Thread: 50 flathead needs help

Tweet

i just got a flathead to rebuild and put into my 31 model A. im going to strip it down and completely over haul it. as for the car it is going to be themed as a traditional 50s hot rod. any help and pointers will be appreciated. the flathead is a 1950 ford flathead 8ba. i want to upgrade it all to make everything run perfect or as close to as i can. but i want to use your guys experience so i don't take to many steps in the wrong direction

if it were me i would go w/ offenhauser heads about $500, offy intake 200-$300 ?, 2 stromberg 97 carbs or 2 holley 94's, unless the motor will be really bored out and raced then you could go w/ 3 carbs. also fenton headers look nice if you wanna, i've heard that boring out to 3 3/16 is the biggest to go and still safe, but that's just going by what ive heard . other guys here know more about it than i do. aldo you could get a mercury crank and bump your inches up to 255....

Don't go crazy on the bore, flatties heat when the walls get thin. 40 over is lots, 30 is better.
A trick that works is to thump the empty block around on a wood floor, get physical with it till all the crud that built up over the last half century comes loose.The engine will cool much better after this treatment.

Before you put any money or effort into building up the engine you need to have a qualified machine shop check it for cracks and thin/erroded walls. Too many of these old flathead blocks are junk to start with, no sense spending a pile on machine work and parts before you know. Minor cracks can be repaired by the knowledgable, major ones, and thin walls can't.