I remember a few years back , there was talk of recasting a more modern cast iron block with bigger bores , etc.  . Did it begin or stall out ?

Po ol Davie

Sparta , Tn.

It didn't happen.  Not enough people expressed interest.  It had a lot of changes from stock, which were good for performance oriented people but put the price too high, in my opinion.  I think it was simply too many changes to make it viable.


Lawrenceville, GA

My understanding was the initial down payment in advance to get the project off the ground was very high, and not many folks had that much money available for the risk involved.  A modern 6 bolt main, roller lifter bores, and 4.185" bore capability like the SBF would be choice.   The SBF is the same bore spacing as the Y. and there are a lot of aftermarket blocks available in 4.000" or 4.125" bores with the capability to be bored to 4.185" with .200" walls remaining.  Joe-JDC 

JDC

Another thing that JM pointed out to me that didn't come to mind was the talk of raising the cam and the associated problems with distributor alignment and driving the oil pump.

There was talk about raising the camshaft if enough people were interested but that did get shot down pretty early as that was going make for a very limited market.  Four inch or larger bore capability along with 0.875” lifter bores was part of the plan with the remainder of the engine being true to the Y-Block architecture other than doing something with the oil filter.  Getting rid of that oil filter adapter plate was high on the list.  Making the oil filter area similar to what is seen the small block and 385 series Ford engines was discussed as that was going to make the side bolts for the cross bolted main caps more simplified.  Having hydraulic lifter capability was also going to be easy to do with the 7/8” lifter bores.
 
Pricing was expected to be in the $3200-3500 range when the blocks were completed.  That pricing could have come down with more blocks being produced after that initial casting run was made. No money was going to be required up front until the blocks were completed but the number of interested buyers did need to be known to see if the project was viable or not.  There just wasn’t enough people stepping forward for the blocks to make the project get off of the ground.  With that, the project just died.  Part of that can be blamed on the slump in the economy when the project was being proposed.
 
With 4.300” stroke crankshafts now being fitted to the Y, those strokes along with 4” or 4.125” bores would have made for some big cubic inch Y’s.  While these would have been too large for the current crop of cylinder heads, these would have still made for some pretty serious street engines with lots of pure grunt down low.  On the flip side of all this, the 4”+ bore capability would have made some very nice and powerful street engines when using stock stroke crankshafts.
 
As with those projects that are not financially feasible, passion drives them.  An example of this is the ‘W’ series GM engines.  Passion totally drove that and as a result, it has become popular only after the blocks became available which in turn drove the need for other aftermarket parts to go on those engines.  The Ford Y is in the same category as those that want to run a Y simply would rather not go with a more modern main stream engine.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)