Thanks in advance for your expertise.

Steve

 Your 1954 239 Ford might be of some interest, value to someone trying to restore a 54 Ford to original condition. However it is so different from the 1955 Ford engines as to make it almost worthless. The most valuable part is probably the carburetor and the starter. The cam journals in the block and the cam are bigger on the 54 compared to the 55 and later engine. The distributor gear has a different number of drive teeth. The heads have smaller intake ports and the intake manifold also has smaller ports.

 Find someone who has an origional 54 Ford and offer it to them. Sorry but thats how it is. Pete

To add to what Pete has already listed, the ’54 engines have their own unique timing covers, water pumps, fuel pumps, distributors, oil pumps, and oil drives.  None of these items are easily used on the ’55 and up 272/292/312 engines.  I’ll add that the intake ports on the’54 heads are considerably smaller making the installation or later model intakes difficult at best to use on those particular heads without intake gasket leakage problems.