What was the highest factory horsepower rating for the 292??
 

What was the highest factory horsepower rating for the 292 in a passenger car?? And what was the model year for this highest rating?

And what was the last year for a factory four barrel 292?? I am guessing 1956 for a passenger car 292 and 1964 for a truck 292. Am I correct??

I have a 1960 motors manual and it lists a 212 bhp version for 1957 only. That seems to be the peak. The carbureter chart only lists engines as "V8", so can't tell if the 4vs are 292s or 332-352s after '58. There were 4v truck 292s through '64.
Andrew

Yes it looks like 212 hp in 1957. The peak HP for a 312 also occurred in '57, 300 HP supercharged. Keep in mind that the automakers of that era almost always fudged up the performance figures. Ford also overstated their compression ratios by 8% or more.

I dont think 4V carburetors were ever standard equipment on Y truck motors.
The last 4V on cars was 1957, except for 1958 Mercury 312s.

Just to clarify this one point, in '62, and probably other years, there was the 170 bhp "Heavy Duty" 292 for trucks with 4 bbl Holley, high capacity fuel pump, forged steel crankshaft, sonic tested and stress relieved block, sodium filled exhaust valves, and various other upgrades for "severe" service. That's according to the brochure.
Andrew

Andrew, good point on the HD motors. My 56 motor manual says that truck motors of that year also had sodium filled exhaust valves.

What size F series was this 4V 292 heavy duty-- installed?? F600s?? And would the intake manifold ports be the larger size ( pre 1960) or the smaller size?

For 1962 anyway, the HD 292 was available as an option on all 500 - 600 F and C series, which are all that are covered in the brochure I have. It's not std. on any of them.
Regarding the ports, not being a Y-block expert all I can say is they would almost certainly be the smallest available, since that is what you would want on a truck engine in order to lower the power band. But that's a guess. The HD only puts out a tiny bit more power at about the same rpm as the the std. truck 292, presumably just from the extra carburetion. It's essentially a durability upgrade.
Andrew

Could you post this brochure in your gallery??

How about this. The whole darn thing is on the item page. Don't know why I botherd to buy it.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWN:IT&ih=011

aharvey2:

I took a look--interesting. I didnt know that the midduty/heavy duty 292 had so many upgraded features.It is surprising that adding a 4 barrel to the 292 results in only an additional 11 horsepower.

Horsepower requires the motor to breathe, and compression helps too. When a 4V carb is placed on an otherwise low performance motor, power gain will be minimal. It requires the whole package.

Well--I wonder if the torque curve was improved by much when Ford went to the 4v carbureter on the HD 292?? Usually a 4v causes the torque peak to go higher on the RPM level--if everything else stays the same. I suspect that the cam is also different between the 2v and 4v factory truck engines.And this difference in cam profiles probably is the reason for only 11 horsepower diffference.

I also noticed that Ford also had the crossover pipe on the 4v version of 292---seems silly for Ford to do that. The added expensive of a 4v Holly should have warranted the small expense of dual exhaust.

I was surprised to see the cross over pipe on the brochure. Isnt the HD 292 supposed to have Rams Horns?

Again I'm no expert, but none of the y block medium duty F-series I've seen either in person or on the net (ebay etc.) have had rams horns. I'm guessing they were mostly made for the C-series - they couldn't run that cross over pipe right under the seat, which is were it would have been, without a major heat problem. The std. duty 292 in my C600 has them.
Andrew