Okay listen I already know the Lincoln Y Block and the Ford Y Block are very different. This will be my fist Lincoln Y block that I will have built and I want some performance help. I have a mercury dual four barrel intake manifold that I just bought, now I need to know what type of carbs you all think I should run. I am going to have the block punched out 40 over from stock. I would like to stroke it but I do not know of any crank I could use. I do not want to offset grind my crank. Also what camshaft should I use. I am not trying to be a drag racer, I just want a cool street car that will take care of business when needed. Last I was thinking of miling the cylinder heads and doing a valve job unless anyone knows of a company that will make heads for the block. One last thing, does anyone know of any company that makes headers for the lincoln that work in the capri. I am pretty much making a sleeper type lincoln. Everything will be stock excpet for the engine an other supporting items. Any help from you all would be greatly appreciated.

54 Lincoln Capri & 55 Ford F-100

What sort of intake manifold did you acquire?

Factory (dont know if they made one) or aftermarket?

Oldmics

RB or Ted will be good sources for this one.

Frank/Rebop

Bristol, In ( by Elkhart) 

There is not a lot of speed eqipt. out there for a Lincoln y-block. Edmunds made a 2x4 intake that used the 4100 holleys and the factory m335 that used the 4150 carbs. The ports on a 317-341 are very small to use a m335 intake on, you should move up to a 1957 368 head. The best thing you could do is find a 57 368 and start your build from there. No headers are offered but flange kits so you could build your own. You can get a cam ground and go with a msd y-block dist. by changing the bottom gear. I have just build a 380 inch L.Y.B. that puts out over 500 foot pounds of torque on the dyno, using a set of Royces headers. If I can be of any help let me know. Tom

  JUST A MIDNIGHT CRUISE DOWN THUNDER ROAD!!! TOM DRUMMOND MIDWEST DIRECTOR 57 FORD INTERNATIONAL

I acquired an aftermarket intake. It is a Fenton dual quad manifold.

54 Lincoln Capri & 55 Ford F-100

Rag Top, Thanks for the info. Would a 1957 368 engine bolt into the 1954 CApri? Or would the 368 heads bolt onto the 317 engine? I am assuming they would since they are both lincoln engines. Also could I just by the valves that would go into a 368 head and just machine the 317 head to fit the 368 head valves? Last would I still be able to use the H2 or H4 holly carbs with the Fenton dual quad manifold. Oh yeah before I forget, I was going to either have Clay Smith Cams or Schneider cams re-ground my cam, not unless you can recommend someone who is fair and knowledgable of vintage engines. Again thank you for your help.

54 Lincoln Capri & 55 Ford F-100

The Fenton intake you have is the same as the Edmunds,after Fenton bought out Edmunds the name on the intake was changed. A 368 will bolt in the same as the 317 and will give you a lot more to work with and will bolt up to your 4 speed hydromatic, that is in your car. The hydro has a very low first gear and is almost unbreakable. I would suggest using adapterplates on your intake and going to a pair of small Edelbrocks. Royce has had very good luck with the Eddies, I am using a pair of 4160 Holleys, but I am blowing pressure into them with a V.S.57 supercharger. I had a solid lifter cam ground, and am using 427 lifters out of an F.E. engine. New rocker arms from Rocker Arm specialties. I converted a 57 Ford distributer to dura-spark electronics ,for a lot less than buying a M.S.D. There is a posting on this site on how to do it. There are a couple of guys on this site using the L.Y.B. and some good information. Also check over at the H.A.M.B. site and go to the Lincoln Y Block engine site and a few guys have some trick stuff going on. Where are located at?   Tom

  JUST A MIDNIGHT CRUISE DOWN THUNDER ROAD!!! TOM DRUMMOND MIDWEST DIRECTOR 57 FORD INTERNATIONAL

In Norfolk, Virginia

54 Lincoln Capri & 55 Ford F-100

It depends how involved you want to get (read money) on what is possible to improve your 317. You already have an improved manifold so that will help a lot. The next thing is to get rid of the awful, stock, pantload-amatic distributor. Replace it with a 57 and up Y block distributor and swap the gear on your stock distributor onto the later one. This is one best bang for buck changes A reground cam from Clay Smith Isky or Schnieder would be fine.. Just don't go too big. You need torque . a 260 to 270 with about 450 lift is where you should be. Find a set of 57 rocker arms. They are a higher ratio and will help the cam perform.. RockerArms.com can fix you up with a rebuilt set. No need to put in bigger valves. It will not help at the power level you will be working with.. I would however mill the heads .040 to give yourself a bit more compression. Along with that use the thin shim type head gasket rather than one of the thicker replacement style. If you want to get serious you could put a 368 crank in it and get 332 cubes. This would require custom pistons though. Headers would be nice but nobody makes anything that would even remotely fit what you have.. Noxious customs (noxiouscustoms.com) does have header flanges available at a modest cost if you want to attempt making your own. You can make good gains that will be noticeable seat of the pants feel. Do the basics first and see how you like the result before attempting more radical changes

To add to what the others have mentioned, you can consider using a 3.66” stroke crank out of a 368 Lincoln.  Rod and main bearing sizes are the same so that part is doable.  Not sure if the timing sets are compatible though.  That would be a 0.160" stroke increase if it's a drop in.  Increasing the cubic inch displacement is the easiest way to up the horsepower and in the case of more stroke, gobs more lowend torque.  If you’re buying custom pistons, then the cost doesn’t change for putting the wrist pin in a different spot to accommodate more stroke.

 

Although you mentioned that that you were not interested in offset grinding the crankshaft, the LYB engines do appear to be open to much more stroke than was available from the factory.  The cam to crank centerline is actually 0.100” more on the LYB engines than the FE engines which means the potential for up to and potentially more than 4.25” stroke is there if you want to get creative on offset grinding the LYB crank to a smaller journal for additional stroke.  This will of course require a different connecting rod.

 

On the camshaft, try to get one with a short lobe centerline (ie.  106° or 108°) as the LYB engines respond nicely to these.  The valve placement in the heads being so far apart helps to explain in part why the LYB engines favor a smaller lobe centerline.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)