't even have a SHORT chain, like the GM, Mopar, and AMC sixes . . . we have DIRECT GEAR DRIVE, just like REAL racemotors (Offy, Indy Ford V-8, you name it), THEY don't have no stinkin' chains, either!!

Yeah, the Beemers and such do probably have better ports (?). Well, you could hand-build a head as described. Or (what I'd do), turbocharge!! With our non-crossflow head, the manifolding is easy to build if it isn't available. And lots of guys have done this. And finally, if you don't want a turbo, just port a 240 head (our best performance head), hang three sidedraft Webers on it, and plumb in a nitrous system. And then show the Euro-car guys with their prissy (the site doesn't like my prefered adjective and they're probably right open-back driving gloves what an American pushrod six can do!

Edit: I should say here that I have nothing against anybody's Chevy (or anything else), have owned a '56 convertible, a '67 El Camino and a '63 Stingray roadster that I sometimes see at the local car shows, and I liked them all.

 

Down under in aussie-land, Ford sells a DOHC 24V I-6. If that ain't hot enough, they also offer a turbo version. Granted, it's based off the smaller car 177/200/250 sixer, but still.......

 

Is a 12v gas I6 more desirable than a 24v of the same displacement, down under in Aussie-land , just like the Cummins diesel 12v vs. 24v, here in the States? Inquiring minds need to know! Haha

 

Some Aussie heads are also cross-flow as well which never hurts. This is an interesting thread. I tend to agree with those who are just willing to accept the simple fact that the 300 is, was and ever shall be a low-end torque producer built for brute strength rather than high rpm and high HP. If you can move a house off its foundation at 2500 rpm and less than 200 ponies, who the hell cares how freakin' fast you can go? The fact is that there aren't many gas engines that can pull like a 300 especially down where it does in the rpm band. The line of thinking that necessarily equates performance with HP is completely out of place with the likes of the 300. Race performance, ok... but its not the ONLY kind of "performance". Ford built the 300 for a different purpose and it succeeds remarkably.

 

I don't know the Frenchtown Flyer personally. I have never met him or talked to him. I have read a lot of what he has written on another forum. As far as I know, the engine in his race car shown in the video above is a stock block with a stock factory forged crank and (I believe) stock rods with high strength bolts. There is really nothing "exotic" about the bottom end. But from what I have read, I think he would say that he has no fear of spinning his 300 to 7000 rpm over and over again. With the more common cast crank, I personally would not hesitate to spin a properly built 300 to 6000 RPM without fear of it breaking. Compare that to a Chevy 400 SB V8, which has basically the same bore and stroke as the 300 and also came with a cast crank, I would not feel comfortable spinning the 400 past 6000 on a regular basis either.

The "exotic/expensive" part of Frenchtown Flyer's engine is the head (in terms of components that is. The most exotic/expensive part is his years of experience in porting and polishing and getting the most out of the head). It is a Ford factory experimental cross-flow head. Those heads are extremely rare and very expensive (if you could find someone who was willing to sell one). As you pointed out, cutting and welding together something like two Chevy LSx heads is a cool solution for a race engine. Or, if you are talking about a drag race engine, you can get a very nice solid aluminum head for the 300 that flows very well. Lay down your money and bolt it on.

If you compare the bottom end of the 300 to a comparable V8 (like the 302), I am not convinced that the 300 has any disadvantage as far as factory production parts are concerned. The 300 has two more rod journals to sling around, but each of these has only ONE rod/piston attached compared to TWO for the V8. That's a lot of extra mass on the journal end of the V8 crank plus the extra counterweight needed to balance it. The rotating mass of those two extra journals in the 300 is no big deal. And with 7 main bearings compared to 5 in the V8, I personally thing the 300 bottom end is more capable than the V8. Now, of course, with the V8 you have the availability of exotic crankshaft and other race components.

The real "weakness" of the 300 is the head, combined with the fact that it displaces 50 cubic inches per cylinder - big cylinders with poor flowing heads. If we assume that we are talking about a street engine, then the only practical solution is some mild porting and polishing of the stock head (possibly with the addition of slightly larger valves). With a basically stock engine, properly built with high strength bolts, etc., an aftermarket cam, 4 bbl intake and good exhaust, I think you could easily get 250 HP for very little investment. This is about double the factory HP. For the same money and work spent, you could get more HP out of a V8. No argument there.

The OP was suggesting that you would have to spend huge bucks to get high HP out of a 300 compared to a V8. I guess I would agree, based mainly on the cost/availability of a good head. The 300 is a good, strong, race capable engine with a cylinder head designed for a bull dozer. If your goal is to get the most HP for money and work invested, pass on the 300. It's the guys who want "something different" who pour the money and work into the 300.

 

But FF spins his Big Six that high for only a second or two at a time. What if he were a roundy-round racer or roadracer; I still say the small-blocks will live at very high revs better than our sixes. And I don't think I'm dissing our engines in saying so.

As for 4-valve heads, engiineer and engine-builder David Vizard, who has done more dyno pulls and flow-tests than almost anyone, says they are mostly a marketing scam. Vizard says that, other things being equal, a 2-valve head, due to its superior low-speed swirl action, is superior to a 4-valve head. Superior up to a change-over point in the neighborhood of 4000 rpm, after which the 4-valve head makes superior power. That is to say, a 2-valve head is superior in the rpm range in which most of our street engines spend 97% of their time! Our REAL cars and trucks, not our toys. Oh, I think that Aussie rework of the Ford Small Six is muy cool, and would gladly put one in a T-bucket or an early Sixties Falcon tricked out for outlaw street drags, and for the considerable cost of having one shipped here I'd have a unique show-and-tell for the car shows. But I still like that turbo 240 in a quick Fairlane that is a cheap daily driver during the week.

 

Very valid point about the multi-valve heads. However, the smaller size of the multi valves allows for a higher velocity of incoming air/fuel charge, even at lower RPM, which leads to more efficient burning, and lower emissions. Not just a marketing scam, afterall.

 

Ok, I gotta add some too....
Sure it's no hopped up 460, but 300's can run pretty darn good. Case in point, mine. I just did typical bolt ons(cam, intake, 4bbl, header), and it is the best of both worlds. Runs tame like a 6 in town, even with a slight choppy idle, and when you need the extra punch of the 4bbl it's there. In a pickup that actually works & hauls, it's a pullin machine. I will say in all honesty, my 67 F100 is faster than the 48 F1 I had 15 years ago with a similarly built 302. I dont go looking for races, but it'll hang with a lot of V8's in town. Pull a heavy load with a 302, and you'll be waiting for the rpm to get to 3k so it can start to pull. The 4V 300 is ready from idle to 4500rpm.
Try to make something that it's not? It can be whatever you make it to be. Sure, the head is small. Forced induction is one answer to small ports. Got more money? weld up a couple GM LS heads, or 351C heads. Those of us with 300s really like em for what they do....Run great, and run forever.

 

love my mods for off road action but for a 300 in a F250 it can haul butt on the highway will be tow'n my 6100 pound 31 foot trailer come march