History History??? Too many choices? Open to discussion (opinions and history welcome)

I'll put on a pot of beans.

 

I should add let me know if you need anything parts wise that I may have to help out.
PS All the 09s are spoken for at the present time.

 

Too bad I really want to scab a 9 together with a 348 lower end. Just as an exercise in futility.

A destroked 9 would right up my alley, although I doubt than anyone has ever even considered it.

 

@Rocky that damn pickup is burnt into my brain and I have to say austins sedan will have very much the same flavor and eventually be finished out nicer. You’ll probably really dig it, he’s trying to take it to the hamb drags this year.

 

I am having some of the on the fence dissensions to make on my race car.
I would like to install an aluminum radiator and a electric fan and would like to change out the generator for one of the small alternators.
I do like the old school look under the hood but can see some advantages of doing these upgrades.
Sincerely On The Fence.

 

LOL well you don't need a radiator or a generator. You could probably pick up a 10th without the belt.

 

If I were rich I'd build a sleeper 21 stud, if I had one that ran good I would use it till it exploded.. then go build a 59a or at minimum an LB

 

The belt is just along for the ride.

 

As flatheads go I am partial to 21 Stud motors myself. I actually helped a little bit with a historic Merc custom that was built around a '39 Merc and it had a full house 21 Stud Ford and that was the correct engine from the original build. ( I know makes almost zero sense to me either).

Actually a good belt in the pits is traditional.

 

Hey Beaner, Winter got ya?

It has me......I sick of it and it hasn't been that bad!

 

What was the reasoning for a 21 in a 39?

 

Gosh you stirred up a memory...about 1976 I bought a 64 Ford falcon 260 motor convertible not bad shape for 150$ I couldn't wait to go pick it up I thought about it every night...so I made plans to pick the car up with some friends...on the way over to pick the car up it started snowing..we were gonna tow it with a tow bar hitched to a 68 Buick station wagon...it started snowing harder and no matter what road we tried we couldn't get up hills...so finally we had to unhitch it and leave beside the road..a towing company towed it away and I never saw the car again...as by the time I could pick it up again the bill was over 150$...my dream was over

 

If you don't give a shit, use it.

 

Grape Nuts or did Cheerios do this?

 

Funny how the old 260 Ford has come up a few times in this thread.
I owned two 1964 Fairlanes with those engines so got a bit partial to them. I put a stock 4V iron intake and 370cfm (sic) Holley 4V and dual exhaust on the second one, it was a pretty fun car.

Later a friend and I replaced the 144 and Fordomatic in his Comet with a 260 and C4, boy what a difference. Some decades ago this kind of swap made your car faster than the average car, of course now that's not so.
But hunting down the special exhaust manifolds, motor mounts and other necessary parts in pre-internet days was fun times for young guys.

 

My thoughts... Hmmm

When I was in my 20's and 30's, I had a go big or go home attitude. A 331 Hemi or a 354 were too small and not on my radar. My Lassy truck, 1959 D100, had to have a 11:1 compression, 2.02" intake valve, 320°Duration cam, fully ported 360 engine. I ran race gas and shifted at 7000 RPM's and broke transmissions, rear ends, and etc to go fast.

Now I am becoming... Seasoned... I am thinking that a 331 sure would be nice. A mildly warmed up small block would be OK as long as I didn't get my ass kicked by a Prius while fighting for a lane choice... A beefed up inline six with vintage speed parts would be cool. IDK man, we change interests, have different priorities, and have changes in taste as we move through life. I have thought of this sort of thing myself. Personally, I just don't feel that "I no longer need to go big or go home" anymore.

My crazy 2¢ running on sleep deprivation without a thought out response.....

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The only thing I see wrong in your "rant/comment/thought" is:

It's not as easy to stuff a 351 where a 260 would go. Just a little too wide for that Falcon. I started down that path, saw the error of my ways and got out the torch. Ended up with the chassis shown below. Things kind of snowballed a bit.

I'm putting a roller 5.0 in my '32 but it is disguised as a 289. Oh well.....

SPark

View attachment 3821394

 

The fastest car isnt always the coolest car. Sbc or sbf motors are way over represented in hot rods and really boring to see another one. If your building a cool old school period car, a period engine is way more cool then an easy cheap modern engine. It doesn't matter that is doesn't go ax fast as a more modern one. And if build and maintained properly should be just as dependable as a modern engine.

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We could actually say the same with transmission choices. We all have our go to transmission and this has les

I wasn't there but my guess was the availability of speed parts. This is just a guess the original builder and original owner are not here to ask. But if I had to fathom a guess it would be availability of speed parts or that the motor was already built as opposed to souping up the merc motor.

It was not until sometime in the '50s that customs became low and slow. Late '30s and '40s customs were hot rods, the original idea from my limited understanding of the era was buy a cheaper vehicle like say a Ford or Merc and make it mimic a high end car like say a LaSalle or Graham. They were road cars with a lot more motor than the little flathead that could.

OK now I have offered my conjecture on a subject outside of my realm of expertise. Back to the subject at hand.

Another area where we have way too many options these days is transmission choice. Remember this is not an affront to anyone's tranny choice at all. 5 speeds, 6 speeds, AOD. Automatics as opposed to sticks.

I'll use me for an example. My go to transmission for a GM car for years has been the T-400, they ae tough and I like 'em. A better choice ( perhaps the only choice?) and one that I made as a kid in the late '60s was Slant Pan Hydro. Behind a Ford I am still partial to a C6, although performance wise a built C4 is maybe a better choice and a little closer to our year range for a '60s car.

My stick of choice has always been the Sag, either 3 or 4 speed. I am actually using a 3 speed Saginaw in my current project. I do not know the history on the transmission but they were a common GM tranny in the '70s and they used to be cheap. Perhaps the better choice would be a Muncie out of an older Chevelle or even the 3 speed out of a '50s Corvette. Or adapt a Ford top loader or even a '39 Ford stuffed with Lincoln gears.

Again choices have raised their ugly head.

 

I had a 63 Fairlane 221 that ran circles around my neighbors 1962 260

 

Seems to me that if you are building like it was done "in the old days" and not trying to build the world's fastest whatever using the smaller ones makes sense. Less potential for breaking parts and just as much if not more fun.

 

We kind of forget that don't we. These days if you got money or credit you can buy a car that makes 700 off the showroom floor, and its totally drivable. Everybody and their illegitimate cousin has a 10 second street car ( the really cool guys are running 8s) . Its like I said way too many options.

Lets suppose that you and me had a 40 Ford coupe. If we were kids in the early to mid 60s we could pool our funds and go to the wrecking yard to look for an engine. Wow over there is a 427 Ford, next to a row of flatheads a couple of 283 Chevy and I'll be damned a J2 Olds but its missing the center carb. No hill for a stepper you got a carb. But being kids even with our funds pooled we can swing a neat looking flathead or a 283.

Now today we get the same coupe ( its a little rougher), we step on down to the local Pick n Pull, same basic budget only adjusted for inflation. There is a pile of 350s, another pile of LS motors, damn a 396 complete. The 396 is a little more than the LS motors ( its a "classic") and the small blocks are close to the same price as the LS motors. So we land an LS, it makes the most zot for the dollar, right?

I think that sometimes we forget that a 12 second car in '62 is the same as a 10 second car on '18. Both are fun, and in our world that 12 second car has got it in spades, if we are able to put on that '62 mindset just for a minute.

I got a close HAMB friend that races a 409 Belaire. Its a 12 second car ( maybe high elevens by now) and he is happy as a duck. The truth is that he could bore and stroke it easy enough but somehow he has managed to overlook that choice. I am not sure what he is actually thinking, and I do not for a minute want to get inside his head, its scary enough in mine, but I got an idea he just wants to see how fast he can go with a 9.

 

When you wonder why someone made the choices they did far in the past don't overlook cost and availability. Maybe the guy put a 21 stud in his Merc because he had one on hand, or could get one cheap. When the OHV V8s were the latest thing, a lot of built flatheads were taken out of hot rods and sold for a fraction of what they cost to build.

I remember a story from Hot Rod magazine years ago. One of the writers was a flathead fan in the late fifties when they were going out of fashion. His favorite speed shop had a used Hilborn injection hanging on the wall behind the counter. He was saving up to buy it when one day he stopped by just as another customer was walking out the door with it. He made his purchases quickly and hurried out the door. Looking around the parking lot, he saw the guy under the hood of a 1957 Plymouth which was then only a year or 2 old. As he got closer he saw there was a flathead in it. He asked the guy why he would put a flathead Ford in a late model Plymouth and he said "I blew up the Olds motor I had in it".

 

When we were young ( or older and living on SSD) a lot of our choices were money driven, also availability were also part of the equation. In the '70s I bought a caddy powered '46 coupe, not because it was cool so much as it fit my budget. The guy who sold it to me was a "Street Is Neat" guy, the '46 was out of style and he was building a glass deuce roadster with all the latest doodads and bobbles.

Later when I had more money and the caddy needed a freshening I put a Cleveland Hamster in it. It was a modern mill and it was available for about what it was going to cost me to freshen the 331.

In about 73 or so I had a Ford unibody with a big six in it ( well as big as they came). I windowed the 6 and had zero cash. My little brother had a '54 sedan that he wasn't driving. So the '62 got a Y block. LOL

When I was in high school one of the kids drove '62 Dart with a 283 power pac, and a power slip. His dad bought him the dart and told him now its your responsibility. He broke the mill and I had a 283 under a tarp that I took in trade on an engine upgrade in a Chevelle more door. Probably one of my crappiest engine swaps but when I think back on it my mind thinks it was pretty cool.

 

Exactly my grandfather built and raced these engines long long before me and he always spoke highly of the ol flatheads. It's always made me want one. And I figured why not a 21 stud sure the after markets isn't as big but for my model A being built as a very early hotrod I couldn't think of a more accurate engine for it. Even tho the 49-53 is a better motor (insert bearings,more hp,better after market,ect,ect) it wouldn't look just right for the vison I have.

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Speaking of 260s a local junkyard has a 63 galaxie that I think has one,I will be grabbing the timing chain cover that has the oil fill and the valve covers and should make the 95 302 that will be going in my 37 Chevy p/u look much older and will not have to move the outlet on the radiator.

 

I don't know what it's like where you are. But around here it is very hard and expensive to get bearings poured and bored. That alone would be enough to push me to look for a later motor with inserts.

 

I'm not scared off too easy

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I got my '28 Chevy poured an bored. My '26 Dodge I went with inserts. Better deal all around. But your car looks like restored 32 that has had the fenders removed and called a Hot Rod. But,as usual I am thinking of my engine that needed everything. Which may not apply to yours. If you are more thinking of bolting some shiny things on it to look cool, nothing I said applies. Have fun.

 

I'm just leaving the motor stock for now it's a runner and a good one at that. And ya my cars a bit more then that it's a 29 that is kinda being scratch built with a 3 inch channel 3 inch drop Axle 36 ford top shift F1 steering ect,ect. But thanks will do

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