Well everyone it's finally here, I am taking apart a Y-block that is Not Mine!!!!!!!! Can't tell you how good that feels. I am building it for a guy down the street for a 56 Ford. In return he is installing a "footprint gas pedal" on my truck (Joe Dirt). Just kidding he is actually doing some body work on my new pickup. When I disassembled it I found that one of the pistons was hitting the head and all the rod bearings were in really bad shape. The cylinder walls look fine but we will install new rods and pistons any way. I am not sure if the crank is fixable but we will see what the machine shop says. The engine was actually really clean and it must have came out of a mercury cause the valve covers said so. It had a cruisomatic behind it but we are going to install an AOD. He already got the cam from Mummert and if I remember it should have a pretty nasty idle and we should be able to make some power with it. I am excited to build one naturally aspirated and see what we can tune it to on the dyno. He already had the heads reworked a while ago and he bought a factory Ford aluminum dual quad intake and he found some exhaust manifolds, I am not sure what they are called but they come up towards the middle and go straight down. I will call John tomorrow and see what we can do for rods and pistons. I will probably zero deck the block to give us a little more compression. I was wondering also what you guys would recommend for carbs. The intake has a smaller bolt pattern than the normal 4150 square bore carb. I was thinking for an engine like this around two 400 cfm carbs might work well. Just have a couple pics of the engine I will take more as the project goes on.



The engine actually disassembled really well.



This is the piston that was getting into a fight with the head. The pistons are interesting how they have a little hole in the middle of them. My 292 didn't have that but I guess they were not Ford pistons either. It was neet even the valves have an Oval on them and say Fomoco on the them.

Hutz; It would seem that something out of the ordinary has occurred there with the piston hitting the head. Factory height ones are a long way from the head, unless they are odd pistons, or the block has already been decked. Someone may correct me on that observation, but it seems weird..

Paul

Probably spun a bearing ?

  AussieBill            YYYY    Forever Y Block     YYYY

 Down Under, Australia

If the engine is going in a passenger car, those "rams horn" manifolds will not work. They exit right on the crossmember the engine mounts are on.

John - "The Hoosier Hurricane"

As John said the center dump ex manifolds called ramshorns (and they look a little like the scrub's ex manifolds of the same name) will not work on a stock suspension pass car. I remember reading someplace, probably one of Ted's dyno tests, they don't make any more power than stock '57 and up pass car ex manifolds. The '57 stock pass car manifolds will fit in a 54-56 OK but the head pipes are a little different. The Ramshorns are a great fit on every truck I ever saw and they look really cool.

But for real power - normally aspirated, I think most would agree headers are called for.

Re ex manifolds be careful of the ears on either end. Actually FoMoCo intended that ex manifolds of all kinds fit directly on the head without gaskets!! Gaskets tend to cause the ears to bend and as CI doesn't like bending, the ears break.

Real gurus ie Ted et al, any comments on ex manifolds with or without gaskets?

PS those could be Jahns cast pistons. Being .040 over they are clearly replacements and I think Jahns tended to have the machining mark in the center.

Doug T

The Highlands, Louisville, Ky.

Make sure all the piston rod assemblies are the same length. If that bearing is completely gone, as Bill said, that may have caused it.

Frank/Rebop

Bristol, In ( by Elkhart) 

Well we found out today from the machine shop that the engine had been apart before and that one of the main bearing areas in the block had been repaired. He is going to line bore check it tomorrow. The bearing in that cylinder was completely gone. Thanks for the heads up I will go over tomorrow and check one how them manifolds will fit.

Using the fibre or composition gaskets under the exhaust manifolds does speed up the tendency for the exhaust manifolds to crack or break. Unequal expansion rates of the manifold by lieu of poor heat dissipation when using the fibre gaskets would be the explanation for this. By the original design, the exhaust manifolds were to be a metal to metal fit to the heads. The larger trucks used a metal gasket that incorporated a shield to keep the heat off of the valve covers but it is a metal gasket without any fibre backing and helps to promote better equal heat transfer from the exhaust manifold back to the head versus using the fibre backed gaskets. A very thin film of ‘red’ RTV on the exhaust manifolds in lieu of using any gaskets does seem to give the best exhaust manifold life while still being leak free.

.

Here are some links to past threads giving more info on the metal truck exhaust gaskets. I have had these on my own ’55 Customline for about twenty five years now and they do slow down that exhaust manifold breakage issue when compared to using the fibre style of gaskets.

http://forums.y-blocksforever.com/FindPost5884.aspx

http://forums.y-blocksforever.com/FindPost59691.aspx

http://forums.y-blocksforever.com/FindPost22380.aspx

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

Boggles the mind as to how some engines simply fail to give up. Between the rod hammering at the crankshaft and the piston hitting the head, that 312 was undoubtedly sounding like a thrashing machine. Here’s a picture of a rod and piston assembly out of a 428 that was doing something similar and also didn’t break. This particular rod actually bent at the small end which kept piston top damage much less than it should have been. The big end of the rod where it was running without a bearing is deformed into an oblong shape.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

Piston hitting head sounds like a 292 rod in a 312 engine. They are slightly longer and will cause piston to hit the head and make a lot of noise. How do I know this? Did it on a '57 312 back in '66 that I trashed and tried to put back together on the cheap.