Small block fords get no respect

the small block ford is a very good engine, but the heads just did not flow enough air to compeet in drag racing. after the boss 302 head and later aftermarket heads came out things changed.
my last ford small block was a stroked [ 377] windsor with race prepaired heads. with a single carb and a good flat tappet cam it turned 10.82 at 126 mph in a 82 stang. 4,000 stall c4 and 9 inch rear with 4.88 gears. all on the motor. a very budget car. total investment of about 10,000 bucks. got over 300 passes without so much as a valve job. and these were 7,000 plus rpm runs. i love SB fords

 

I like mine, just replaced the 302 with a 351W rebuilt long block. I know I need a little cleanup of the wiring and the fuel lines

 

I realize they were around in '62, but were hotrodders using them that long ago? I guess I need to look in my littlebooks.

 

I dont know ford engines well...but isnt one of the reasons alot of people didnt use them in Hot Rods was because they were longer than the SBC finished out with all the accessories like water pump , alt etc.. and not so compact as one other post entry stated?

 

Of course they were. Look at the Munster Koach and Dragula.

The reason they never caught on with hot rodders is because they were offered in tiny 221 and 260ci versions until '64 - puny and weak, could be whipped by any small Chevy or Nailhead or what have you. By 1964, interest in homebuilt hot rods had diminished because "real" muscle had invaded the marketplace.

They've always been second-class hot rod engines. And this from a guy that likes them.

 

I agree gotgas, they can haul ass and be great engine to have but as cliche and corny as it sounds, to me they just dont look like the correct time period .

 

Wow, I didn't realize. Did they really need 10 carbs???

 

I have a 289 in my 33, I am putting a 302 in my model a and we have a 302 for my sons truck....Why use anything else????

 

I must admit, I have blown up more Chevy stuff than I have Ford.

My first car was a Ford and it served me well. But, one of the most spectacular blow ups I saw was.... A Pontiac! But they did put nitro in the tank!

 

hell, we put a 289 in a '56 plymouth suburban and dont cry chevy guys - a 302 HO in a chopped '54 chevy.. lot of torque..

 

Skip the C6. The C4 is smaller, lighter, consumes less hp to operate, has the same gear ratios and can be made far stronger than the C6. Lots of 5.0 guys run 1500+ hp through C4's.

 

No they don't. Or... maybe I should say, not for long they don't.

That kind of power puts you back in GM (Powerglide) country.

 

If they would of designed a shorter water pump from the begining things would of been different,I think they were designed to fit in a engine compartment made for a 6 cylinder (falcon or fairlane) and that also cramped the exhaust side of the early heads. Jeff

 

Well that may be true..... but a built C4 can definitely handle 600 or more hp in naturally aspirated trim. Which is far more than any street going small block Ford will make.

 

239 OHV SBF intro'd in '54, 256 Merc in '54, 272, 292, 312 ....Mine's a '55 Merc 292. Or aren't Y's considered small blocks?

Agree - Fords in Fords

 

not really , different engine familly

 

to me, the platform doesnt really matter. In general, a hot anything will beat a stock anything else.

 

Where are you guys finding multi carb set ups for a sbf? I had a 260 in my 63 fairlane. I loved that motor and would realy like to find another 260.

 

I LIKE 'EM...
I'll be glad to have one again in my next car.
I've been dealing with them in Fairlanes and Trucks for a long time, and forget a lot of the little I even learned, but...I found them to be dependable, and I made decent power with my 351W in a street car, daily driven, stock-bottom end, as assembled from the factory, for 3 years before I nuked it, and it was running 12.70's in a '69 Fairlane.
Nothing fancy...
I find them to be noisy, though...is that my imagination, or can you hear a lot of the internal motion in them?
I always thought so...even with a fairly loud exhaust.
I guess the solution is to just run open headers!

I didn't know that the Y-block and the Flattie shared firing orders...It jives on an auditory level, too. I always thought that both of them sounded kind of heavy. Clumsy, actually...but cool. They kind of shuffle or gallop, depending upon rpm.

 

only thing i like about em is that they sound killer, other wise i dont like how they look in old 50s styled cars

 

A 351W in my 37 Zephyr. It looks like it grew in there. OB

 

Here's a neat article, 331 stroker Ford, 495hp @ 7400rpm :

http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles/ccrp_0810_302ci_small_block_ford/index.html

 

See pix------Don

 

SBFs are great especially for swaps, around 90lbs lighter and dementionally smaller than the chevy, the short stroke is great for revs, later heads like E7TEs will let the early engines really breathe, and when GM put out those junk T/As and IROCs with the anemic 305s in the 80s the mustang GT was the car to do, so the tech, and parts base just grew for the SBF, NO RESPECT..hogwash,for street and drag guys thats basically all they run, and there are some monster SBFs around, and I was raised chevrolet

 

Oh,yes, I forgot to add, when starting to build my 32 roadster in 1962, the BIG THING was to put a SBC in everything!!----Not me, I wanted to put a FORD in a FORD!!----Fortunately, Shelby had just pulled in the Cobras from the racing circuit & was swapping out the 260 cid motors for the NEW 289 cid motors & returning to racing ASAP, that was when I got wind of 5 260 Cobra motors for sale. Quickly, I bought one!!!!!
This little 260 "Snake" has been extremely reliable over the years, & over the many miles, (300,000) since put on the road back in 1970, sure, I have replaced timing chain, fuel pumps, valves, cam, etc.----But never rebored yet!!----Needless to say, glad I put a FORD in a FORD!!!-------Don----Street is still neat!!!

 

Ya I know about the 302 cam in the windsor thing, when I bought my Isky cam for 351W thats in my 50 shoebox it was the same part # for the 302 and the box said exactly what you said to use the 302 firing order. It makes sense though... same block different heads = less money to produce another cam grind. I wasnt aware of some of the other info you mentioned though.

 

Anything can be made to make power. I gotta say I'm a little sick of the sanctimonious "Ford in a Ford" rants. You're kidding, right? When the iconic SBC became easy to get where did all the flatheads go? In the corner or in the scrap pile. Before that it was OHV Caddy and Olds swaps. They ruled the streets and tracks in every corner of the hot rod world. Don't get me wrong, I love a fully dressed flatty in the right place, and I also like small block Fords in their place too. That would be in the likes of early Indy cars, Cobras, Boss 302s, and Sunbeam Tigers. As has already been said they're not traditinal in many cases (although I'm sure a few came out in the end of "our" era), and frankly they're not real pretty. They can be morphed into many guises but the "no respect" thing regarding the topics on this board are probably near reality.

 

The "no respect" is from car owner to car owner. People have too much to say about other's engine choice. Foolish and juvenile.

 

In '65 I ran a Falcon 260 'vert to 139+ at Bonneville with just bolt on stuff, 289 heads, headers, cam & 4 bbl. Cobra manifold,,,nearly sucked the top off it! Drove out from CT,,,,and back,,,later put the 260 in a Sprint,that was my SCCA tow car,,never touched the bottom end in over 200 thou.

 

don't know what happened at summit but when i was there in oct. they were featuring a mustang in the window on a turntable had 1 or 2 on display sbf with a blow thru paxton or vortech setup and plenty of stuff if you looked for it . i think they even had a row of mustang parts. also when was the last time you looked at a magazine rack most magazines these days feature mustangs. guess you also missed the explosion of 5.0 mustang racing which took off in the early 90's. almost evry month during the season englishtown had some kind of grude racing against the 5.0 (camaro, buick gn etc)