Technical Flathead performance expectations?

It has a spin on filter housing mounted to the firewall.

 

Awesomeness! If you build it...

 

The car is cool. It just happens to be a 4 door sedan which doesn’t really work for me. Makes me wonder why someone would put all that in a 4 door car.

 

Between the engine and the Mitchell overdrive unit, it had money spent. Asking price is $18k

 

Honestly aftermarket parts or swapped parts adding value depends on the buyer. If they're on the list of plans of what you'd do on a bone stock car and are done well then yes they significantly add value. Not sticker price on parts value but definitely a decent amount. If not in your plans don't let them up talk you on price heavy. When I bought my 54 Chevy it was stripped to almost barely shell and came with a pile of parts. At one point after buying it my parts for it were stored in two different states, three different counties, and four different towns lol. To the average buyer of a project that sort of disassembly is a hard deal breaker. But for me after going through the majority of my build on my 53 I bought mostly intact the idea of not having a lot of teardown to do was very appealing. Just fix what's there and start adding parts. Still some cleanup but not digging out 50 year old mouse nests. No dealing with snakes. No asbestos clouds lol.

While you don't seem overly excited about the aftermarket parts if you thought at some point you'd want to do something similar.....say you go to a show and see an engine like yours and decide aluminum fins would put a smile on your face...... spending a bit extra out of the gate would save time down the road. And in the meantime assuming installed correctly the hot rod heads would work just as well driving it as the stock heads.

 

Would it be fair to say a hot, hopped up, but still streetable flathead is compatible to a mildly hopped up 305 or smaller SBC?

 

John Lawson ran around with my Dad and Stan Lomilino back in the 50’s and 60’s. I think much of his Flathead knowledge was likely gained from Stan’s racing Flatheads for so long. Stan was still competitive running Flatheads on fuel well into the 60’s after nearly everyone had moved on. Stan was a genius when it came to squeezing power out them, that said, the term High Performance should seldom be used along with Flathead unless comparing performance to a stock Flathead. The biggest single part swap I’ve found to get a seat of the pants best bang for the buck that I’ve personally ever found on Flatheads , wasn’t with expensive aluminum heads or big cams or multiple carbs, but simply by adding a properly curved distributor, especially if replacing a Load O Matic on an 8BA.

 

In most cases I’d still say no, a stock (non smog) 283 would still make a good bit more power than most hot flatty’s will, But the cool factor of a Flathead isn’t really based on the power output IMO.

 

Triple the HP????? I can do WAY better than that I’m pretty sure that there’s a flathead buried in there somewhere

 

I figured it was mostly the cool factor on the more basic changes, but if it makes it run better than stock its definitely a plus. Yeah I am like most and would probably want to do this type of stuff in the future. So in my mind I will add a premium to the one car if I decide to go that route,

 

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know if a 4 1/8" aftermarket crank use std. journals and 8BA rods or the earlier small journals and rods?

 

@gregsmy this is a good topic, thanks!
I don't know your life situation, but the 4 door with a nice traditional drivetrain sounds nice. Yes, it's not as valuable and hot rod as a 2 door, but you can fit more people and stuff. I will also mention that most 4 doors are a bit more cramped up front than a similar 2 door, something to check for.
In the end, focus on what makes you smile and look at individual features that you want. If that's dead stock, traditional 50s broke young man, 50s style with every possible upgrade, an older quality restoration with a SBC swapped in, or a barn find hiding a fully built chassis and drive train.
Very few of these will be priced to the value of all the work and parts, otherwise there would be a hot rod shop in each town building them. So most all of them are bargains compared to building yourself, so figure out the must have and the don't like in your head and keep shopping.

 

Hence my comment from page 1, all the money you spend buying new parts to build a hot rod will not be realized on sale day.

 

Along the same idea for used cars is that you make most of your money on the "buy" rather than the "sale".