Mark, i think you,re mixing other weslake family of engines with our y block. The pictured one and speedy bills are the early y block weslake headed engine, then came windsor headed weslake y block engines, weslake made heads etc and developed many brands and types of engines including motor bikes etc. the dist mounts in usual spot in block, some have offset drive for intake/carb clearance. There is no connection to any other family of engines as i know it, unless you are referring to FE family of which i havent heard of Weslake FE cammer if thats what you are referring to???? but may exist! Some people use the term Y block with FE and MEL series because of the Y shape, but i believe the term YBLOCK belongs to our 272,292,312 engines. Best regards , bill

  AussieBill            YYYY    Forever Y Block     YYYY

 Down Under, Australia

Bill,

Well, like I said a SOHC Weslake head Y Block may be a product of rumors, speculation or a confusion of stories. There was some discussion many years back of a "mystery" SOHC Y Block (292-312) that was in development for a possible Indy 500 entry. According to the possible mythology that program never was realized. Again, this is pure speculation and could be just "bench racing" jawboning. I have seen some references to the FE's/MELs as Y blocks by design as well as contemporary Ford modular V8's. Given the fertility of innovation during the mid 50's to late 60's with the likes of Weslake, Gurney, Jim Clark, Holman and Moody, and the groundbreaking motors that came of that, the idea of something like a SOHC Y Block doesn't sound to far fetched but, it may be just another myth.

Mark

57 Black Tbird 312/auto

Mark, you,re sure right about mythology on the rare stuff, keeps us looking? you,re close with the sohc y block. from my side i have been waiting for the weslake find to subside, although extremly excited about it and was going to bring up the sohc subject. if most of you remember the late Richard Gaston mentioning he worked at place where he actually cut the bevel drive gears for sohc y block engines that powered some model tank? i have searched for years and cant find what they were in and if any survived in tank somewhere, but would be good to add another page to our y block history! From our deep knowledge pool we all may find out about another myth. best regards bill.

  AussieBill            YYYY    Forever Y Block     YYYY

 Down Under, Australia

hi, the sohc was an all aluminum v-8 used in sherman tanks. somewhere in the naborhood of 1000 cu.in. and 500 hp. if you go to the ford truck forums they have a pic. i believe they tryed to use the same setup on a y-block but it probably didn't like high rpm and was abandened.

 lincoln/merc. y-blocks &mel's                                                               bucyrus, ohio.

Henry made thousands of aluminum 60 degree V-8s with 1100 CID. I don't remember any single overhead cam, the only ones I have seen or read about were made in a dual overhead cam configuration.  It was called the GAA or possibly GAF at times and was used in Sherman tanks in WW11. 

Jan  Urbanczyk  Major USMC Ret.

                                                                 Bowie Maryland

Ah......some of the cobwebs in my brain are clearing. I remember the Gaston thread from somewhere. The photo of the gear drive posted as well. Here is a link about the tank engine. Pay particular attention to the Mustang photos at the bottom of the page. He gets the all-time Visual Intimidation Award at any race. Here is Santa Cruz, the Blastolene guys put together the Blastolene Special and Big Bertha using big stuff like this. Leno bought one of them. They drove it on the street here. Given the gear drive/timing cover for was made, what kind of RPM could a Yblock survive using today's engineering and technology? The FE SOHC's could do 8 or 9K I think.

http://mechdb.com/index.php/Ford_1100_ci_Sherman_tank_engine

Mark

57 Black Tbird 312/auto

Guys, my thoughts were only on the yblock sohc with the timing cover i posted. It shows they existed at some time and was keen to revise the interest. thanks. regards bill.

  AussieBill            YYYY    Forever Y Block     YYYY

 Down Under, Australia

hey your right they were dohc, oops my screw up, sorry. just got done looking at the pics. of the weslake engine and if you look at the pic. of the front of the engine you'll see that the pasenger side head stickes over the end of the block. i'd say someone stuck a set of 351 weslake heads on a y-block. it was nice to dream. now lets take a set of mummert aluminum heads and port the hell out of them. that i can see in the near future, can't waite.

 lincoln/merc. y-blocks &mel's                                                               bucyrus, ohio.

SOHC



http://www.y-blocksforever.com/tech/html/sohc.html


Lawrenceville, GA

Okay...there it is. What is the year of the Y Block Mag are the articles are from? I have subscribed for many years but missed or forgot about these articles. Life has it's distractions. In the end it is a conversion kit. A set of parts to apply to a conventional Y block and heads. First question that comes to mind is who owns the rights to the kit? Ford? Holman and Moody? Then if someone wanted to repro them or at least replicate them, could that be managed. The next question is will they fit Mummert's new aluminum heads? I also noticed the cam covers have an AMBLER logo on them. I recognize that name from the Museum of American Speed as a manufacturer of aftermarket cylinder heads for the Ford four banger. The photo in the Museum website is EO65.

57 Black Tbird 312/auto