What would have to be done to make the 534 motor sit, run, and power the 1948 Ford F-1?

 

Quite a lot, by the looks of things.....

 

I for one have no idea of what motor your referring to and with the wealth of experience on here the more info you can give the better as I would be shocked if someone had done , tried or at least contemplated it . And as with most things it may come down to ability . Good luck .

 

Eek...that's an 8.8 liter Ford Super Duty engine. The short answer is yes you could fit it in. BUT you'd have to make modifications to the inner fenders because it's too wide, mount your radiator on a custom bracket and have it above the motor kind of like the military Hummers had theirs because the engine compartment isn't deep enough, and don up some really hefty motor mounts onto a frame that IMHO just isn't strong or thick enough for such tremendous power. We're talking near 500 ft/lbs of torque. I'd say lose the existing frame and have one custom built.

 

401/477/534 V8's were installed in BIG Super Duty 1958/81 trucks.

Why anyone would want to install one of these heavy 'boat anchors' in their truck, I dunno.

 

You would need a large radiator for the 3 stage cooling. I imagine your tranmission choices would be limited.

 

That engine weighs close to 900 lbs. so that means you have to look seriously at the front suspension, axle, tires, steering, and either boxing or fish-plating the chassis. I think your best candidate would be a F-6 or above chassis and put your cab on it. You're not going to gain anything except for the "wow" factor. They are a "low-rev" engine comparatively speaking, but maybe you already know this. Would be cool though. My two cents.

 

You can get 500 + cubes out of a 460 engine

 

I don't think you'd want to attempt placing a 534 in anything less than a 2½ ton chassis. One bad hop across a bad set of railroad tracks would probably break the frame on anything less. I've got one here in a '53 Seagrave fire engine and my dad had one in a '66 F-900 tandem dump. They're solid, work-horse engines that last forever but you're barking up the wrong tree if you're thinking cubes = fast. And if you're thinking towing power it would just literally twist a half-ton frame in half.

 

Here is the Wikipedia link to the engine description.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Super_Duty_engine

In my humble opinion, (IMHO) this would NOT be a good choice for an F1 chassis. In fact from the description of the intake system, there will be zero options on any upgrades.

If you want BIG cubic inches, go get a 460 Ford stroked out to 514. Someone makes a crate engine of this. Ford Racing used to sell one. Now the only choice from them in a big cube engine is the stroked and bored 351 block out to 460 cubes. Link here:

https://performanceparts.ford.com/part/M-6007-Z460FFT

This is a Windsor block engine so it will fit very easily in an F-1 engine compartment. I have the 450 hp 427 version of this engine and it easily fit in with room to actually work on it.

My vote is for another engine choice.

Philip

 

Hey Trward,
Welcome aboard! Hmmm... We put a 351W in our '50 F1 with
an Edelbrock Top End kit for 400HP. It's a lot of engine for this old truck ....
I can't imagine you'd need any more HP.....

Looking good over there in Oklahoma.

Ben in Austin
1950 F1

 

Welcome to FTE tr. But my first question is why? These old trucks have lots of room to do most anything but you need to consider the whole truck. The suspensions on these trucks were designed for max 100 hp flathead V8 engines. So you will need to look at suspension changes. And then there are the obvious brake issues. And how about transmission, rear axle drive shaft, cooling, electrical system and much more. Having the biggest, most powerful engine doesn't mean anything if you can't do anything with it.

 

Need absolutely not . Want absolutely I went with the 408 stroker

 

Ok, it finally dawned on me that this is probably satire. So why not go big and drop in a stock Ford GAA V-8 engine? 500 HP and 1,000 cid. Would definitely give you the "wow" factor.