John: Glad to get confirmation on Karol moving the heads up. I only know what I have read about Karol, but it is VERY obvious he is head and shoulders(maybe belt buckle), above the average hot rodder. Karol understood valve train dynamics existed and devised a method of evaluating them. Did he copy Smokey Yunick or did Smokey copy him or did he do it all himself? No matter. He got er done. That alone indicates he was way ahead. No telling what other tricks were in there.

I believe he was a tool pusher for his dads oil company. He drove the 56 on the job which entailed lots of miles. My dad was a tool pusher for an oil company during WWII. He wore out a 37 ford on that job, and had to overhaul it. due to wartime shortages he had to remachine non Ford pistons and adopt parts from other applications to get it going again.

I hope John Mummert is doing things like this on his new heads. Since John is no dummy either I suspect he is.

Thanks a lot.  I really wanted to read 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.

How would one go about moving the heads "up"? You mean displaced them from the bolt holes a hundred thousands? It apparently didn't bother Karol if he did it and then took it on a long trip from Texas to Utah. Do you reckon he never gave it a thought that he may blow that engine to kingdom come out there at Bonneville? What do you think his game plan would have been then? He didn't have a trailer full of spare motors and parts ... Damn! Just amazing!

Doing Fords for 45 years. '56 Customline Victoria

E.J. in Havana FL

Don:

Karol MAY have moved the heads up?  In one of my letters from him, he told me that he moved them up .100, could have moved them more.  Myself, I would get nervous about the gaskets sealing the water passages from the cylinders and the lower edge of the block.

In talking with a guy that showed some interest in making aluminum Y heads a few years ago (none of the ones discussed on this forum), I mentioned Karol's moving of the heads.  He laid a sample gasket on a sample head I had, and said, "there's at least 10 horsepower right there".  This guy makes aluminum heads for other makes, like 500 inch cadillacs and late buicks and olds, but never did anything with the Y.  He's not a threat to John Mummert's program in any way.

John - "The Hoosier Hurricane"

'46, when you click on those pictures of that story about that '56 Mercury you should be able to just keep clickin' on them until they get big enough to read.

Doing Fords for 45 years. '56 Customline Victoria

E.J. in Havana FL

See, this is what I'm talking about. It absolutely amazes me that there are people on here that actually know Karol Miller. Do you guys have any idea just how cool that is? These stories can keep me glued to this stuff for hours. Do you guys know what it would be like for us "ordinaries" to just sit around and listen to you guys tell the stories you have? Back in my younger day I personally knew Don Garlits. I used to hang around his shop and go to testing with him in Tampa. Like you guys, I probably didn't think it was any big deal, but you guys telling these stories are a big deal. Yes, the HAMB is a lot of bs's and if that's not your thing it wouldn't be the place to hang out. And yeah, it's a lot of cars other than Y-blocks, but the HAMB is where this story I posted here came from. The one about the Merc came from a Hot Rod magazine that I got for Christmas. I know there are great Y-block folks here and I'm proud to be among y'all ..

Doing Fords for 45 years. '56 Customline Victoria

E.J. in Havana FL

[

  Even before knowing him personally, I knew of him from the accounts written in the early Sixties.  He definitely set the bar back then and from the sounds of what he does now, is still continuing to reset the bar.  Excellent write up on the HAMB site though.[/quote]

 

   Bear in mind, that there were about 100 people working on small block scrubs, or Chrysler Hemis, or Flatheads. Then there was Karol, and Les Richter, by themselves, with no help from Ford, or Edelbrock, or Duntov, or anybody. Those guys did it alone, with fabricated parts and brains. Makes that 150 mph look even more impressive.

    We also have a fella in our midst who carried the torch for the Y's ALONE, or practically alone for 25 years. Long after the efforts of the F code race cars faded from NHRA competition, one continued, and continues to amaze people today. That'd be Hoosier Huricane. If you've never seen a genuine Super Stock F code '57 Ford run, do yourself a favor and make it to EXPO and watch him.  

Frank/Rebop

Bristol, In ( by Elkhart) 

Altho Karol is very modest, the use of the timing light and distributor was a stroke of genius. I suspect if all of the secrets of that 56 were known we would be amazed. Bruce Young in the Y Block magazine indicated from a conversation with Karol the heads may have been off set to unshroud the valves. This kind of contradicts the article linked above but? How much horse power does it take to push a 56 ford to 150 mph? A 375 hp 61 Starliner was the first pure stock car (I believe) to exceed 150 mph during the Pure Oil Trials at Daytona Beach. These cars were have all of the show room equipment. Some cars were disqualified for not having the fan belts in place after a run. My 61 would run 105 in the quarter with open exaust, (not allowed by Pure Oil). The 61 weighed in excess of 4200 Pounds with me in it and was pretty aero slick. It needed right at 370 RWHP to do this. I would take a WAG and say Karol was in the 350 to 375 HP range easily. 

See, everyone was reading after all.

I like the Karol Miller story for the simplicity, low tech and low buck, he had to make do with what he had and fabricate everything.  The true Y-Block way. I am constantly telling people that what makes this sport fun is the hands on way we do things.  The scrub crowd has lost that because everything is "buy and bolt" most guys don't know what they are doing and just think that because some add tells them that they can get 10% more HP with this part and 15% more HP with that part and so on, so now they now have 1000 HP.  Truth is the thing runs like crap because of no research or knowledge. 

   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

I was in high school when Karol did the impossible with the 56.

I recall Karol cut his teeth by beating one AJ Foyt's Olds in "top end" racing. I rember him replacing the stock exaust with the police (did not use the bumper outlet), exaust system with its larger diameter pipes, after the exaust hangers melted off during these races. Did the same on my 56 customline 272. That was a great car, I regret driving it so hard. That was the car I traded on my 61 Starliner,390/375.