Thanks John

Pete, one of the Aussie mob. Beechworth, Victoria60 F100 Panel Van, Y-block. 65 Galaxie Country Sedan 390

Pete:

I believe the 368 distributor gear has 15 teeth, Y has 14.  Putting the 15 tooth gear on the Y distributor makes it work.  Mercury built a car called "Turnpike Cruiser", it had the 368 in it.

John - "The Hoosier Hurricane"

On the lincoln 368 if the Y distributor is interchangable does that mean a MSD 8383 will also fit? Why are these called turnpike motors??

Pete, one of the Aussie mob. Beechworth, Victoria60 F100 Panel Van, Y-block. 65 Galaxie Country Sedan 390

Yes we got away from the fine 368.  But something about the MELs has always fascinated me.  Maybe one man's description of a 430 Mercury Marauder with 3 300 cfm carbs.  He said when the throttle was wide open on the street you could hear the hissing air 2 blocks away.  Dont recall having the experience personally. 

A couple years ago I had a '59 Lincoln with whatever MEL it came with and was kind of excited about it, but a man bought the whole car 1 day after I receivd it.

Mike, located in the Siskiyou mountains, Southern, OR 292 powered 1946 Ford 1/2 ton, '62 Mercury Meteor, '55 Country Squire (parting out), '64 Falcon, '54 Ford 600 tractor.

Not to completely swing this discussion over to the MEL family, but some interesting things were done with the configurations and the heads (at least on the Lincolns). It's been a few years since I was inside of one, but this is what I recall from Dad's '62, my old '64, and a '59 engine that we still have...

1958-1960 430's had a factory 4 barrel intake, and heads that had HUGE intake ports...and a rating of around 375 hp (+/-)

1961-1962 430's had factory 2 barrel intakes, and smaller intake ports...300-325 hp rating if I recall...

1963-later 430/462's went back to a 4 barrel manifold with the small ports...

There are a hand full of speed parts around for MEL's but not too many...kick myself for not grabbing the 6x2 manifold from the guy we got our '59 430 from...

Todd in Central California...about half way between Fresno and Sacramento

1956 Thunderbird - 1960 F-100 - 1961 Starliner - 1961 Imperial

Here are some MEL engine pics.  The shiny new piston is a Wiseco that went into a 410 Edsel engine.

 

 

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

Sorry, I don't have an extra block for a picture.  I do have a few file photos but my computer crashed two weeks ago and all my pictures were stuck inside My brother-in-law has saved them for me but has yet to ship all my files back, He's in San Diego, when I receive them I'll try to get some pictures up.  Maybe someone else has some to post? 

   God Bless.   Tim                           http://yblockguy.com/

350ci Y-Block FED "Elwood", 301ci Y-Block Unibody LSR "Jake", 312ci Y-Block '58 F-100, 338ci Y-Block powered Model A Tudor

tim@yblockguy.com  Visalia, California    Just west of the Sequoias

Correction, combustion chamber in block and not head.  Do you have a picture of the top of the block?

Mike, located in the Siskiyou mountains, Southern, OR 292 powered 1946 Ford 1/2 ton, '62 Mercury Meteor, '55 Country Squire (parting out), '64 Falcon, '54 Ford 600 tractor.

Tim, thanks for the pic.  I had read the combustion chamber was formed by the piston, since the heads were flat and have wondered what the pistons looked like.

Mike, located in the Siskiyou mountains, Southern, OR 292 powered 1946 Ford 1/2 ton, '62 Mercury Meteor, '55 Country Squire (parting out), '64 Falcon, '54 Ford 600 tractor.

The replacement pistons from Egge were definitely lower comp. although I didn't figure out just how much.  The stock piston has a little angle pop-up with eyebrows for the valves, the replacement piston was flat strait across.  For those who don't know the MEL has an angle deck like the scrub 348-409 with a flat cylinder head and the combustion chamber in the block.  The pop-up does more than just raise the compression it gives a quench area so a flat piston may lower the the compression but you may have a detonation problem anyway, although no such problem was reported with this engine.

here is the stock piston

   God Bless.   Tim                           http://yblockguy.com/

350ci Y-Block FED "Elwood", 301ci Y-Block Unibody LSR "Jake", 312ci Y-Block '58 F-100, 338ci Y-Block powered Model A Tudor

tim@yblockguy.com  Visalia, California    Just west of the Sequoias