i was finally able to bring my Y block home tonight. a good friend made me a screaming deal on a long block he's had since the 60's. he had it rebuilt when he had an interest in restoring t-birds but it has sat on the shelf ever since. he had the heads stored in his basement wrapped in newspaper.
it's a 292 bored to and fitted with std. 312 pistons. what's that make it, a 299cu.in.? the heads are 57-58 with 1.92 intake valves. they were rebuilt by a reputable local machine shop that closed in the late 70's. ground chuck was 39 cents a pound in the fall of 1966. that's what the ad said in the newspaper they were wrapped in.
got the car 3 speed bellhousing and flywheel with it. i have access to a toploader 4 speed that came behind a 390 in a 67 mustang, but i'm leaning towards running a 3+1 overdrive trans pretending to be a toploader that came out of a granada. either trans will bolt up to the bellhousing.
i want to pull it apart to give it a good cleaning and determine exactly what i have. try to determine how much the heads were milled and figure out the compression ratio and see what cam is in it now and maybe seek your guidance on a cam selection.
this mill is going in my 27 T coupe. i considered running a marine intake for the wow factor but i'll probably end up going with a weiand 3x2 with 3 large logo stromberg 97's. i just want a good running, good ol fashioned hotrod.
the T coupe has been sitting in dry storage longer than the Y block. it hasn't seen the elements since the 50's. this little hotrod is gonna rock.
i'll keep everybody up to date on what i discover and start posting pics when i begin this build.

Sounds like you should end up with a really nice car!

I would stay away from the Granada o/d. They have terrible gear ratio spread.  A five speed would be better.

You say the Granada bolts up, but I thought they have a different bolt spacing on the top bolts.  Same with the 390 four speed.unless it's an early one.  Even if it's an early one (which it isn't being a 67 unless it has the dual bolt pattern on top), the input shaft is too short to make good contact with the pilot bearing/bushing and you have to machine a special pilot bearing to use.  You will also have to trim down the front bearing retainer.


54 Victoria 312;  48 Ford Conv 302, 56 Bird 312
Forever Ford
Midland Park, NJ

i heard about the front bearing retainer but i thought big block inputs were the correct length and small blocks needed to be trimmed because of their longer length.

When I installed a top loader in my 54 (312) I used a small block unit and only had to trim about 3/8 of an inch.  I am not sure on the length of the big block  bit if it's shorted than that then you would have to make up a custom pilot bushing.


54 Victoria 312;  48 Ford Conv 302, 56 Bird 312
Forever Ford
Midland Park, NJ

the tip of the small block input shaft measures 1 1/8 inches, big blocks are 3/4 of an inch, exactly 3/8 inch difference. that comes close enough to being perfect for me.
so how much material has to be removed from the bearing retainer?  can the bellhousing be opened up enough to work? as long as the input shaft doesn't have to be modified, i kind of hate to modify the bearing retainer if i don't have to. that saves the opportunity of using the toploader beind an FE if the need arises.
i guess i should be asking these questions in the tech forum, but hey, this thread kind of morphed into this. i wouldn't need to ask these questions if i had access to the transmissions. they're in a storage container at my cousin's shop. i stopped by there today, and there seems to be a problem with the hinge. we didn't have time to solve that problem today. next week is the holiday, a car show the following week and upcoming shoulder surgery for my cousin in october, it might not be til spring that i can find all the answers for myself.

On the bearing retainer question. which one do you modify - the retainer or the bellhousing?  If you make the bellhousing bigger, then its useless for any one else unless they are going with a toploader.  The bearing retainers are probably easier to find than a yblock bellhousing based on the fact that there a a number of guys that specialize in toploaders.


54 Victoria 312;  48 Ford Conv 302, 56 Bird 312
Forever Ford
Midland Park, NJ