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No, if anything, the 240/300 is a development of the 262 & 7-main 200 block, but they really don't look anything like each other. I'm not fully sure of the history. I do have some info & pics here: http://www.geocities.com/edwins63/I6ID.html though. Hope this helps.
Edwin
The 215/223/262 I-6 (’52-’67), according to what I've been able to find, had little to do w/ the development of the 240/300 I-6 (’65-‘96). Even the Intake & Exhauste manifolds are on the Opposite sides from each other. Though The 262 didn’t live up to what it’s design team promised & FoMoCo needed a Big Block I-6 engine for their trucks & Industrial sales.
Of the 144/170/200/250 I-6s (’60-’85) being an influence for the 240/300 I-6s, the 200 I-6 was intro’d is ’63, 2 years prior to the introduction of the 240/300 I-6 in ‘65. So it’s possible that FoMoCo seeing that 7 Mains were the ticket, but I’ve yet to find any documentation that eludes to that it directly influence the design team.
240-300 I-6 is a complete new design introduced in 1965...not based on any previous Ford engine.
The 250 (7 main bearing) engine is slightly longer than a 200...a customer of mine back 30 odd years ago had to do some hammered firewall modifications to fit a 250 into a '65 Mustang. The result wasn't pretty.
The 144-170's had oil burning problems during 1960-61. The 1962 and later 170's were somewhat better but not up to the standards of the 200, which is a fairly easy swap for the 144-170's.