Greetings all, and thanks for stopping by, I am now in the assembly process. The culmination of many months of machine work and sadly many many fun tickets, the amount of witch if my WONDERFUL wife ever finds out she may become the X. I am sitting in front of the great glowing portal of wisdom. I am trying to invoke the wizened sages of the great and powerful Y-Block.... are you out there?



This is what I hope to seek as I stare into the monitor of wisdom seeking your great and powerful guidance.



1. tips and tricks for better performance as I put this motor back together... (ie oiling tricks, any way to squeeze out more of those elusive ponies)

2. tips on putting the beast back together, I have built 302's 289's, but the Y is a different sort of animal. Anything I should look for to keep myself out of the machine shop again?

3. is a bigger oil pan better? I have 3 now, one from a truck, very shallow. One from a car, nice and deep. and a chrome franken pan that looks like it was a racing application in its former life. I know that oil is the life blood of the motor and plan to use a detached dual oil filter in line with a cooler... and thoughts?

4. does forced or cold air induction do anything for these short of give the carbinators fresh air to breath?

5. any thoughts on the performance of the motor would be greatly appreciated.



...ends chant and awaits reply from wizened sages

Spending my children's inheritance one Y Block at a time.

Hmmmm... Probably best to point you toward some resources...



1957 Ford Car and Thunderbird Shop Manual (these are available as reproductions on Amazon)



Google www.ford-y-block.com/ (this is John Mummert's website)

- toggle the heading 'TECHNICAL'

- on the page that opens, there is a list of topics...

- toggle the 1st item in the list, 'Assembly Errors'...



I'm sure others will have additional suggestions. Hope this helps!




NoShortcuts
a.k.a. Charlie Brown
near Syracuse, New York

What block, heads, pistons , rods, cam, crankshaft, comression ratio, intake system? All of the above have a great bearing on performance.

Glen Henderson



Freedom is not Free

Letohatchee, AL

What are you looking to get out of it. I am by no means the expert, but depending on where you want to land some fixes will be overkill, some are just good mechanics. E.g I wanted to be able to drive mine while working on it so started with just some pretty basic stuff. Better heads intake pushrods and top end stuff, left the cam etc for when I was ready to tear everything down. Definitely look at the common error stuff like the timing chain alignment. But I would recommend mapping out what you want at the end is a must for a first step (cruiser, racer, etc) if you want a mild street car I would say any of the pans are great, if you plan on trick add ons like a ifs fitment may drive the decision, racing- capacity.

Mike Rizzo

1963 F100 "Rudy"

Daniel Island, SC

A couple of other references are; The Ford Y-Block by James Eickman, MBI pub. 1984. Reprints are available although some are of poor quality.(try to get an original ) A good basic reference, although it contains a couple of errors - the illistration of timing chain instillation is incorrect & the recommendation for drilling the block for better cam oiling is very controversial.. (I wouldn't risk it) And if you can find the following series of articles, they are well worth having; Street Rodder, 1999, "Y- Notta Y-Block" by Doc Fromader. A ten issue series on a buildup. Or the same basic articles also appeared in Classic Truck in 2001-2.

Good luck!

Paul

Your budget will to a large degree dictate what you can do.  Upgrading to a piston with modern rings and friction coatings is just one area where the original design can be improved upon but it does cost more.  Increasing the cubic inch displacement is the easiest way to increase the power level but this can also take a large bite out of a budget depending upon how you want to increase the stroke.

 

If you can get hold of past issues of the Y-Block Magazine, there have been a multitude of articles on how to get more power out of these engines.  While 300 horsepower is reasonably attainable through head work, camming, and a better intake manifold, the 500 horsepower number is now being surpassed on a regular basis on normally aspirated Y engines and on pump gasoline.

 

But with all that aside, the stock engines still benefit from modern intakes and carbs, free flowing exhaust, cold air ducts, and selective gearing both at the transmission and rear axle.  At the lower rpms, I don’t find any additional horsepower in the pan design but if you are building to run past 5000 rpms, then by all means get the oil further away from the crankshaft.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

The block was bored 40 over, I have heard that 100 is obtainable, but where in the world do you find pistons for that. I have another block and it might become Y-Build 2.0, however if I'm to go b2tw I would hunt up a 312 block.



I used 289 head springs on my ECZ-G heads which increased the seat pressure by 5 pound and added harmonic springs, once again in version Y 2.0 if I'm going to blow my children's inheritance money I will go with the much drooled after aluminum heads from my now FAVORITE site to drool to, John Mummert, we all know him and bow down at the outstanding work he does. I am running upgraded rocker rails from his site. Then there are the roller rockers that go with those heads, can you say ouch, 5k spent on the top end alone? Anyone in need of a good IT person?



I used a mild cam, Numbers are; .472” lift, 238 Deg. At .050”, 113 Deg.Sep. 284 Deg Adv, Lash at .016”



pistons and rings are all "modern" as far as materials are concerned.



double roller chain, because i found one.



1.54 rocker arms, once again those could be swapped out for rollers, but that would be in the 2.0 Y build.



My best be would be to hunt up the Y block mags for performance tips, anyone out there looking to off some of those dusty old things sitting idol on the shelf in the garage or the bathroom? There was one thing I saw that suggested a small hole being drilled in the cam keeper to allow oil to pass through for better oiling of the timing chain.



Thanks all for the resource and time in reply, I'm still assembling, it may take as long to put it together as it did to have everything machined. That's only because I'm afraid to mess something up, lol.

Spending my children's inheritance one Y Block at a time.

You could also grab a Ford shop manual off ebay, that has a pretty decent section on Y's.'57 would be my choice, but the others are probably similar

Frank/Rebop

Bristol, In ( by Elkhart)