For Daniel Jessup & anyone else interested.. As Hurricane John pointed out recently, Henry Ford passed on in 1947 (& had been in poor health for some time.) It's unlikely he had anything to do with the Y- Blk design, with the probable exception of the firing order. Anyway.. Henry the "deuce" was in charge by 1945. Fomoco was in management transition during this period.

Among the people that came to Ford were Ernest Breech from Bendix; & Harold Youngren from Oldsmobile, who appointed Victor Raviolo ( a returned Ford employee) to direct the new V-8 engine design. The people that did the design under his direction were, Robert Stevenson, Allen Cleveland & Paul Clayton. It's interesting to note that Allen Cleveland was in charge of upper end & combustion chamber design. Those same people also essentially did the design of the new ohv six & the Lincoln/Truck V-8, prior to the Ford/Mercury engine. To give proper credit for most of this information, it came from the Ford Y-Block book by James Eickman.

Paul

Paul, thank you and a tip of my hat to ya!

Nothing like the Y block in design, performance, and reliability. Oh if only Ford would have cast the block to take larger cylinder bores... but then we wouldn't have a niche market like we do today on the old Y. Interesting to see all of these ideas about a manufactured block. Cranks are sure to follow!

Daniel Jessup

Lancaster, California

aka "The Hot Rod Reverend"
check out the 1955 Ford Fairlane build at www.hotrodreverend.com