Thread: Flathead Newbee Needing Direction!

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That reminds me of a race I attended in 1956 when the NASCAR rules allowed you to run whatever the stock displacement was (plus some rebuild overbore) at the Hatfield 1/2 mile track in NJ. That was the last year for the Packard and they had a 400 cu. in. V8 as a stock displacement and the Packard in the race lapped the field over even some Oldsmobiles and Hudsons, never mind the Ford Y-blocks, and then suddenly Packard was gone! Now SBC 400s are a fairly standard class and wish I had the luck to find a 400 for my car. I almost spent my college money on a 1954 Ford Y-block Sunliner but later I found out that the '54 Y-block had a lot of problems with oiling the cam and rockers so I guess I made the right decision. In principle the Y-272 looked pretty good compared to the flathead 239 or even the Merc 255 but maybe it was 1957 till the Y-block was sorted out so if you want a Y-block avoid the '54-'56. Just for the sake of my old pet peeve, you can recall that while Ford was messing around cleaning up the Y-block, they had rejected the ARDUN developed under contract to Ford! Gee I wonder how many years will go by before some rodders have a hard time finding parts for the SBC 350?

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Don. I still have a 57 ford 312 block with a 4 barrel that I bought off someone about 15 yearsd ago. Someday I'll have to put it into something after a rebuild. The flathead engine will always be my favorite just because thats what I first learned about engines, and I just happen to love there looks and sound. With a couple of glasspacks, nothing sounds like a flattie!

Yeah, the back-off rumble from a flathead coming into a stoplight is real music! You know I never really understood why the SBC "won" over the Y-block. Maybe it was the stumble over the problems with the '54, but my family had a '55 and it ran well over 100,000 miles and by '57 the 312 you mention was pretty good except a bit heavy. I recall that the '50s Oldsmobile engines were very popular in Oldsmobiles but the "wrong side" starter doomed that transplant to only a few rare cases. I guess the extra weight of the Y-block was a problem and they are a bit wider but still I wonder why the SBC became the dominant transplant even with a shorter stroke. I gave in to the SBC conversion only because I could not find a good flathead block and I figured I would have a lot of other problems so why mess with an engine out of the mainstream. Let's not forget the early problems with the long water pump on the later 260 and 289 Ford engines. That's another frustration. The 289 is a really neat small, light engine but the short water pump is quite an expensive item and for a few years were simply not available. Well the situation is that the SBC is in fact dominant and cheap to build so I gotta hand it to guys like Daver and Ireland's Child who stayed with Ford. If I had a lot of money it would be interesting to build one of those "Clevor Fords", a Windsor block with Cleveland heads, that would be interesting but we are just bench racing at this point.

Don Shillady
Retired SCientist/teen rodder

Don you are right about the Olds starter problem. When the starter switchover bellhousing came out it made it a whole lot better. I still play with Olds engines, and bought a changeover bellhousing a few years ago at Daytona, but could never find the needed oil filter block off plate to make it work. Then, I was looking on Ebay one night, and some guy listed just about every filter block off plate made. There were two for the Olds engines in there, and I won both of them, so I finally can finish up the Olds 394 in my '39. I've still got one more 394 engine sitting for some other project, so I just need to find another bellhousing.

As someone who grew up shoving Olds engines into every car I could, they were great engines for the times. Tons of power, and the aftermarket responded with all kinds of hop up equipment. They have always been my engine of choice, now for sentimental reasons more than anything.

Don

Don it was the intakes in the cylinder heads for one thing. If you look at the intake ports they are cast one above the other, so the intake port had some interesting bends. The later model Fords came out with the regular rectangular ports. There must be somewhere on the net where we can get a picture of a 272 y block head.

Actually there are several reasons why the 'Y' block died, for no better term. These are just a few.

- The heads, as Southerner has said - strange shapes to the intake ports. See the attachment for some of the aftermarket manifolds.
- Size - the bloomin' - thing weighed over a hundred pounds more than a SBC, was 3-4 inches wider as well as longer.
- Lousy external oiling system - plus the head oil feed holes plug up, destroying rocker shafts and arms.
- Impossible to easily maintain mushroom shaped tappets. You had to pull the engine apart to change them out, tho they were solids
- The 312 cid engine had mains that were so large they compromised the integrity of the block. I blew a couple by having the main webs actually pull out.
- Lack of ability to produce high RPM's - again, partially due to bearing size and breathing restrictions.
- Leaks - these always leaked oil form somewhere, regarless of how well it was assembled - seals, valve covers, external oil pump or feed tube.

One positive though - first with a spin on oil filter.

I ran these for years, suffered many of the indignaties that I spelled out above, but was seldom beaten at a stop light grand prix by a Chebbie, but then, the car was a very light '53 Ford Tudor, formerly housing a 283" flathead, but with a transplanted 312" heart (did I say it had the '57 blower cam and heads with a Holley style 4bbl intake and a Carter AFB from a big block Buick ambulance??) Sigh !!! Those were the days.

Y-Block Head

Got a portside view of that head ?


You've still got your Y head...... Right

I ran these for years, suffered many of the indignaties that I spelled out above, but was seldom beaten at a stop light grand prix by a Chebbie, but then, the car was a very light '53 Ford Tudor, formerly housing a 283" flathead, but with a transplanted 312" heart (did I say it had the '57 blower cam and heads with a Holley style 4bbl intake and a Carter AFB from a big block Buick ambulance??) Sigh !!! Those were the days.


Uh, Dave, you don't happen to be from Pittsburgh area originally and your last name begins with "F", does it?? If so, I know the '53 you speak of, except I remember trips with the blower cam and heads. If this isn't you, the cars are almost identical, and it was one wicked little Ford, and won more than it's share of street races. This was circa 1960-63.

Don

I got both heads, Mine and the Y-Block: No I don't have a picture of the portside. Interesting items on the Y-Block. I had a friend who ran a 56 ford with a 292 and never had a leak or any trouble with it. The only thing it wouldn't do is wind up past 5,000 RPM and he put almost 60,000 miles on it.

292 Y-Block engine showing heads

Yes, I am familiar with the "stacked" arrangement of the intake ports since I helped my Dad replace a 272 with a 292 and I recall reading about the '57 heads being the best. I also recall the problem with the lack of oiling to the rockers, the heavier weight and the added width. I did like the way the stock exhaust manifolds came out in the upper front as helping some folks install dual turbos. I guess I never saw a comparison of the flow rates through the various heads the way that the SBC heads have now been documented so I did not know whether the SBC heads flowed better or worse than the Y-block heads. From what some of you said it was just several factors that favored the SBC, but maybe the added twist in the intake runners was the deciding factor. Probably porting those intake runners was very difficult. Back to the flathead, a modification that I have only read about was to fill the intake ports with molten lead and then grind them out as a straight pipe from the intake manifold to the valve head to eliminate the bowl bend under the valve head; I can see that sort of thing would be essentially impossible with the Y-block heads. Again it is doubly ironic that the main flaw in the Y-blocks had to do with poor head design at the same time they rejected the ARDUN heads! I got away from this thread for most of the day watching the Redskins miracle followed by Tony Stewart's third win ahead of the other folks in the final set of NASCAR races; a big day for Joe Gibbs Enterprises! For my two cents, I think the way the race is set up now is silly and Stewart is proving it by winning three races and still not in the points race; the old points system was better in my opinion. If this is still the flathead thread, let's chat about the 1934 Indy race that Ford V8s almost won except for the exhaust manifolds being too close to the steering box and the heat froze up the steering. Weren't the Granatelli brothers mechanics on that team, the same guys who make STP today and almost won Indy with a turbine? Just a little history to indicate that flathead blocks were run at the Indianapolis 500 in 1934 but were DNF due to the heat problem. I am not aware that the ARDUNs ever ran at Indy because by the time the ARDUN heads were available other engines like the Offenhauser and later the stock block Fairlane engine were available; I know some SBC cars have run at Indy but I am not aware that any has won. Just rambling comments.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Don -There were alot of racers who ran flatties and some who were running Top Eliminator were Bob Alseny who in 1957 ran his combo with Ardun heads to a official time of 9.98 @159.01 which is pretty dam good.Another earlier one who was Top Eliminator was Don Yates who drove his yates & mikkleson 275 CI flattie to a 10.59@144.85 in 1954 using low doses of nitro. Flatheads had there problems but it seems someone always figured out how to fix that problem and they did pretty good. As you mentioned the worst problem was overheating.

Originally Posted by Itoldyouso

Uh, Dave, you don't happen to be from Pittsburgh area originally and your last name begins with "F", does it?? If so, I know the '53 you speak of, except I remember trips with the blower cam and heads. If this isn't you, the cars are almost identical, and it was one wicked little Ford, and won more than it's share of street races. This was circa 1960-63.

Don

Nope - not me - I'm from the NY Capital district - but about the same era tho

What messed peoples minds up was the fact that my car was at least partially dechromed and I ran the orange '54 valve covers - and of course they 'assumed' it was a '54 . Fords '52 to '54 looked virtually identical to the uninitiated.

Chevy37, I was referring to the use of ARDUN-flathead-block engines running at Indianapolis. As a teenager I looked forward to special coverage by Hot Rod Magazine on the Indy cars in the Spring and then again in the Summer on the Bonneville cars. I am aware of a number of successful ARDUN engine dragsters and seem to recall some Bonneveille cars with ARDUN heads on a flathead block but none for the Indy race. As I said the only race data for flathead blocks I recall in the Indy 500 was for 1934, which was with factory support, I believe. Maybe someone else remembers Indy cars with Ford V8 engines between 1934 and the much later Fairlane OHV engines (which were really special for the Indy race; especially with their "bundle-of-snakes" headers). Chevy37 if you have access to a neighbor with an ARDUN, I wonder if the sound changed with the four exhaust-ports-in-head instead of the stock three-in-block ports?

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder