Frank is the best one to fill in any details but I thought casting issues at the foundry were at the forefront of the timing cover and water pump shortages.

Pete.  If you can get the manifold to me, I’ll test it with some other intake manifolds as that will determine if the manifold has merit or not.  Just let me know if you’re willing to send it and I’ll just consider it a loan until it’s on its way back to you.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

A bit of back ground on the manifold might be in order as a starting point. John Cain is based in the Newcastle area 100miles north of Sydney, he used to reco and sell engines. I think most of his manifold where for our Chrysler and Holden straight 6's with a  few V8 as well. He is still there but a few years back sold his workshop equipment and these days imports and sells white wall tyres!!. I e-mailed him about possible performance sheets and dyno reports but as usually happened back in the 60's it was seat of the pants testing on the cars, if it worked great, if not back to the drawing board. I looked at the rules [page 18] of the EMC and using this manifold even with internal modifications like runner dividers would appear to be O.K. No performance comparisons are available at my end, I have never used it and don't know anybody who has. Not much help I know but Ted if you think it has potenial I could send it over. Some basic dimentions; 3" from top to the floor of the plenum, runners are 2 1/2 " x 1 3/4". It is rough cast alloy just painted grey at the present time

Pete, one of the Aussie mob. Beechworth, Victoria60 F100 Panel Van, Y-block. 65 Galaxie Country Sedan 390

Ted, congratulations to getting in EMC, we.re all optimistic for great results, sorry to butt in but whats happening with frank, pegleg and the castings, i thought i read of some problem? in the thread, i was just curious. thank you, Best regards to all. aussiebill.

  AussieBill            YYYY    Forever Y Block     YYYY

 Down Under, Australia

Commercially available by my interpolation means past or present.  That particular manifold does look interesting but gut feel says the lack of dividers will put a serious hurt to the lower end grunt.   This is just an observation based on prior experience with a sheetmetal intake that had short runners.  A quick dyno test with that manifold on the mule engine could verify if the manifold has any potential for some additional power production for the rpm ranges that are being targetted for.

What’s it take to get that manifold to my part of the world for some dyno testing?  Or is there some dyno data available on your end already comparing it to a stock ‘B’ manifold?   With that information, it could be determined if that intake could be viable for the competition and if so, then a confirmation from the rules committee that the manifold in question could indeed be used.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

Ted, what are the rules on inlet manifolds, does "commerically available" mean they have to be still in production? Would this be any good to you?

As far as i know Cain hasn't done any casting for years. Maybe one of the other aussie know more about these manifolds than i do.

Pete, one of the Aussie mob. Beechworth, Victoria60 F100 Panel Van, Y-block. 65 Galaxie Country Sedan 390

Hi Ted,

Donating would be really simple if you had a PayPal account.  Instead of foreign cheques we could all kick in worldwide!

Larry D

Winnipeg, MB Canada Eh!


'57 Fairlane 500 Club Victoria

'58 Custom 300 Tudor

'56 Crown Victoria

'61 Starliner Z Code

'51 Ford Victoria

Ted:

Count me in.  The check will be in the mail tomorrow.  Thank you for perservering in this matter.

John - "The Hoosier Hurricane"

It’s exactly as Charlie says.  Rules for the past couple of years simply stated “No mushroom lifters” without any exceptions.  This years ruling says “No mushroom lifters unless oem equipped”.   A simple wording change this year made the Y or any engine that came factory with mushroom lifters a legitimate entry if it fits all the other rules.  And repeating what Charlie mentioned, lifters with a larger diameter wear face can logistically run more aggressive camshaft profiles; the easy route for those engines factory equipped with smaller diameter lifters and where a particular set of rules does not allow roller camshaft designs is to simply make the tappet wear face a larger diameter by lieu of the mushroom design while not having to enlarge the lifter bores themselves.  Depending upon the engine design to which mushroom tappets are being retrofitted, a recess may have to be machined at the bottom of each lifter bore for ‘mushroom’ clearance.  With roller camshafts and lifters being permitted this year in the EMC competition, it’s questionable why mushroom lifters are even an issue at all.

 

An additional observation is that this years selection committee has obviously recognized the number of teams or shops that were entering more than one engine combination which was keeping the actual thirty in the competition from being as diversified as it could have been.  By sending ‘2^nd’ teams to the alternate position this year, many of the entries that would have been alternates (myself included) are in a much better position to be actual players.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

In the case of the other engines, a mushroom lifter allows for a much larger foot which allows for more aggressive cam profiles and ultimately in more power potential. On a Y-block, however, it does not provide that advantage. The foot on the Y lifter is about 1". Most "conventional" lifters are about .842" to .904". So I guess it does give us a slight edge. The ruling was a bit ridiculous. Fortunately, the rules have changed to allow engines that came with them originally to run.


Lawrenceville, GA

Ted

I read your previous article in the YBM about your entry being disallowed as Y Blocks use mushroom lifters, but I cannot understand why they were disallowed.

Surely mushroom lifters are no better or worse than any other solid lifter.

I would appreciate the reasoning behind them being previously disallowed if only for the fact that they were fitted to Ford engines of the fifties.

Regards

Rick - West Australia
Do Y Blocks Downunder run upside down? Gravity Sucks!!