One of the main reasons that the SBC became the in Hot Rod engine conversion, was the influence of Zora Arcus Duntov, who had worked at Ford at some point.. He recognized that the Ford flat head engine had outlived it's influence in rodding & he contacted the engineers designing the new engine & convinced them to make their new engine as easy as possible for conversions into 1930s Ford chassis.. and the die was cast!..  Unfortunatly, Ford"s lighter weight thin wall casting Windsor engines didn't come on line until 1962.. far too late!      


Paul

Well said Mr. K. Ford blue almost to a fault with me but is important to know what is going on elsewhere.    That being said, there is an excellent 3 or 4 page article by Jerry Christensen in the 2016 November-December issue of  Y-Block magazine that pretty mush says it all. Is it possible/permissible for someone involved with the machinery of this forum to post a link of this story for all to read?   Thanks, JEFF...........


64F100 57FAIRLANE500

I think it is generally accepted that GM recognized the growing hotrodder/youth culture, and had that in mind when they designed their cheap/light SBC to easily drop-in/replace flatheads. Offering cheap speed parts and racer support also set the aftermarket ball rolling, so Henry II really missed the boat.

6 VOLTS/POS. GRD. NW INDIANA

Correct. What got me is that GM and MOPAR (AMC also) would sell a performance car off the showroom floor whereas with FORD you had to know someone or build it yourself. In my opinion, this didn't change until the advent of the 1968 CJ and FORD executives had to be beat over the head on that one.

Also, I am amazed at how you guys have made the Y-BLOCK into such a terror it has become, My first cars were a 60 and 64 FORD and I was an FE guy. When I bought my first '57, naturally the first thought was a transplant as I considered the Y as old tech and all of this was right in the middle of the MUSCLE CAR WARS.

On the GM subject, FORD used engine series on all of their car/truck lines and had to modify them for different car lines whereas GM had different power for different car divisions.

But I am FORD BLUE but consider it important to know and respect the enemy.

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No K, you won’t get shown the door. In my case, not only do I have a couple y blocks, I’ve had a number of pretty strong scrubs. My wife’s car has an LT1, custom heads and all the LT4 upgrades. Bought it from my business partner when he had to have an LS motor and a 6 speed to go with it. Another orphan of sorts, I figured 425 hp was enough for her.

miker
55 bird, 32 cabrio F code
Kent, WA
Tucson, AZ

scrubrolet kept their performance parts cheap, Ford parts cost the moon, just look at the blower cam in the old price books or the 1956 2 4bbl setups, I can still buy a performance cam cheaper today than the hot cam was in 1957

"GM also did something that was a major help to hotrodders, they kept the same transmission bolt pattern for all their engines thru the years, which meant that all engines and transmissions interchanged.with all GM cars"

Now that is a good point I didn't think about.

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GM also did something that was a major help to hotrodders, they kept the same transmission bolt pattern for all their engines thru the years, which meant that all engines and transmissions interchanged.with all GM cars., 

It’s a given that the SBC was the poster child for performance in the Sixties.  That gave it some roots to hold on to for four solid decades.  Both history and marketing was responsible for the newfound popularity of the SBC engines.  With the AMA ban initiated in 1957 on corporate sponsored racing, Ford simply backed completely out with both GM and Mopar having back door racing programs.  Ford was also putting emphasis on two new engine families introduced for the 1958 model year and that killed any future Ford Y development.  Came 1960, Ford started to come back to the performance end of things but it was the FE that was the showcase engine for those efforts.  Development for the SBC engines was strong right up until about ten years ago.  The LS series of engines would appear to be the dominant performance engine right now for the masses.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

... hmmph ...

Thought I would have been shown the door by now...

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