Another 2k.......my wife would kill me. Honey, if you happen to read this, I really don't want a blower....

 

I should have left the budget word out, although I enjoyed your comments. What I was wondering is how high of horsepower/torque can a reliable street Flathead be built to and be reliable. Sounds like 250hp with a blower, how much do they run.

 

I read about and drooled over the Cornhuskers blower package, but it's about $2500. Here's the link: http://www.cornhuskerrodandcustom.net/parts.htm

My machinist was referring to a little small blower setup like this. He said the few he has worked with were fairly mild and very streetable, not too hard to tune or maintain.

An idea I have thrown out to a couple of forums but have yet to recieve much comment on is turbo-charging a flathead. If a guy went with used turbos and fabricated the tubing, etc, I think you could achieve a few pound of boost pretty cheap. But, then you have turbo lag to deal with. A bigger crank could help diminish that problem, give you more low RPM power to tide you over until the turbos spool up. It would sure be unique anyway....

Hell, with my luck I'd screw up the wastegate settings and blow my little pistons up through my hood.....I better get back to reality and just live with 150hp.....

Gary

 

Blown you reasonably get 250HP and 280 Lb.Tq. (according to http://www.flatheaders.com/blown.html ) which isnt bad, seeing as thats a bit more then a stock '69 302 truck engine (225hp), and that moves allong.

As for the turbos... a twin turbo setup with slightly smaller turbos would reduce the lag (or you could go crazy on a show truck; I know porsche uses 4 small turbos on some of there cars for minimum lag ).

I'm not sure how expensive a single or twin turbo flathead setup would be to rig, but I think it would be able to fit comfortably under the hood.

 

To get to the "High Horse Power" (see above post) that these Flat Motors are capable of, your "Streetability" will suffer.
Listen to the link below, Its a Flathead with a 4" crank a small over bore a 2 Carb setup and a 400 Jr cam, which is a Race Cam that is difficult to drive in a light vehicle.

http://media.putfile.com/400jr-sound

 

Good point, two small turbos would probably be the way to go. ANd there sure is enough room in these engine compartments of ours....

 

Yikes, that engine would be a pain to drive in town. That is a cool audio clip, though. Do you have any others showing the sounds of different cams?

Gary

 

There are a few clips floating around, thats the only one I kept.
I'll be using that cam in my 48 Panel.

Now days the comversation goes somewhat like this:
WoW whatcha got in that?
A Flathead.
A What?
A Flathead Ford
Oh, Can I see it?
(Open the hood)
Huh, Never seen one before, Is it Fast?
(Reaching over and rapping the throttle) What do you think?

 

Haha, I love it. It's nice to have something unique, isn't it?

I had a lot of fellow gearheads telling me to ditch the old flathead, but I couldn't bring myself to go with the flow....and the cool factor is great!

Did you guys ever read my post about the coolest car I've ever witnessed? It was about a '51 Buick (sorry, I know it's not a Ford, but bear with me) with the original straight 8. This was a $100,000 plus car with Jag suspension and all that, but the coolest thing was he kept the straight 8, made his own intake with port fuel injection, and built his own headers split to twin turbos that were fully intercooled and the whole works. He built a crank-triggered ignition and one coil-per-plug like the new engines. His custom programmable ECM controlled all of this, even let him set the wastegates. He built it so nice it looked like the car came from the factory that way. He just wanted something different, and liked new technology on old cars. It wasnt' super fast, he built it fairly mild and only claimed 300hp with a low boost setting. (he's scared of scattering that engine, and had no intention of pushing it real hard). I drooled all over this thing, and kept thinking how sweet that would be to do to a flathead....big dreams I guess...

Gary

 

Dreams are never too big.
Your turbo flatmotor is no bigger dream than my twin overhead cam 300+ straight six is.
And no I'm not from Unique, New York, just from Erie, PA

 

Well with something as involved as your dream, or my dream of port fuel injection and building a twin turbo setup, it takes a lot more time than money, that would be my biggest challenge. I should note that the Buick I described was built by a guy that retired early from a railroad engineer job, so building this car was basically his full time job, 6 days a week....what a luxury...

Gary

 

In the early 70's I ran a "J" Altered with a built 300 six. It was alot of fun until NHRA changed the rules and put "Breakouts" into effect. I never believed in using the brakes until after the finish line.

My 1st car was a 40 Poncho with a straight 8 3x2's and split exhaust.

Guess I can't leave anything alone.

 

What the heck is a Poncho?

 

Pontiac
Flathead straight 8, original 3 speed that I converted to a floor shift, using a "Keystone Floor Shift Conversion" for $19.95.
I liked the way it shifted after driving my Mothers 55 Ford with a 352 Merc Interceptor and a 3 spd. and believe me Momma could row those gears.

 

Thanks guys for the intresting posts, this is the most intresting one i have been in in awhile. I have recently purchased some old issues of Hop Up magazine, and early 50's Car Craft. I really enjoyed the articles in them, I sure miss the old days when these old cars were all over the place.
I aquired a Flathead out of a boat in the early 70's, the block was bad but it had a race can Hi-Rise dual manifold, I put it in a 1940 pickup. I sold it before I ever had a chance to drive it, boy that engine was strong. I sure wish I had it to finish it now.