I am located in east central Alabama. Is your 56 transmission a medium case water cooled unit?

Otherwise, it will be mostly stock with maybe disc brakes added.

Hey, I understand. They used to call me JUNKYARD DOG.

The trouble with the pre-mid 56 trans is it's air cooled. You have to watch the TRANS TEMP, especially if you clean the carb out occasionally. And the TV linkage has to be adjusted correctly, bands adjusted, yada yada yada..

Hope you have good luck with it.

____________________________

Your 55 trans should be able to handle the torque of the 272 no problem.. Ask all those guys who did reverse to low shifts to get the tires spinning back in the day.. . I probably have a stock 56 that will be removed soon.. Where are u located?

It would not be run hard, but would be somewhat of a daily driver. I had thought of a 56 medium case transmission, but I already have the rebuilt 55 and not the 56. Economics comes into play here, but I don't want to make a mistake now that I will regret later if I can prevent it! If I can find a 56 at a reasonable cost, I might still go that route. Otherwise, it will be mostly stock with maybe disc brakes added. Thanks for your reply.

... would a 1955 3-speed Fordomatic be adequate for a mildly upgraded 312(4bbl,

IMO -

That would all depend on how hard you want to run it. At the least, a 56 coolant cooled trans or if it is going to get serious street use, either an FMX or possibly C4 upgrade. Is the car remaining stock other that the engine upgrade?

____________________________

Ted, in regard to what these engines can stand, would a 1955 3-speed Fordomatic be adequate for a mildly upgraded 312(4bbl, mild cam upgrade, G heads, 1.54 rockers)? If not, what would you recommend? Thanks.

Almost all Ford Y engines are good for being ‘safely’ bored to 0.060” over.  There are exceptions to this but sonic testing does separate out those blocks that have excessive core shift.  While some of those blocks cannot be successfully over bored without offset boring the cylinders, there are those on the other end of the scale that can be bored much more than 0.060” over.  I have taken a fair number of 292 blocks that had good sonic test numbers to 0.110” over and made them into high horsepower producers.
 
There are a large number of 272 engines out there that have been bored 0.125” over to make them into standard bore 292’s.  Fred Jones Engines in Oklahoma City (authorized Ford rebuilder) did this to a large number of 272 engines and made them into 292 engines.  These engines worked well with stock compression ratios but when measuring them for cylinder wall thickness, they are poor candidates for a performance build.
 
My ’55 Customline still has the original 272.  At 112K miles I was into the engine and bored it to 0.020” over simply because I was in there and wanted it fixed for the long haul.  Cylinder wall wear was minimal and could have gotten by with just a re-ring job.  I did sonic test that block at the time and it was a candidate for a +060 over 312 bore or more but being as I’m a believer in only boring out the engines only just enough to clean up the cylinders, 0.020” over it was.  It was upgraded with the ECZ-B 4V intake and Isky E4 camshaft along with a balance job at the time and still runs good today with over 300K miles on the car now.  The crankshaft in that engine is still STD/STD and the oil pressure is still very good at all rpm.  While I did not dyno test this engine, I always felt it was in the 200-205 HP range with its original 272 small valved heads

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

Just for clarifiction going back on these postings.. A regular stock 272 engine, prior to 1957, was about 167 h.p. not 182 as stated. That was only found in the special 4 Bbl dual exhaust versions..  
Further; As this particular engine was only bored  0.020" over, & assuming that a particular 272 block doesn't have a serious core shift in it, what is a safe overbore allowing for say one more 0.20" overbore if needed ?..    


Paul

The dual four engines also had the one piece retainers like the blown engines.

John - "The Hoosier Hurricane"

I built a 312 back in the '80s. A trusted old Ford mechanic told me not to rev it over 5500. He said the HP engines had a different valve keeper and that the standard version were prone to shake loose and drop a valve at higher RPM. I'm not sure if the 2x4 version had the HP keepers, or if it was the F engine. Hopefully, someone can add some info.