Vintage Engines: FoMoCo Y-Blocks- A Close Look

The speed equipment business, although not perhaps the "industry" it is today, was smaller and more responsive to new ideas, and the Southern California speed merchants were quick to experiment with the new Ford engines, quickly introducing intake manifolds, cams, and other goodies to further improve them. Luckily for hot rodders, chief Y-block designer Victor Raviolo planned for the new engine design to fit where a Flathead had resided in the company's '53 Fords. Offenhauser and other companies quickly set about to make cast-aluminum bellhousing adapters to attach 272-292-312 motors to traditional Ford transmissions, easing the transition from a Flathead to an overhead. Since brand-new engines take some time to trickle down to the wrecking yards where hot rodders mined for transplant horsepower, use of Y-blocks in hot rods continued well into the 1960s.

Y-block engines are not that hard to find these days; we've seen a few at swap meets and in local classified-ad tabloids, ranging in price from $300 to $600 for a complete. The most desirable are the bigger 292 and 312 versions, although a 272 with a few improvements will do. If you're going to pursue one, you'd be well-advised to search first for the back issues of STREET RODDER from the year 1999 that contain the excellent 10-part series Doc Frohmader did on building a Y-block, called "Y-Notta Y-Block." Although all but a few truck Y-blocks ('58-and-later heavy-duty 292s) had cast crankshafts, the block rigidity and crankshaft support of the Y-block's skirt makes a non-issue of using the stock crankshaft, with proper clearances and a professional balancing job.

Mounting a Y-block in your street rod chassis is not a problem, either. Ford used two designs. The passenger cars all had side mounts on the block and a single trans mount to make up a pretty standard three-point support, while 'Birds and trucks used two somewhat close-together mounts on a bracket bolted through the front cover and two wide-spread mounts from the bellhousing, like early small-block Chevys. When mounting a modern transmission to a Y-block, it's desirable to make your engine mounts to fit the side-mount bosses on the block, and use a trans crossmember that accepts that transmission's mount. If you want to use a "small enough to fit where a stick goes" and dead-reliable C4 automatic, Flat-o Products (Salem, Oregon) makes a complete kit, and the company has a bellhousing with the two required mount ears on it for F-100 applications.

Wilcap (Pismo Beach, California) has a kit that will mount a GM TH350 behind the Y-block, plus a way to mount a '63-78 Ford Top Loader four-speed to your original Y-block stick bellhousing. Weir Products (American Canyon, California) has made its bones making adapter bellhousings to put late-model GM T56 six-speed transmissions behind vintage engines, and has been considering doing a model for the Y-blocks if enough interest is shown by customers. John Mummert (El Cajon, California) offers an adapter to mount the readily available T5 five-speed trans to a '54-64 Y bellhousing, including the S-10 T5 version that has the shifter in the right place for an early rod.

Performance for the Y-block, as with any engine, depends on your requirements and can be planned for with proper selection of camshaft, compression, and intake/exhaust components. All of the Y-blocks used solid-lifter camshafts with mushroom-type lifters, and grinds are still available from Clay Smith Cams, Red's Headers, and John Mummert. Cautions on camshafts are four-fold. Some cam catalogs listing Y-block offerings have a weak Stage 1 cam, then jump to grinds that are too wild. You want a stick with no more than 108-110 degrees of lobe separation for an engine with around 9:1 compression. Second, these engines have valve rotators, which will only work if the cam lobes have a slight side-to-side taper that induces the rotation, and the right amount of that taper isn't found on all available grinds. Third, the oiling for the rocker arms (lack of such is one of the original urban legends about Y-blocks) come from a passage leading upward from the center camshaft journal. In the old days, non-detergent oil, lack of maintenance, and absence of a PCV system could cause these passages to clog, starving the rockers. Y-block camshafts are made with an oil groove around the center journal, but the groove is too shallow on some contemporary grinds. Check the depth, and if it isn't 0.030- to 0.035-inch deep, turn the cam on a lathe to this dimension for proper oiling. Fourth, and this is important, remember that mushroom lifters are the first items installed in a Y-block rebuild, then the cam!

With a Web address like www.ford-y-block.com, it's no surprise Mummert has a full line of equipment for these engines, including rebuild kits, stroker kits, forged pistons, aluminum water pumps, high-ratio rocker arms, dress-up pieces, and even reproductions of the dual-quad air cleaners and cool ram-horns cast exhaust manifolds that were used on some truck engines. Red's Headers sells aluminum front timing covers for Y-blocks, and our friends at Sanderson (South San Francisco, California) have two headers designed for the Y-block applications. The guys at Gear Drive Speed & Custom (Lakeville, Minnesota) can set you up with kit or finished lakes-style outside headers.

The intake on Y-block engines is somewhat unusual, in that the ports are laid on top of each other-in other words, there are two groups of two ports on each side and each group is not side by side but over and under. Unless you find a period Ford single-four-barrel or dual-quad intake manifold, you have only two other choices: Scour the same swap meets or eBay for an Offenhauser or Edelbrock period aluminum Tri-power manifold (they're out there), or purchase a new Blue Thunder aluminum four-barrel manifold from John Mummert, whose company is just finishing development of a new aluminum manifold and aluminum Y-block heads. STREET RODDER will bring you details of these new products as soon as they're available.

Choosing a Y-block is relatively simple. Disregard the original 239-inch '54 engines, and look for a 272 or a 292, both of which can be made to meet your needs for a traditional street rod powerplant. Ah yes, the 312 is the largest of the Ford variants, but it's the most sought after, thus more costly. Additionally, the 312 was the only Ford Y-block with an asbestos-rope rear main seal, and they are prone to oil leaks here (ask any two-seater Thunderbird owner); all others had a lip seal, which works great. Another source of Y-block engines is your local boat yard, since many boats used inboard marine adaptations of the Y-block, often with dual-Carter one-barrel carbs just like the '53-54 Corvettes.

For cylinder heads, there were three intake valve sizes (all exhausts were the same at 1.510 inch): 1.64, '60-62 292s; 1.78, all '55-56; and the biggest at 1.93 inch were said to be only on the blown T-bird but were also used in '57-59 truck engines. When shopping for heads, bring your vernier calipers. Compression ratios were factory-achieved with different chamber volumes, but low-compression truck heads can be brought back up with the use of the right aftermarket piston domes. A standard performance treatment with heads and intake manifold port-matched to the gaskets and a three-angle valve job are a suggested part of your rebuild.

One of the traditional problems with Y-blocks has been cooling, but this can be addressed without much trouble. One of the reasons was the valve arrangement on the heads, where the exhaust valves for the two middle cylinders on each bank were immediately next to each other, causing a hot spot. The John Mummert aluminum water pump flows more water, which helps, but drilling two matching holes in the head and block deck helps this out further and at no cost. Using a head gasket as a template, mark the two holes between the two middle cylinders (see SR, Nov. '99) and drill the holes on the exhaust side to 1/4-inch, and the holes toward the intake side to 1/8-inch, then to 11/64-inch.

Cool valve covers are every street rodder's must-have, and for eyewash, we're all in luck here with the Y-block Fords. To someone who is a total Ford fan, there is no nicer OEM rocker cover on any engine to match the finned, polished-aluminum valve covers on the Thunderbirds, with that turquoise field for the 'Bird emblem. Originals can be found, and most of the Thunderbird restoration supply catalogs have a current reproduction of this. For the custom look, Offenhauser (see Exeter Auto Supply) still makes its polished cast-aluminum valve covers from the day, and Speedway Motors has chromed, repop OE steel covers and an ever-expanding group of cool Y-block parts in its catalog. To complete the impression, O'Brien Truckers (Charlton, MA) makes a nice finned-aluminum valley cover.

Y-block Ford engines were well thought of by gearheads back in the 1950s, and they can be even better with today's increasing availability of improved components. The modern transmission choices will allow you to put the engine in the powerband you want, without strain, and those solid lifters do sound more hot-rod than the sewing-machine-perfect modern crate engines. As Doc Frohmader said, "Y-not a Y-block" for your next traditional street rod.

A Ramble About The Burble
Sound Observations From A Former Y-Blocker
The Y-block is probably one of the prettiest-sounding engines when run through cast-iron exhaust manifolds (the larger '57-and-later models for dual pipes are the best), car-length 2-inch pipes, and medium-length glasspacks installed roughly halfway along the pipe. Even though it may hurt torque a bit, resist the urge to install a balance tube or X between the pipes. Similarly, resist the urge to use chambered mufflers or large-diameter pipes. It's the wrong era and wrong sound for a Y-block, and neither will make a low-speed engine make any more power than the small pipes with 'packs will.

When set up that way, old dogs like Y-blocks have a smooth growl when cruising and have a pretty good bark when kicked with the right foot. In fact, without the balance tube, the pipes will rap under hard acceleration. You'll find yourself driving among high-rise buildings late at night just so you can hear the sound. It's pretty close to glorious. It's almost reason enough to own a Y-block-powered car. I miss the sound since I sold mine.