and for all of those that put Chebys in those classic Fords

[Deuces]

3 hours ago, Dave Van said:

Ford Coyotes are being put in a lot of cars....GM included!!!  We wanted to buy back my son's Mustang when he was rear ended.....but insurance would not allow.....knowing they could sell it for big $$$$

One Friday....

the next Saturday morning....

Dang near looks like my new one..... ???

[Dave Van]

We still miss ours.........

but I like yours!!!!   I do have this one as backup!!!

[Rusty92]

I’m an LS kinda guy. But I do enjoy seeing the brands intermingled. GM guys dislike when there are other brands in their engine bay! It’s funny. 

[larman]

45 minutes ago, Rusty92 said:

I’m an LS kinda guy. But I do enjoy seeing the brands intermingled. GM guys dislike when there are other brands in their engine bay! It’s funny. 

I think mostly swaps are done because it makes sense either cost wise, dimensionally or power wise. The sbc, was and is plentiful, cheap, realitively rugged and reliable. The LS motors are the modern equivalents. So as a mostly GM guy, I look at non Chevy motors in Chevys as silly, or at times, reverse snobbery. To do it seems counter productive, unless your goal is to agitate purists. Hot Rod Drag week just finished and there were A LOT of LS swaps in all makes, and most of the top Mustangs had LS motors. There was a '55 Chevy gasser that had a big Ford motor that ran very well and Finnegan's Blasphemi which won the gasser class. So there are exceptions, but I'll bet those exceptions cost more to build.

[Rusty92]

31 minutes ago, larman said:

I think mostly swaps are done because it makes sense either cost wise, dimensionally or power wise. The sbc, was and is plentiful, cheap, realitively rugged and reliable. The LS motors are the modern equivalents. So as a mostly GM guy, I look at non Chevy motors in Chevys as silly, or at times, reverse snobbery. To do it seems counter productive, unless your goal is to agitate purists. Hot Rod Drag week just finished and there were A LOT of LS swaps in all makes, and most of the top Mustangs had LS motors. There was a '55 Chevy gasser that had a big Ford motor that ran very well and Finnegan's Blasphemi which won the gasser class. So there are exceptions, but I'll bet those exceptions cost more to build.

Agreed that they cost more to build probably. I was just at Super Chevy today in Joliet, IL and there were a lot of LS equipped mustangs.

Saw one where the owner had a 6.0 with Holley LS/carb intake on, with a.... FiTech EFI unit on it. Was very confused. 

[ChrisBcritter]

Hey, if Ed Roth can stuff a 406 Ford in a '55 Chevy...

The Budget Buggy.

[Greg Myers]

Nice to be back on track ☺️

[thatz4u]

21 hours ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

I wonder if anybody's stuffed a coyote into a roadrunner yet. Beep beep. 

                                              

does this count?????

[Ace-Garageguy]

On 9/14/2019 at 4:10 PM, Snake45 said:

I believe Acme Conversions sells a complete trans-kit. 

Excellent. 

[Gramps46]

Back to the thread title.

It was 1962, I was 16, and helped a friend of my sister put together this Model A with a 1956 Chevy engine.  Only got to drive it once before we moved away.

[Tom Geiger]

On 9/14/2019 at 11:15 PM, larman said:

I think mostly swaps are done because it makes sense either cost wise, dimensionally or power wise. The sbc, was and is plentiful, cheap, realitively rugged and reliable. The LS motors are the modern equivalents. 

Also known as "the easy way out" considering that easy install kits are available.  I want to find myself a 1930s Ford roadster pickup for my retirement.  I'd like it to have an old school engine... give me a flatty, a Caddy or Olds V8  or even something odd like a Studebaker V8...  Small block cars are so common they are cliche!   

I saw a 1930s Plymouth street rod done nicely with a Mopar 340 in it.  I appreciated it since it was all Mopar and the owner went the extra mile to fit it in there!   And you don't see that every day!

Edited September 16, 2019 by Tom Geiger

[alan barton]

3 minutes ago, Tom Geiger said:

Also known as "the easy way out" considering that easy install kits are available.  I want to find myself a 1930s Ford roadster pickup for my retirement.  I'd like it to have an old school engine... give me a flatty, a Caddy or Olds V8  or even something odd like a Studebaker V8...  Small block cars are so common they are cliche!   

If you would only fly out to Perth, I would meet you at the airport, you could drive the roadster back to my place, and I would wipe out that silly notion once and for all!   Goes like stink, sounds awesome, looks cool as- once you've had an SBC you'll never go back!

And once you get that Caddy, Olds or Stude into your RP, call me and let me know where you put the steering box!

Luv ya Tom! Cheers

Alan

[Dave Van]

Just nice to be here........

[Richard Bartrop]

Gotta love how that thinking goes.  Putting a flathead in everything, that's tradition.  Put a small block Chexy in everything, that's a cliche.

[Tom Geiger]

1 hour ago, alan barton said:

If you would only fly out to Perth, I would meet you at the airport, you could drive the roadster back to my place, and I would wipe out that silly notion once and for all!   Goes like stink, sounds awesome, looks cool as- once you've had an SBC you'll never go back!

And once you get that Caddy, Olds or Stude into your RP, call me and let me know where you put the steering box!

Luv ya Tom! Cheers

Alan

Thanks Alan!  I don't think you want my first go at RHD to be in your roadster on the way from the airport!    ?

Reminds me of when you were here in Pennsylvania and we stopped by the house of that fellow who was working on a couple of street rods... remember the chain drive setup he had on that Model T steering? 

Edited September 16, 2019 by Tom Geiger

[larman]

1 hour ago, Tom Geiger said:

Also known as "the easy way out" considering that easy install kits are available.  I want to find myself a 1930s Ford roadster pickup for my retirement.  I'd like it to have an old school engine... give me a flatty, a Caddy or Olds V8  or even something odd like a Studebaker V8...  Small block cars are so common they are cliche!   

I saw a 1930s Plymouth street rod done nicely with a Mopar 340 in it.  I appreciated it since it was all Mopar and the owner went the extra mile to fit it in there!   And you don't see that every day!

I have no problem with other swaps either, sometimes its a matter of "I have this car and it needs a motor and I have this laying around". I believe that was the case with Roth's '55. He had the FE ford from one of his projects and the '55 needed a motor. I love seeing vintage motors, besides Chevys in old hot rods too.  I think most people know, going in, that they will cost more and be trickier to install for most likely, lesser performance. A lot of guys in the street rod world are fine with that and less concerned with having a hot rod that is built with speed as a first priority. Or they have the funds to do whatever they want and if it costs more to make it go faster, so be it. My initial post was in response to people swapping non Chevys motors in Chevys and my basic comment was that it seems counter productive because it would most likely cost more, be more trouble to install and in the end would have less performance. Probably not always the case, but true most of the time. Sometimes it is about the best bang for the buck and sometimes it's not, I guess it depends on the person.

[Ace-Garageguy]

9 minutes ago, Richard Bartrop said:

Gotta love how that thinking goes.  Putting a flathead in everything, that's tradition.  Put a small block Chexy in everything, that's a cliche.

Yup. The smallblock Chebby was THE engine of choice for swaps from 1955 until it was replaced by the LS...and for very good reason. It was narrower and lighter than anything else in the junkyards, and put out more power for its weight. Because it was SO good, the aftermarket jumped in quickly and the hop-up and swap parts availability mushroomed overnight.

Frankly, when I got back into actually building American hot-rods about 2011 or so, I was kinda an engine snob too. Then I saw the sometimes insane money guys were putting into flatheads, and the rarity and expense of goodies for engines like the old Hemis and Caddys and first-gen Olds OHVs, Studebakers, nailheads, Y-blocks, etc.

For my OWN real '32 roadster, I'm building a smallblock Chebby, based on junkyard bits, for exactly the same "traditional" reasons the knowledgeable guys did from '55 until now. It's an easier fit in a small car, it's light, and there's everything imaginable for go-fast out there for reasonable money. 350HP on pump gas with 3-carbs is easily attainable, with the reliability of a hammer. Try getting that from a flathead. 

PS: Thanks for writing "a cliche". You get 10 points for correct English usage. When the word is used as an adjective, it's "cliched". 

[Greg Myers]

I find this long lived discussion SBC in a Ford, Flatheads Forever et,al. No different than Brand loyalty.

I studied this in my years as a high school auto shop teacher.  What I saw with most brands other than the more popular brands, and sometimes even them, was brand loyalty was pretty much dictated by convenience. Why do you drive such and such? "I got it from my grampa", " My neighbor had it for sale". "It was the cheapest thing i could afford".

When fiscal situations changed usually the brand did too.

Convenience and availability.

now Fit must be considered as well. Those small block Ford V-8's are rather long and the Y blocks kind of heavy

[JJ Deuce]

I've never understood the fuss over swaps.  If you put a coyote in a '32 just because "it's a ford," it's still a swap, and it's not as though it's more correct since it didn't exist at the time the car was built.  a different engine than what it came with is still a different engine, regardless of manufacturer. 

Some of y'all are probably familiar with Duntov's letter to the head of Chevy R&D, laying out the idea that the SBC could, and should, be the next big thing in hot rodding.  I'm not saying he advocated for Chevy power in Ford cars, but he certainly saw the potential to make it a popular hot rod powerplant.

https://www.hotrod.com/articles/the-duntov-letter/

 

 

[Dave Van]

I am die hard Ford fan. When I bought a 1946 Ford 2 door coupe that was turn key finished and had a SBC 350/350 under the hood I had no thoughts of changing things. It runs like a top and when the hood is closed no one knows.  All I know is it's a fun car....my bottom line. 

Edited September 16, 2019 by Dave Van

[Ace-Garageguy]

2 minutes ago, Greg Myers said:

...now Fit must be considered as well. Those small block Ford V-8's are rather long...

Yeah, even though there are available "short" water pumps. The little Fords are very narrow across the heads, narrower than the Chevy, and rev tight and sound really sweet (I think most smallblock Chebbys sound like they're missing on one cylinder, due to their firing order), but finding good cores can be tough these days (I've been trying to find somebody who'd trade me a real hi-po 289 for my Australian 351C for several years), and aftermarket stuff is still more costly than Chebby stuff. All that said, I'd probably build my own car with a little Ford if I could find exactly what I'd want...

[Scott8950]

2 hours ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

Yeah, even though there are available "short" water pumps. The little Fords are very narrow across the heads, narrower than the Chevy, and rev tight and sound really sweet (I think most smallblock Chebbys sound like they're missing on one cylinder, due to their firing order), but finding good cores can be tough these days (I've been trying to find somebody who'd trade me a real hi-po 289 for my Australian 351C for several years), and aftermarket stuff is still more costly than Chebby stuff. All that said, I'd probably build my own car with a little Ford if I could find exactly what I'd want...

you can make the little fords run as good or better for about the same price as a sbc ? 

 

However the ls motors are the way to go at this time as far as bang for buck. Im actually about to build a ls powered fox mustang ?

Edited September 16, 2019 by Scott8950

[Ace-Garageguy]

44 minutes ago, Scott8950 said:

you can make the little fords run as good or better for about the same price as a sbc ? 

Well, I'm not going to argue. I've got enough junkyard SBC parts to build a seriously stout, vintage-appearing (like double-hump heads) engine, with modern internals to get it to stay together. Last time I looked, getting a little Ford to 350 very reliable HP on pump gas was a little more costly than what I'll have in my period-looking Chebby.

 

However the ls motors are the way to go at this time as far as bang for buck. Im actually about to build a ls powered fox mustang ?

Yup...if bang for the buck is the primary goal. I did one in a '47 Caddy a while back. But that's not the look I want in an open-engine-bay channeled '32. 350HP is all I could ever possibly use on a street ride anyway. And the big-block-powered '66 Chevelle I'm doing now could have made the same power from an LS, with considerably less weight, but again, the owner wants a car like he had when he was a kid, sorta.

I AM thinking about an LS in one of the Jags though. Hard to beat, as you say. 350HP from a lowly LS 1...not too shabby. The XJ-6 only has 180 stock, and the beautiful but heavy engine weighs something like 700 pounds.

EDIT: But I'd really much rather do a Coyote in the Jag...just 'cause. I had a 4-cam 4.6 for it, but it walked when I was moving from one shop to another...

Edited September 16, 2019 by Ace-Garageguy

[Scott8950]

35 minutes ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

EDIT: But I'd really much rather do a Coyote in the Jag...just 'cause. I had a 4-cam 4.6 for it, but it walked when I was moving from one shop to another...

I've never cared for the modular engines. Those are very costly to build and dont seem to hold up very well.

i will say the coyote engine is impressive just not enough to make me a mod motor guy ?

[GaryR]

LOL

Here's the truth about the flathead in the Camaro.

It was done in 1968 by a local guy in Oregon, a longtime flathead Ford drag racer.

He bought a (then ) brand new stolen and stripped Camaro from the insurance company for cheap, dropped in one of his Fords, ran a lower NHRA Gas Class, ( H/Gas) and kicked butt against the mostly VW's. Won a LOT!

Did you guys not see the "1968" right on the photo?
I saw this car race many times at Woodburn, know the story for a fact, Marty Strode posted the pic years ago on my "Great Oregon Racers" thread on the HAMB!

THAT IS THE REAL STORY OF THE CAMARO AND THE FLATHEAD!!!!    ?