I found this on a different form and since he is talking about an engine swap of mamoth proportions in a 1984 350 i thought everyone here would enjoy this
there is also a link at the bottem of this post to a video of a stock Ford GAA engine running, And a site dedicated to the engine.

By the way i don't know if its mentiond in here but the GAA engine is an 1100 CID DOHC Hemi

This has to be the coolest thing ever.


Originaly posted on H.AM.B Forum By TankManBob.

Greetings: I'd like to continue and add to the discussion about the Ford GAA V-8. My rod project involves building up one of these engines and putting it in a 1984 Ford F350 cab / chassis donor truck. The truck is a long wheelbase regular cab dually with 6.9 diesel and 4-speed manual trans. I am adding a 36" cut down sleeper behind the cab and then a 6' flat bed with my cargo being (3) 16-gallon polished beer kegs on cradles, which will double as extra fuel tanks. The truck is to be built up as a "driver" and not a trailer queen. My motto in building it is to keep it "Simple Yet Functional - Like a Sledgehammer." The GAA engine is 33" wide, only 3" wider than a Ford 4.6, and will fit the engine bay with 1.5" to spare on each side. If I offset the engine 1" to the right, I won't even have to move the vacuum booster. The heater box, however, will have to go. The GAA engine is only 3" longer than a Ford 300" truck 6, but will require notching the firewall for lengthwise clearance. I want to add a Detroit Locker to the Dana 70 axle. The engine requires an automatic trans, as the engine's torque cannot be controlled with a manual trans and riding the clutch. I'm starting out with a Ford 4R100 and will changeover to an Allison 6-speed after I've saved up a whole lot of pennies and dimes.

On to the engine: my #1 engine as built up is stock except for carburetion and ignition. The 2 Stromberg 2-bbls have been replaced by 3 Demon 4-bbls and the very weak WW2 era ignition has been replaced by 2 MSD distributors with 6AL controllers. I will try to attach a couple of pics of the engine to this memo. The stock engine as installed in Sherman tanks had 1,000 lbs of torque or more at every rpm from just above idle to redline. If it were left totally stock, when the light turned green there'd be 1,000 lbs of torque to pull away from the light with. With the changes made, this should increase to around 1,200 lbs of torque or more. The engine is all aluminum, but "light" is relative. "Light" means around 900-950 lbs. The block itself is very light, around 200 lbs, weighing less than a 350 Chevy cast iron block. Of course, with the 5.4" bores, its like swiss cheese. Two average men can pick up a block and carry it around with no problem. However, the crank weighs around 135 lbs, each rod weighs over 6 lbs (no use quoting gram weights here) and even the pistons weigh over 5 lbs each. The cut down flywheel weighs around 100 lbs. Still, there's no more weight on the front end than there would be with a 460 or diesel with a snow plow attached. In fact its less. The heads are DOHC, 4-valves. The exhaust headers are of fabricated stainless steel and are both light and streamlined. A whole lot of air goes into and out of the GAA.

With the GAA, its tough to grasp just "how 'big' is 'big?'" Its bigger than (3) Chevy 350s, bigger than (2) Dodge V-10 rams plus an additional PT Cruiser 4, bigger than 2 1/2 Chrysler 426s, etc. If someone had a built-up Boss at 550 cubes, it would only be as big as one of the cylinder banks on the GAA. If somebody had a GM 502 crate motor, you could say, "another 48 cubic inches and you'd be half as big as my Ford." And all the power is right at the bottom end where its needed for street use. How about fuel economy? My trans has a 30% overdrive, and with a converter lockup, an add-on US Gear (0r Gearvendors) 22% overdrive, a 3.54 gearset in the Dana 70, and 265/75x16 tires, the truck will pull around 1080 rpms at 60 mph. I think 5-7 mpg is reasonable, which is in line with many other street rods, especially those with tunnel rams, blowers and / or gears.

Its just another Ford truck with another Ford V-8. Only more so. The truck is being built to putter around in and drive to car shows on weekends. And if I can pull this off, I'll look forward to meeting some of you folks at McDonalds (or Burger Doodle) on Friday nights.
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YouTube - Sherman Tank Engine

Home The guy who runs this site is also the one building this truck.

 

can you say: bent frame?

Even if he can pull that off I doubt an F-series truck could with stand the kind of torque that thing could put out.

Still a neat idea.

 

Sounds freakin sweet...but yea hope the truck handles it...you might have to brace the crap out of it

 

Could you even use a truck like that? Wheres the practicality? Now in a hot rod that would pull some sweet time slips.

 

I love it! Every time someone does something like this, everyone learns a little bit and we get to see something that is totally out of hand. Bring it on!

 

With a project like that he may be better off leaving lots of flex in the frame, cause he's never gonna get that truck frame braced up enough to prevent it from torquing. at least with flex its more likely to return to its original shape

 

Yes i can say bent frame. I just cant imagine how much torsional stress wil be on everything

I agre with NavyMIDN08 though, It probroly wold be better to let it flex and hope it returns to normal, then having braces that would take the twisted shape and hold it

 

So the original thread was 3 years ago, and not one picture posted of the project.

I'm really surprised he wasn't flamed/banned on the HAMB for even mentioning a vehicle newer than 1964.

 

true, now i agree with the twisting

 

I know this post is old, but I'm curious to know if anything ever happened with this build.