I'm currently building a 29' Ford roadster and decided to use a 292 Y-Block for the power plant. The motor came out of my friends custom and is stock with a rebuild a few years ago. I scored a tri carb Fenton intake for it and was thinking of changing the cam. I sent a truck bellhousing off for the T-5 conversion. I will be running less than .500" lift and plan on keeping heads stock for now. What kind of ballpark HP numbers will I be around? 

Y-Guy Farrel:     Welcome to a great site. You'll have plenty of torque

                   to "light-up" the skins and suprize some of your buddies.

                                  Keep "us" up to date...

                                            Bill

Bill

Pelham,Al

I would say you would be in the 215 -225 range with stock exhaust manifolds add 10-15 horse for headers

Welcome Ferrell. A Y-Block is no different than any other engine. They respond to improvements in camshaft, compression, induction and exhaust. A good igniton coil and plug wires should also be used. The best factory Y-Block heads are limited to approx 290hp regardless of what you put under them.

To make good power with a Y-Block I would say the most important things are;

Compression of at least 9.0:1

Camshaft in the 220-240 degrees @.050" lift range. 106-110  separation

The Fenton intake should work well. See Ted's tests of 3-2 intakes

Good exhaust manifolds or better yet 1-5/8" roadster headers. Many people buy the Speedway Motors SBS roadster headers and modify them with Y-Block flanges.

At a minimum a 1959 or later OEM distributor with Pertronix unit and Blaster coil.

http://ford-y-block.com 

20 miles east of San Diego, 20 miles north of Mexico

Thanks for the info. I was hoping to be a little over 200 hp. Should be plenty for a fenderless Model A roadster. I am trying to build the car with as many pre60's Ford parts besides the trans and rear. Trans is out of a 91 GT 5.0 and the rear is an 8.8 from an early 90's Explorer. The body will sit on So-Cal pinched 32' rails with an original 40' axle and split wishbones. The axle was lowered 4"s (got that one at the Lonestart roundup last year). I'm using later 40's Front brakes with 40' Ford 15" all around. I as able to save a dash and steering column w/ wheel out of a 51' Ford shoebox that was getting scrapped and plan on using those as well. Can't say I planned to use all Ford equipment it just worked out that way so now I'm trying to stay with it. I'l post some pics of the build as it goes. THis is my second ground up first being a 30' Model A sedan that  I had chopped into a truck cab. Here is a link to the youtube vid I put together of that build. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_bPNIDQuXo

Trying to go more traditional on this one. Here is a pic of the motor I got in present state. Not a bad start cool valve covers. 

What is the best topic to create a thread for updates of a build?

Thanks,

HH Farrell

Nice job on the model A. Thanks for posting the video. I don't think you can go wrong with the Y. The more I learn about them the more impressed I am, they were way ahead of brand C at the time and make for a strong running engine even today. Mike

1956 Fairlane Victoria (ORREO)

 

Overlooking Beautiful Rimrock AZ

Starting a thread under the 'Street' section would be an appropriate spot in your case for keeping updates in one location.  If you have specific engine build questions, then feel free to ask them under the 'Technical' section and make a separate post for each specific question.  And Welcome to the site.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)