You are right about 4 speeds, as much as I can recall. I'm not sure when Ford began to install them, but your dates of 59 for the full sized car and 57 for the Corvette are correct, I believe.

409s and 348s were not all that common. A friend in school had a 61 Impala with a hi po 348, 304 horse, backed by a hi po Powerglide. A relative had a duded out 64 Impala SS with the lo po 409. Actually, I had a 409 engine myself, but I never ran it in anything. I don't recall 409s as being very common at all.

Actually, the Mustang Hypo 289, the 271 horse version, was a pretty hot little car. The 271 hp gave a fair account of itself. When Chevy brought out its Camaro, the experience was the same: for every dyed in the wool performance person who bought a hi po Mustang or Camaro, 100 must have been sold to young girls getting their first job as a bank teller and a first car: a 6 cyl pony car.

I'll comment on this, too: the performance of Mustangs later in the decade was very very potent -- not conservative!

I had a friend who had a 428 SCJ Mustang, another friend had a 351 HO for 72, I think, and then there was my experience with a 429 SCJ Mustang. The 351 was an incredibly potent machine, even tho the compression was down for that year.

With the 429 SCJ, I was cruising the drag in my 64 GTO. It had a 69 400 from a GTO wand was considerably more potent than my 65 with the tripower 389. those new heads in 67 made a difference! Anyway, the 64 was with the 69 engine, weighed 3460 pounds at the local farm scale with about 1/2 tank of gas, had a 3.5 rear end (open) and a 4 sp. I took off the Q Jet and ran my old 65 tripower, which may have lost a little HP. But, it was quicker than my 65 with headers and a 373 rear by a long long shot. The car was good for 14s at the strip, dipping into the very high 13s on occasion after headers were adeed to it.

Anyhow, I was out one nite cruising, and had picked off 3 little Mustangs who were out terrorizing kids out in their moms' Ramblers, when this later Mustang began tro trail me. I heded for the interstate and got on the very long entrance ramp. His lights were way behind me and I had confidence in my new radial tires to take me around the bend and onto the hiway. Ater the ramp straightened out, I punched it in 3rd at about 70 and saw his lights way way in back, and over the racket of my old Poncho, I HEARD HIM SHIFT DOWN AND GET ON IT! I was doing 90 when he went around me onto the hiway like a rocket. My old 400 was wailin' and whinin' while I saw his tailights quickly down the hiway and over a bridge. Just like that, in the blink of an eye this happened!

I made inquiries about this bone stock looking Mustang, with the little pie pan hubcaps and trim rings. Turns out that he was fairly well known and no one seemed surprised that he blew my GTO off like I was driving some old lady's Rambler.

Hmmmm.

 

I am hesitant to interrupt the exchange here, but starting a new thread didn't seem right either. Wild Bunch, you said a "312 is about at its limit at 3.83". Is that a 292/312? It has been stated more than once that the earlier 292 blocks have a good chance of being bored out to pretty good sizes, like 3.86 or 3.875. Is that not the case?

 

From the many sonic tests that I've read, where guys will send in results for from 1 to maybe 8 or 10 blocks, it appears that one can expect to hit water at the same bore size whether one is dealing with a 312 or a 292 block. I haven't kept up with the debate, but some folks feel as if Ford would take one block and finish it as another, since it has the same casting #.

What this means to me is that if you have a 312 or 292, they both would bore to the same size, potentially.

This said, there are always those who have the odd block thata, for some reason got thicker walls and were able to go larger. While there may be a few of those lucky ones, I suspect many more are just running with very thin cylinder walls. There is a point where the power gained is offset by flexible walls that don't give a good seal. Such motors may run, but they will run hot and not last long. I'd rather err on the side of thick walls.

Another thing that the test showed up was that there could be considerable core shifting when the blocks were cast. In other words, you had the same amount of metal, but it was all on one side. This, and what little I know about flatheads, has shaped my conjecture above that perhaps Ford's foundry techniques was not sufficiently accurate to cast larger bores in the Y block. some of the shifts that were reported were pretty large, so that when went aover 3.8, one was geting into risk-land, if a sonic test hasn't been done.

Added to this, the larger main bearing sizes on 312s had a tendency to crack into the bolt holes of the main caps' fasteners, and so it makes sense to me that someone lookiing for size would start with the late, stongest 292 block and turn the 312 crank mains down to 292 size, and build on that basis. Especially, since good 312 blocks are not as common as the 292 blocks.

But, we all pays our money and takes our chances, as they say.

I'm not racing the things, so I have the luxury of staying with my little motors. Altho, I did hit water at .060 over on my 239. It was a pinhole and required a sleeve.

One of the things that I tried was sticking tapered stuff thru the freeze plug holes and seeing how much space was between the cylinder walls on the outside. That gave a way to roughly figure how think the walls were in one dimension, at least. No surprises, but it was at least an interesting experiment.

BTW, digress away, I'm guiltier than most!

 

Well, i must say, this topic turned out to have a lot of information, including that of the Yblock as well. Good luck.......Janet

 

All said and done; the FE is a true Y Block and simply a natural progression for an engine that was really designed as a truck replacement for the hot running and crack prone flathead. The only reason it went into cars in 54 was that Ford got wind of the 265 bowtie.

You also have to remember the lead time in engineering in the pre computer days. The FE hit the drawing boards in 55 and was always destined to be the flagship motor for the horsepower wars.

My biggest gripe is why it took until 65 for the FE to show up in trucks?

More history: Ford had a few supercharged 54's courtesy of Judson/McCullough for demo purposes. The HP race was already rolling back then as the big Hudson 308 Twin H 6 was tearing up the stock car tracks since 51. I drove a circle track Hudson Twin H (39 coupe body) in 57-8 and it ate any Ford it came across.

Ford lost the muscle car race in 64 when the Chevy 425 Porcupine motor hit Daytona and released as a few Z-11 Impalas. The rest was history as the 396 came out in 65 to be quickly followed by the 427 and them the 454 of LS6 fame. I was running a very modified B-FX 64 GTO thru 68 and the Fords just never seemed to be able to be do more than occassional wins.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, Carl, but I recall Roy Bernal's Mach 1 "Yellow Fever" being a pretty successful car, winning a national or two back in the end of the 60s.

Hudson Twin H -- now, that's an interesting machine. Isn't it funny that when you look at the 1949 and 1950 specs, that an old flathead 6 generated the same 135 HP that the fancy hi-tech OHV Olds did in those years? combined with Hudson's superior handling and Smokey Yunick, no wonder they were terrors!

Carl, you and I can recall brighter days, before all of us were scattered to the winds years ago by that terrible flame war, and had the sweetest place on the web... I've never been able to get Sum out of my mind -- remember, the guy who was building the lakster? Ever since, I've been wondering what a belly tank and a 308 Hudson would do in that Inline class the SCTA has for such engines...

I still do some "Cyber Cruzin" in my mind, do you?

 

Sorry, it was Hubert Platt that won the 68 Winternationals with a 428CJ.

 

Tim, I never said that Fords didnt win anything. But you prove my point by still being able to remember one that was outstanding.

Id have a hard time today trying to remember many Chevy or Mopar winners, there were too many and it all gets blurred at my age!

I spent a lot of time & money making my GTO competitive and came within a few hundredths of the record. My best was 11.97 but that took all the combined skills of many. Primarily Royal Pontiac where they performed magic when I ran the Woodward Ave street wars (towed from MA on long weekends), Swanson Pontiac from Lincoln, MA who were a superb help at the tracks and a host of friends who added to the cheering section.

Another group who I became friends with is Tasca Ford out of Cranston, RI who were the most competitive on the East Coast but even they had problems getting it to all play together. Their 428CJ and later a 429CJ as well as some small blocks were always good competition.

By 68 I was both married and a 389 just wasnt competitive. I went back to building shoebox customs and driving a few hot 60's era Corvettes, Camaros and Impalas as daily beaters into the 90's and beyond (a 68 SS396 ragtop rests in the barn). Also had a 36 5 window with a nice flatty at the first Peroria as I was living out that way by then.

Cars are long gone but still got the same wife. The only law she passed was I had to give up the racing circuits, stay home and be a daddy. All nighters in the garage were OK; just as long as I wasnt out carousing and street racing.

With modern technology the Hudsons balky oiling and lower end could be overcome just like has been done with the Ford flatty. The sound of a split manifold 308 and straight pipes still brings chills.

Well as far as the ole RRT, Sum, Thunderchicken, Wild Bill and others I pretty much stay away from those areas today. Too many check writing pastel pansies on those clone sites these days. And HAMB is just too crowded and into the scene nonsense; Ryan just became TOO successful!

 

I recall Tasca Ford cards from reading mags. Seems they were pretty big. I don't know why I recalled that Hubert Platt thing, either. That did stick in my mind however. I also recall Prudomme, Kalitta, Thompson, et al running Cammers. Ford can't be faulted, tho, since they put lots of effort into other forms of racing and did pretty well: LeMans, Indy, and all of that. then, the plug was pulled...

For some reason, altho I always thought that the Boss 429 was a very awesome street machine, none of the Shotguns did much on the Can AM circuit. Chevy did some, until Porsche came and cleaned everyone's clock. Trans am was interesting in that several competitive cars were involved.

No, I never got on with the RRT successor. Once the original was thru, I left it all. I enjoyed it very much while it lasted. I can't recall the fellow who built hemis who ended up leaving (he always wanted to go to Show Lo Arizona), but I do recall that they baited him unmercifully and I saw how the honchos on the other place were egging on the weenies to come over to our place and bust chops. Never could respect any of that crowd, after that. Too bad. Cyber Cruzin was the first, and it was the best.

But back to the belly tanker, I wonder if 6 ports and 6 cylinders of a Hudson would breathe as well as 4 ports and 8 cylinders of a Packard...

 

Well, I cant fault Ford for trying and succeeding with the GT40 along with the 427 cammer on the dragstrip.
And they are surely not playing around these days either. A good friend has a 2003 Cobra GT and that thing is scary! There is also plenty of goodies in the Ford Performance arena with the small and big blocks; a new muscle car era is in full swing. But I will probably have to make a leap to Mopar later this year; the wife and I are discussing a 300C or Ram wagon. Always wanted a Hemi!

With only 3 years of decent Y block production the aftermarket never got enough time to develop goodies much past some intakes and cams. And I certainly wont be paying $3K or so for aluminum heads if they ever get finished. Not when I can buy the best for a Chevy for under $1200!
At least the flathead is alive and well; even a new 350 cube block is out.

Packard?!? Nice for old people but that straight 8 never could get much beyond 3000 rpm without coming apart. They were a good boat engine with a governor set at 2500.
If I wanted to play with a long 8 it would be a 320 Buick; there was quite a bit of development done on them in the 70-80's. They were also a popular boat engine as well as in busses.

Ive always been dissapointed at the lack of interest in the big MEL motors. Out of the box power and torque of the 430/462 was incredible and you couldnt even hear them idling. Lots of engines in boneyards but try and find any tranny adaptors or stick setups; they get big Pesos on Ebay. IMO they were a world of difference better than the Chevy W, the only other engine to share the combustion chamber design. A dream 50's Effie F350 tow truck or COE ramp truck would be a 462 and TCI built C6.

Back on the forum subject; anyone out this way have a good ECZ 312 for sale? A 57 T Bird friend is waving cash around and he wont take a 292.

 

The combustion chamber in the block/slanted deck design used by the MEL, Super Duty Ford, and the Mark I Chevy Big Blocks was based on the 3 liter Mercedes 6 cylinder, an engine greatly admired in Detroit during the mid-50's. Chevy discovered the breathing limitations during the 348's development, but was too far along with the design to change it (it was eventually revised when the Mark IV 396 was introduced, which was based on the 427 'Mystery' race engine.). Since high R.P.M. use was not really required of the MEL (and certainly not the Super Duty) Ford never revised them. As for comparing the Y-Block with the Chevy Small Block, I don't think it is really fair to do so. The Y-Block was really designed for Ford trucks and Lincolns, and was used to replace the flathead V-8 in Ford passenger cars as an afterthought. Ford had actually intended to make their then-new OHV 6 the only engine available in Ford passenger cars, and when they found out that both Chevy and Plymouth were developing V-8's, the decision was made to offer the Y-Block. The Y-Block was a generation older than the Chevy Small Block, and I think (and my experience backs this up) that the Ford is at a disadvantage in every respect. I AM NOT SAYING THAT THE Y-BLOCK IS A BAD DESIGN, it's just that I have to admit that the Chevy Small Block bordered on a stroke of genius. It has wonderful cylinder heads, a reliable lubricating system, light reciprocating weight, and enough bore spacing for a 4" cylinder (yes, the 400 was a tad bigger than 4", but that caused some problems). A thin-wall block, stamped stud mounted rockers, valley covering intake manifold, and a short skirt block made for a very light engine. How good was it? I say that it influenced just about every domestic passenger car V-8 designed after 1955, until the Ford Modular. It's had ONE major re-design since 1955. It has replaced countless flatheads and Y-Blocks in early Fords throughout the country. And it is still manufactured.

 

Actually, the design of the "plank" head was developed in the 20s by SD Heron, an engineer at the Royal Aircraft Factory in Great Britain, and who later moved to the USA. Heron also invented hollow stemmed sodium cooled exhaust valves.

I would disagree: They were meant for similar uses in similar competing model lines.

Ford always had 3 engine lines: The Lincoln Y replaced the large 336 cu in flathead 8 in big trucks and Lincolns (which had replaced the V12, used only in Lincolns), the Y Block replaced the flathead V8, and the I6 replaced the flathead 6 used in the lower cost Ford line (which itself replaced the V8 60).

Actually, the cylinder heads of the SBC, like the similar ones in B/RB Chryslers, placed the plug at the far end of the combustion chamber. This limited the amount of compression that was actually useable. Popups would be used and could be used to achieve a high compression, but once they were high enough to go more than about 10.5-11.0 : 1, they lost more power thru inefficient flame travel than they gained thru higher compression.

Ford, like all of the other manufacturers, was keen to exploit the uses of high octane fuel developed for WW2 aircraft engines. Tthe Y Block was developed with those advantages in mind, just like all of the other OHV engines of the post WW2 era.

Ford was no stranger to good lubricating systems. The flathead V8 had a reliable system back when Chevy was still using dippers and poured babbit in their stovebolt 6s. The Y was no different. The sideoiler system used in Ys and 427 Fords was widely accepted as being the best way to oil a bottom end. There was nothing wrong with the oiling system of the Y -- but poor quality oils and people who didn't observe proper oil changes did cause problems. That is not the fault of the design.

The bore spacing of the Y, the SBC, and the A/LA Mopar are all the same, at 3 3/8".

The SBC wasn't thin walled until 67-68. It was common to bore 283 to 4", making a 301 before this. They were not thin walled and would take the same overbore as most other engines of the 50s and early 60s. The first true thin walled V8 was the Ford 221, predecessor of the 289/302, and then Cadillac copied that in the 1963 version of their 390, and Olds in their 1964 330. Ford had always been king of the foundry process with cast iron, which is why they were able to use cast cranks as far back as the early flatheads, while other manufacturers stuck with more expensive forgings.

I'm sorry, but if you consider those contraptions an advance, we have a very different view of engineering. Is this why drag racers would go to great expense to convert their bow ties to shaft mounted rockers? Is this why bow tie owners would drill and pin, and later use screw in studs? The adjustment of the rocker almost made sure that the rocker arm geometry would never be correct, thus causing premature wear on the valve guides.

This is a good time to point out that cam-lifter alignment from the factory of SBCs was always a problem, causing the cam lobes to wear flat. I don't recall any engine of the 50s-70s having more problem with this than SBCs.

Do you really like having to pull the distributor and reset the timing when you remove the intake? I wonder why drag racers went to such expense to build and buy manifolds for SBCs that were isolated from hot oil-duplicating what the Y came with from the factory -- an isolated manifold? Did you like squirting goo in the gaps of those SBC manifolds, where the front and rear rails met the heads? Did you use a voodoo doll to ensure that they wouldn't leak? How about the same for that horrid 4 piece oil pan gasket, which wanted to leak around the rear main? Ugh! Spare me from that stuff! Give me a Y Block design with a 1 piece gasket, any day. I guess Chevy thought so, too -- their SBC is a Y Block now...

Yep, the Y block weighed 625#, and the SBC weighed 600#. It was lighter by 4%

The only engine that I can see the SBC influencing was the Mopar B/RB, and that, in the cylinder head.

They lightwieghted the block in 1968. The last one I saw on a crate was aluminum, had a Y block skirt, and had tall and narrow ports like an FE Ford. I guess that's progress over there at Chevy.

There have always been those in the car world for whom it was easier to do what someone else did, rather than to think for themselves. It was always easier to take Hot Rod magazine's word as gospel, when they were so biased that one wonders if they were getting quarters from the tooth fairy after each "wonderful chevy" article they ran.

And one of the complaints about Henry's Model T was that it was still being offered after it was long obsolete. Problem with these people from Detroit is that they think they can still pass off the same old rehashed junk on the public and they can make money doing it. My Hondas have been engineered far better than any of that GM junk, and sad to say, better than the new Fords, too. I guess that's why GM went from having 65% of the US market to 25% today -- their superior engineering and their wonderful SBC.

 

I'm also sure that we all know now that those Rube Goldberg stamped rocker arms mounted on studs were a great example of Chevy engineering:

They stole the idea from the Pontiac design team, who was working on the 1955 287 in parallel with Cole & Co.'s effort on the 265.

 

Wild.bunch, good reading as always. Still marvel at your depth of knowledge.

 

OK, here is a question that I think is within the context of this thread. Using flat top pistons, what is the highest calculated compression possible in a 312.
The most I can come up with is 9.2. Right, wrong?