Thanks Royce, glad to see he got a little press time on some other sites.

                                 

Michael

Sandy Valley, NV

I ran across this posting on the FE forum.... Would sure be nice to get Mike Henaults to Expo









OT... Cool Y Block story, long post..............

June 27 2009 at 7:47 PM   

hollis franks (Login hfranks)

Members





I drove up to La Grange (population 250) in the Sierra foothills of Cal to meet a guy I had only talked to on the phone over the years. His name is Mike Henaults and he specializes in Y Blocks and old 3 speed OD transmissions. Interesting character. He was a Shivverlay guy, but about 20 years ago a friend said that he had 65 complete Y block engines (239-256-272-292-312) and a few dozen OD trannies, and Mike could have them free! Most of the engines are stripped and the blocks are stacked up. Cranks are hung up, heads are labeled and stacked on shelves, and rods and pistons are in bins and boxes. He has been building and racing Y blocks on oval tracks in the San Joaquin valley for years in the sportsman class. He holds a number of track records and is the current points champ in the region.



Here is the cool part, he runs a 312 T Bird "back yard motor" in a 27 Model T roadster and ALL of his competitors run professionally built 350 Shivverlays that cost 10-30K. He often laps them twice in a race. And while he is passing them he is busy reaching between his legs to shift and old Ford 3 speed standard truck trans between 2nd and 3rd, while his competitors are running beefed up "hands free" Powerglides. Also, he passes them turning 5700 rpm while they are well past 7000. Before races the Shivverlay guys who don't happen to know his car make fun of his "dinosaur motor". After the race they either come near to throwing blows, or they won't even look at him or talk to him. He call the SBC motors "scrubs", never heard that one, I wonder what it means.



His motor is almost stock. Stock bore unmodified block, crank, rods, distributor. The heads are stock and he mills them .060 to get about 10.5 compression. He runs a stock cast iron 4 barrel manifold. Instead of milling it to fit the much lower sitting milled heads, he just drills the bolt holes larger so the bolts will go into the heads. When he puts a motor together he goes through his boxes of old used stock cast t-slot pistons and uses the ones that are "mostly round and don't have too many scuff marks". He has a stock 600 Holley on it and runs a 40-50 year old Isky grind with only .448 lift because "it was the cheapest I could find, about $130". He has no idea why it runs so well and doesn't care. His only theory is that the stacked intake runners are all equal length and the fuel distribution is equal.



If you subscribe to Y Block magazine you will see his business ads and an occasional article. He is phone friends with that guy who is running a 312 T bird in the low 9s (high 8s?).He gave me a couple of Y Block magazines and I was surprised to see the number of old full size 50-60s Ford with Y Block 292s and 312s that are going low 12s/high 11s.



He is an all Ford guy now. His drivers are two 65 Falcon 289 Rancheros and a 65 Falcon 289 wagon. His hauler is 1952 Ford F6 that came with the 317 Lincoln Y Block OHV.



Hollis Franks

Black 63 1/2 XL R Code

Gray 65 289 Falcon