When I 1st built the chopped & channeled '27 Ford T, the build took a life of it's own. So lets learn why I choose to built the Ford T with a 383 SBC & Turbo 350. Being a volunteer in a local one weekend a year drag race event at our local airport a decade ago one of our major sponsors was an out of town machine shop. It was decided to have a raffle for the 383 SBC that they donated. Each paying spectator would automatically be entered in the draw. A single mother won the motor. To make a long story short after a year of storing it and multiple people coming to my shop, I decided to buy it, not needing it. I found the '27 T in a shipping container. so now I had a body and a motor and a Turbo 350 left from when I replaced it with a 700R4 in our '56 F-100 That being said I drove the car for a couple of years when I got the bug to build a '28 Roadster. This is the Roadster that went across Canada & back for the Make A Wish charity, raising $20,000 in 3 weeks! So the T sat for the next 6 years. I never really liked the idea of the SBC in the T and by chance while at a friend's shop, he had just finished this '52 Merc 276 cu. in Flathead. No heads but otherwise built with all quality parts. He decided to build a 392 Hemi after seeing and going for a ride in my son's '31 Hemi powered roadster. Now you know the background of why this all happened. Since I have a finished car & more important Interior I decided to use the Turbo 350, so I used a Wilcap adapter. Not my 1st choice for a transmission, but now you know why I'm using it. I took these pictures of the flathead sitting in the aprox. location. the motor has to come forward slightly and moved about 3/4inch to the passenger side. Driver engine mount sits right over the Unisteer bracket so we have to custom build a motor mount. Steering column will be pulled back about a 1/2 inch but the header tube will be modified slightly for clearance of the joint. Also for the bottom radiator and water pumps outlets we will make an aluminum box of some sort to hook up the rubber hoses. Radiator will be painted Eastwood Radiator black. Would have been so much easier if we had designed the frame for the flathead, but that is in the past. All the problems will be addressed with a little engineering and fabrication work. Hope you like it!
Pretty cool if you ask me. This is one reason flathead motor mounts are made to trim out. Looks like you have the header and steering problems figured out. Hope the steering bar clears the headers. Hope it runs good for you. Enjoy!
The Jalopy Journal
