Dumb flathead question.......Ford vs. Mercury

eaglebeak;
I really don't see the need for sarcasm! I was merely trying to add to the conversation from a Canadian point of view because Canadian motors were mentioned earlier. To restate for you more accurately I have only found Ford based 239 motors in Canadian Mercury trucks and Meteor cars. Only Canadian Mercury cars from 49-54 had the 4" crank Mercury motors. By the way following your logic how did you find a Mercury motor in a 1 ton FORD truck?

 

In '58 -'59 I had a '39 Ford Standard coupe. (38 1/2) It had a '49 Merc engine with a 4 inch stroke. Then that motor found it's way into my brothers '49 Ford two door. And Don Anderson pulled the flat motor from his '53 Mecr and installed a 292. The 53 motor going somewhere. So the point is you may find anything in any old Ford by now. It has been a really long time. Also I have a 383 SBC in my Lark. I'm reasonably sure a 400 would be just as good or better. My friend owns the machine shop that block/crank/head work and he really wanted it to be a 383. So it is.

 

maybe im not reading everything correctly or maybe mr vanpelt just doesnt have his info correct but some of you are saying that the 4" crank is only worth acouple HPs. but this graph is showing 15-19 HP gain in the EAB-EAC era... what other factors are contributions to this gap?

http://www.vanpeltsales.com/FH_web/flathead_specs-90to125late.htm

 

I have a set of Merc EAC heads... What, if any, are the differences between these and 8BA heads? different combustion chamber shape? higher compression ratio?

 

I'm not sure if the Merc engine was an option? I have seen and have both - Merc trucks with Merc engines, and Merc trucks with Ford engines, also have Ford trucks with Ford engines.

 

I would guess the other big HP factor would be the cam, The crank would have to be the largest factor adding cubes and higher compression due to the longer stroke. not sure if the intake and carburation was the same?

 

8CM 82ccs
8BA 76ccs
EAB 71ccs

http://www.flatheadv8.org/flatratio.htm

 

Man, There is a lot of mis-information in this thread. There is also some accurate but due to the amount of posts, it makes it hard to weed out the good from the bad. I guess that folks think that since the Mercury trade name was used for cars and trucks in Canada they ***ume that all of them had the 8CM type 255 cid engines during that time frame but that just isn't true. The "Mercury" engine was originally only in the "Mercury" cars and those manufactured on the Mercury planform (Monarch) with exception to the baby Lincolns. The Ford 8BA type 239 cid engine was used in all the trucks up to F6 (M6). Lincoln 337 engines went into the really big trucks. Ford & Mercury small cars all had the 8BA type 239. Canada followed the same manufacturing policies that Ford USA did except they had a distinct separation between Ford dealers and Lincoln-Mercury dealers. They seldom if ever had a Ford dealer in a city that already had a L&M dealership due to competion problems. Ford was given the Monarch as a "step up" car and L&M dealers were given the Meteor as a "step down" car. Only the names were changed for certain models with specific styling changes to suit those models. I don't think that 6 cylinder engines were produced in Windsor, Ontario at this time. Only the V8s were produced. In order to keep prices as low as possible, the 239 cid engine was by far and away the most produced engine during that time.

Mercury type 255 cid engines have been finding there way into other vehicles ever since that time but that was just human nature. Need more Power!.

Kerby

 

I'm also from Canada and pretty interested in this thread.

I have an EAC (heads), 8CM block which was pulled from a 54 mercury Meteor, car also had power steering...

I also have a second motor from a 51 merc M3 pick up which has 8BA heads (say "Made in Canada" on them similar to my EAC heads but the block has C1BA cast into the block.

Both sets of heads have a "W" or "upside down M" as I've been told is rumour is to represent Mercury but can not be certain. The "W" on my EAC heads is large lettering while the "W" on my 8BA heads is small lettering...? I don't have any other heads to compare to at the moment... Unfortunately I don't have the crank from the C1BA truck block as it was purchased in a parts pile so I can't confirm anything about Canadian mercury trucks having 4" cranks any help would be appreciated.

 

Ford and mercs have the same compression ratio that is due to the Merc heads haveing mire volume to reduce compression. The whole thing was put ford heads over a Merc crank and it will boost compression. And the 52-53 ford had the same cam as the 49-53 Merc. 49-51 ford had a smaller cam. This change was due to ford noticing their cars having a harder time getting going. So ford gave them a bigger cam. The Merc cam. So for a 49 ford the Merc cam was better. But both companies had the same car 52-53. Don’t quote me. But I’m pretty sure that is all correct.



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Mercury engines have "better" (more lift) camshafts than similar year Fords. When I put the '51 Mercury engine in my '51 Ford. I had intended to put an Isky "MAX-1" cam that I had purchased into the car, but decided that with such a relatively heavy car, the Merc cam would be a better choice. I came to this conclusion after perusing the Tilden cams website https://www.tildentechnologies.com/Cams/FlatheadPerformance.html.

The better camshafts with the 18% increase in displacement over the 239 Ford engine makes me believe that the increased HP ratings of the 8CM engines over 8BA engines just may be a little conservative.