Need Ford Flat Head Info

[Dave Wood]

Guys would there have been any after market heads for the pre WW2 221 / 239 Ford / Merc. engines ? Thanks for any Help.

Dave

[bigphoto]

Yes Eddie Meyer made heads and intakes. Also Weiand Edelbrock and several others produced stuff as they were all racers then too.

[Ace-Garageguy]

The 221cu.in flathead had 21 head-retention studs and was produced from '32 through '36, and updated for '36-'38. These engines, the first ones especially, aren't the best for performance enhancement, though there are 21 stud aftermarket heads by Mack, Cyclone, Allard , Mal Ord, Lightning, Eddie Meyer, several more and probably many more I've never heard of. There were also factory aluminum heads from '33 onwards (they looked like iron, same basic design) and there were several compression ratios and combustion-chamber shapes available in factory Ford parts. Canadian alloy heads had different combustion chambers.

The real question is WHEN the various heads were available, as the flathead V8 didn't really come into its own as a racing engine until AFTER the war, and many of the guys making speed equipment then learned their stuff in the military.

The '39 engine is the first of the 24-stud units (255cu.in. from '48 thru '53), and there is a ton of stuff for those. Again, exactly how much was available PRE-WAR is the bit that takes research.

Here's a start...

http://www.jalopyjou...ad.php?t=445039

Edited October 3, 2012 by Ace-Garageguy

[Dave Wood]

Tim and Bill Thanks for the info that will help alot

Dave

Edited October 3, 2012 by Dave Wood

[Art Anderson]

If only I could locate my 1950 Bell Auto Parts Speed Equipment Catalog! That catalog is a veritable gold mine of information along with tremendous illustrations.

Art

[Ace-Garageguy]

Tim and Bill Thanks for the info that will help alot

Dave

You're welcome. Just remember the 24 stud engine didn't make its appearance until 1939, and the war in Europe started in September of that year. I think it unlikely that many alloy aftermarket heads were made for the 24-stud engine pre-war, as aluminum was a strategic material. Though the US didn't join the war oficially until Dec.7, 1941, it was obviously just a matter of time in '39, and we were already building aircraft for the other Allies. My understanding is that aluminum for non-essential uses would have been limited.

If you're wanting to do accurate period-correct, look carefully at the differences in 21 and 24 stud engines. They're pretty obvious to real flathead guys.

[Dave Wood]

If only I could locate my 1950 Bell Auto Parts Speed Equipment Catalog! That catalog is a veritable gold mine of information along with tremendous illustrations.

Art

PRE War Art But thanks anyway I think I have what I need.

[Art Anderson]

PRE War Art But thanks anyway I think I have what I need.

Some of those speed shops made heads and such for the 21-stud 221cid flathead V8's, in addition to later 24-stud heads.

Art

[Ace-Garageguy]

I've been checking some of my research material. Eddie Meyer patterned and cast his first 21 stud heads in 1938. Edelbrock modified production heads, and made cast-aluminum manifiolds but NOT heads before the war. The Meyers were running around 122mph in '39 and Vic Edelbrock was that fast by late '41. I'm pretty sure Thickstun made manifolds (in association with Edelbrock) but not heads pre-war.

That's all I'm sure of so far........

Edited October 4, 2012 by Ace-Garageguy

[southpier]

maybe more of a HAMB question, but is there a known source of dated speed equipment companies? this would be a great resource if, given its absence now, one of the Guru's could assemble a list of manufacturers, products available, and the years business began & ended.

[Dave Wood]

Thanks again guys I'll see if I can get on the HAMS board to see if the resin 24 stud offenhauser heads would be correct for 1941

[Art Anderson]

Thanks again guys I'll see if I can get on the HAMS board to see if the resin 24 stud offenhauser heads would be correct for 1941

Just to aid you a bit: Ford introduced the 24-stud V8 in 1937, and their flathead V8 remained that way through the end of the 1953 model year. While in details such as combustion chamber, perhaps slight differences in the head stud spacings, along with a couple of variations in the water outlets, the appearance was pretty much the same through those years. Certainly close enough for model work I would think.

Art

[Dave Wood]

Thanks Art

[southpier]

......close enough for model work I would think.

Art

you have seen this thread, right? http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=64295&st=0

Edited October 4, 2012 by southpier

[Ace-Garageguy]

Just to aid you a bit: Ford introduced the 24-stud V8 in 1937, and their flathead V8 remained that way through the end of the 1953 model year. While in details such as combustion chamber, perhaps slight differences in the head stud spacings, along with a couple of variations in the water outlets, the appearance was pretty much the same through those years. Certainly close enough for model work I would think.

Art

Ummm, not exactly. Minor correction: The 24 stud intro'd in '38-39 with the V8-81A series engine. For 1949 (the 8BA Ford and 8CM Mercury) Ford entirely re-designed the back end of the engine and stopped casting the bellhousing integral with the block. Also, the new-design distributor in front looked like a 'normal' distributor, driven by a right-angle drive from the cam and sticking up on the right side, rather than being buried between the pulleys. These are pretty major appearance variations.

PS. I'm REALLY not trying to come off as a kmow-it-all, and if it seems that way I apologize. I'm in a position to give accurate, complete information whan I have it, as I currently make part of my living working on this stuff in 1:1, and I'm around it at least 3 days a week.

Edited October 5, 2012 by Ace-Garageguy

[Ace-Garageguy]

Thanks again guys I'll see if I can get on the HAMS board to see if the resin 24 stud offenhauser heads would be correct for 1941

Fred C. Offenhauser didn't spin off from Offenhauser Engineering ( Fred H. Offenhauser of Offenhauser racing engines) and form the aftermarket-parts company (Offenhauser Sales) until post-war, 1946. Doubtful there were any Offenhauser heads for Fords before that time.

[Art Anderson]

Fred C. Offenhauser didn't spin off from Offenhauser Engineering ( Fred H. Offenhauser of Offenhauser racing engines) and form the aftermarket-parts company (Offenhauser Sales) until post-war, 1946. Doubtful there were any Offenhauser heads for Fords before that time.

I wrote this for the AACA (Antique Automobile Club of America) forums several years ago"

<<Are you speaking of Offenhauser Engineering & Sales, or Offenhauser Speed Equipment? The two were always distinctly different and separate companies, bearing the same name. Offenhauser Engineering was the small company started by Fred Offenhauser, as he picked up some of the remaining bits and pieces of the failed Harry Miller operations, primarily the Miller 22-cid DOHC 4-cylinder marine racing engine, which Offenhauser, with the aid of Leo Goosen, the legendary engine designer, evolved into a 255cid and 274cid racing engine for competition at Indianapolis and other AAA Championship races. Offenhauser also continued the 220cid engine as a sprint car engine, and in the late 30's, brought about a 91cid version, the famed Offenhauser Midget Engine. Those three series of engines were pretty much the only engines through the early 1960's that Offenhauser produced as their own (Offenhauser also built the Winfield Straight 8, the Winfield V8 [A/K/A Novi], and the Scarab F1 engine for the late Lance Reventlow--but all of these were simply custom projects, and were never sold by Offenhauser to any other comers). As such, Offenhauser Engineering, nor the successor company, Meyer-Drake (who never changed the name on the building, nor the "brand" of the engines) probably never felt any need for a catalog, as such--the reputation of their engines was all the advertising they needed.

1. 
   
   
   The "other" Offenhauser is the speed equipment company. This company, started by a nephew of Fred Offenhauser, and actually trading on the family last name made famous by his Uncle Fred, produced high-compression aluminum heads, intake manifolds and such for Model A & B Ford 4-cylinder engines, branching out into classic finned aluminum cylinder heads, intakes, headers and such for flathead Ford V8's, and finally broadening their line to include just about any and every American production passenger car engine of the 40s, 50's, and 60's. Offenhauser Speed Equipment has printed catalogs of their product for decades, the ones from the late 40's and 50's being perhaps the most fascinating, I am sure. Their products also appear in catalogs from Bell Auto Parts from at least 1950--I have, someplace around here, a Bell Auto Parts catalog for 1950, which shows virtually the entire Offenhauser Speed Equipment line available in that year.
   
   
   
   Art Anderson>>
   
   
   
   To carry this further:
   
   
   
   Fred Offenhauser, of Offy engine fame, started his career as a master machinist for the Miller Carburetor Company in the early 'teens, in Los Angeles, and rose to be the Superintendent at Harry A. Miller Inc., builder of the legendary Miller race cars of the 1920's. After the demise of Miller in 1932, Fred Offenhauser took out his back pay in the form of machine tools and many of the Miller patterns and drawings. Fred Offenhauser continued to build complete racing engines until the US entry into WW-II, at which time he turned his company's attention to defense work. In 1945, Fred Offenhauser sold Offenhauser Engineering to the partnership of Dale Drake (son of J. A. Drake, maker of high performance aftermarket intake and exhaust valves under the name JADSON, and himself a noted Indianapolis car mechanic and "riding mechanic" as well as the builder of a legendary midget engine, the "Drake" --a watercooled conversion of the Harley-Davidson "Knucklehead" motorcycle engine), and Louis Meyer, the first 3-time winner at Indianapolis (1928, 1933, 1936),
   
   
   
   Fred Offenhauser retired upon selling out Offenhauser Engineering, and lived another 20 years or so. His company, Offenhauser Engineering (the name was continued by Meyer-Drake for another 20 years, until Louis Meyer left to handle the sales and service of the 255cid Ford DOHC Indianapolis engine in 1965.
   
   
   
   There was never any association, other than the family name, Offenhauser, between Offenhauser Engineering, and Offenhauser Speed Equipment--in fact, several historians have written about the rather deep rift between uncle and nephew.
   
   
   
   Art
   
   

[Ace-Garageguy]

Fred H. Offenhauser is the Offy engine Offenhauser, and was Fred C. Offenhauser's uncle.

Fred C. Offenhauser is the Offenhauser who started the speed equipment company, AFTER the war. It ended in 1945. The original question was about availability of aftermarket heads BEFORE the war.

Fred C. Offenhauser " founded the speed parts business that bears the famous name. The company remains in business today, but has no Web site, no answering machine and only the barest of biographical information on Fred C. in its catalog. White, (Gordon Eliot White, author of Offenhauser: The Legendary Racing Engine and the Men Who Built It ) in fact, mentions Fred C. on just one page, noting that the elder Offenhauser hired him to work at Offenhauser Engineering Co. briefly in the early 1930s, "but the two Freds didn't get along well. They argued about everything from shop work to politics. The younger Offenhauser later quit to form a speed parts business now known as Offenhauser Sales Corporation. For years Fred H. and Fred C. sparred over the use of the family name in the racing business." Tay Offenhauser, Fred C. Offenhauser's son, said his father actually stayed with Offenhauser Engineering until the late 1930s or early 1940s, when he joined the Navy. Not until after World War II, in about 1946, did Fred C. found Offenhauser Sales in Los Angeles with partner Fran Hernandez, who left the company a few years later to work for Ford. "As I recall, there was some complaint about the use of the Offenhauser name," Tay said. "But a judge declared that my father was able to use his own name for his company--he just wasn't allowed to refer to any of his products as an 'Offy.' " Offenhauser Sales started out with a basic catalog of flathead Ford V-8-related speed parts, including a high-compression cylinder head and dual-carburetor intake manifold. "He just loved machining," Tay said. "The experience he had at his uncle's shop was what motivated him to start out on his own. There was no grand scheme; he just did it for the love of it." (Quoted from an article published by Hemmimgs, January 2008)

If you disagree with my post, take it up with Gordon Eliot White, who wrote the book., or Tay Offenhauser, Fred C.'s son.

Edited October 6, 2012 by Ace-Garageguy

[Dennis Lacy]

Ummm, not exactly. Minor correction: The 24 stud intro'd in '38-39 with the V8-81A series engine. For 1949 (the 8BA Ford and 8CM Mercury) Ford entirely re-designed the back end of the engine and stopped casting the bellhousing integral with the block. Also, the new-design distributor in front looked like a 'normal' distributor, driven by a right-angle drive from the cam and sticking up on the right side, rather than being buried between the pulleys. These are pretty major appearance variations.

PS. I'm REALLY not trying to come off as a kmow-it-all, and if it seems that way I apologize. I'm in a position to give accurate, complete information whan I have it, as I currently make part of my living working on this stuff in 1:1, and I'm around it at least 3 days a week.

Well, I gotta throw my 2c in here too. It was 1938 when the 24-stud engine appeared. Some very early 38's did receive the previous year 21-stud engine as supplies were used up but the majority of vehicles received the 24-stud. B (4cyl) / 18- (V8) = 1932, 40- = 1933/1934, 48- = 1935, 68- =1936, 78- = 1937, 81A = 1938, 91A = 1939, 01A = 1940...

The 1937 engine is kind of a bastard design since it still has 21 head studs but has the water pumps down on the front of the block and center water outlets on the heads like '38 - '48 24 stud versions. The cool thing is that the '32-'36 21-stud heads will install and Ford issued factory block-off plates to cover the water pump impeller holes in the front of the block so that this engine could be retro-fitted into the earlier years when an engine replacement was necessary. I have a '37 crack-free engine waiting to be rebuilt one of these days. I plan to run the early heads on it as I have a pair of '34 aluminum heads that have been polished. However, I will keep the water pumps on the block and fabricate elbows to come off of the heads as the block mounted pumps are a way more effecient design since they push the coolant through the block rather than pull it. Much less prone to cavitation and steam pockets.

Oh, and the 8BA engine was first available in 1948, in trucks only. Passenger cars then received it in 1949.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Now there's a man who knows flathead Fords.

[Dennis Lacy]

I'm sure my customers appreciate it that I obsess over every year-to-year detail. LOL!

[Dave Wood]

Thanks Dennis That helps