New block, a further discussion
 

Good morning, I am starting a new thread so as not to hijack corvette8n's thread about Edelbrock possibly being able to cast a new Flathead block.

I would like to turn the discussion to a new direction. Very simply what are your thoughts on a realistic price point for a new Flathead block? Now let me place this caveat. This theoretical new block would be cast in aluminum most likely. It would be stock appearing on the outside. It would be finish machined with only possibly a light honing necessary for the ring pack a person chooses. The porting would be greatly improved, at least as far as street requirements go. All original parts would interchange. The cylinder bores would most likely be 3 5/16".

For you guys that build them, what is the value to you of getting all of those attributes in a virgin crack free block?

Sorry if it sounds like I'm beating a dead horse. I am simply asking this question to gauge interest and aquire your knowledge.

As someone who has been covered with tons of cast iron dust porting, polishing relieving. I have fixed some cracks to save otherwise good engines. I have put my heart and soul into every Flathead I've had the pleasure of building. With that in mind and looking at a few of the invoices from the machine shop I have a little bit of an idea of what it takes time, effort and money wise to get a Flathead to the "put it together" stage.

Now I realize there is nothing like original iron. I realize FoMoCo cast millions of Flatty's. I realize that this isn't for everyone.

What I'm asking is again very simply, is there room for a replacement block yet? If so how much is it realistically worth to you for your project?

Re: New block, a further discussion
 

Henry

I appreciate your tenacity on this question and guest. If and when I do my very last engine and this block had improvements that would allow one to make 200 h.p. normally asperated, I'd pay $2k for such a block.

A lot is riding on your question, but that price point would be my absolute upper limit.

Re: New block, a further discussion
 

The "new" modelA block is estimated to be in the 2-2500 range, the V8 is twice as complex and twice the weight of the A block

You have to think of how many can you sell--- there's the price of the casting, then the price of the machining, I would suspect the market will be small at what it would cost

Say the cost of bare casting is 1000, machining 2000, in lots of 1000, how long would you wait on a return on the investment , how much would you sell it for when you only sell 50 a year, this doesn't even consider development and engineering costs of the mold for the casting cores

Re: New block, a further discussion
 

Why not get with a foundry and get an estimate.

Re: New block, a further discussion
 

I think this is primarily a question for the younger guys and serious racers. Like I said on the other thread, I'm 74 and have 4 good blocks, so I'm not even close to the target market. I think there are a lot of guys in my position.

Re: New block, a further discussion
 

This type of block would not be allowed in competition. If you could sell a block for $2k - $3k I would guess you could sell them all day long! I would think actual cost would exceed $10k, but all this guessing will get you no where. Contact a foundry and a mechine shop and get some real estimates.

Re: New block, a further discussion
 

Re: New block, a further discussion
 

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/a...es-jpg.401457/

This is just the internal stuff, lacking the outside of the block. A huge problem was keeping all the cores for cavities within cavities to stay in place as the iron flowed in... cores moving around caused the many failures in early 1932 production, when Ford was for a while scrapping more castings than they were sending to machining.
The exhaust system makes the casting an order of magnitude more complex than other familiar engines.
I can't think of any engine I know anything about with a block anything like that complex. Think about casting an overhead V8 from the cores shown...you could literally discard half the things in that picture. A Chevy SBC is very simple in comparison, and modern OHC engines have an even greater simplification of basic architecture.
This would take a dedicated and clever foundry that could be making a lot more money more easily popping out Chevy stuff for drag racers.

Re: New block, a further discussion
 

Even the price of the SoCal/SF Flathead/French blocks are over $2K now but they had to add in the cost of the changes they made to them. They have been for sale on flea-pay for some time now so it's not exactly like they're selling like hot cakes. I think the 4-inch cranks & rods sold fairly well but the blocks, more slowly. I'm sure they will eventually get them all sold though. After that, a new block might get more attention than it does now. By then, the price will likely be higher still.

The photo of the internal cores gives a good idea of the complexity but the shell core is missing from the photo. I'm sure it was the first one that went into the box and formed the outer shell of the block. It may also have been more than one piece but most folks will get the idea anyway. I wish FoMoCo had included some of these casting procedures in there films of engine manufacture. It would be real interesting to watch them wire all that stuff in there. Ford probably wouldn't have wanted anyone to see that stuff since it was proprietary information. At least not until the engines were superseded but by then, no one would have cared one way or the other.

Re: New block, a further discussion
 

It is often hard to get a decent price for an original block. Would enough people pony-up for a new one?

Re: New block, a further discussion
 

I think there are several reasons people don't buy those French blocks.

1. They are a bit of a strange mix and match of different internal parts and people tend to shy away from them because of that.

2. They bought those blocks cheap and have added a lot of mark up to them - it wasn't that long ago when you could buy them in the crate from source and they were only a few $100 absolutely complete, I can't believe what they sell the block and the parts for - they are making an absolute killing on them.

Re: New block, a further discussion
 

I keep bringing up the complexity of a flathead casting and it just doesn't seem to register. It is not just a SBC type block with a fee extras! This is just about as complicated as it gets as far as blocks go. Each one of the core components has to be almost perfect and has to be located perfectly in the mold and held in place during the casting process, this is NOT easy stuff. When you clean out a flathead block you will still find leftover wire and core pieces after all these years.

Re: New block, a further discussion
 

Henry, I know yours is a hypothetical question so my hypothetical answer is I would pay $3000. As others have pointed out, it would likely cost far more than that to produce the new block.


Just thinking about this, the original was cast iron - would the design have to be changed quite a bit to make the block from aluminum? I would guess that the cast iron block design just wouldn't work using aluminum due to strength/cooling and other issues.

Re: New block, a further discussion
 

"A few $100, absolutely complete", eh? Where do some of you folks get your first-hand info from? My wife bought one of the very originals...bare block in a crate from Richard LeJeurrne himself at Halibrand....as a surprise Christmas gift for me just after Richard imported the whole lot, sixteen or so years ago now. It was $1,500 for a bare block. Complete 3-3/4" crankshaft engines were $2,300-ish. NONE of these things have ever been offered by a commercial peddler for a few hundred bucks COMPLETE! DD

Re: New block, a further discussion
 

Business is business. Everyone wants a profit. I wouldn't do it for break even price either. They had to transport the stuff. All heavy stuff too. Not cheap. Some of it was likely a bit crusty with par-al-keytone. Removing that is time consuming and messy. They milled the back of the blocks where the governor lump was. They matched the intakes and I've seen some of those core shifted pretty well on the French blocks. They glyptal painted them and then? Warranty?

Re: New block, a further discussion
 

My information is first hand, we were buying them in the uk many many years ago, I know someone who was paying less than £50 for a complete engine maybe 35 years ago racing them in bangers - they would blow them up, throw them away and start again they were so cheap, there was literally 100s of them kicking about. I've seen trailers full of them and seen them sitting in their original crates stacked up on top of each other complete and they were only a few 100 dollars, I've seen them sent to Sweden and and all over Europe - a lot of them directly from France. Chap over her called Wally Wheatley of Nordian used to sell them for years in his old sheds - he used to go round buying all the old ford parts and sell them on.

Here is a post about them in 2008 where I said exactly the same thing http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/t...theads.265378/

Re: New block, a further discussion
 

Having built a few flatheads, I can tell you that there' very little you can do to the ports to improve Horese power very much. AS a normally aspirated engine the shape is just wrong and making it bigger doesn't improve it as much as the work involves costs. A Today's Bonneville engine's have big bore cam tunnels to allow for higher lift roller cams, and on Racing gas have trouble making 200 hp. One of the biggest problems is the size of the engine. Many of the racing engines are over 300ci and still have the same ports to feed the engine. Adding a mear 5 lbs of boost to a stock port and streetable cam will push the power well over 200 hp. Richards 276 had stock ports and valve size and i drove it, There was very little more you could ask for this engine. My new truck engine is a 290 ci STOCK flathead and the torque is un-believable. Unfortunately, it's pretty buch done by 3500. A new block would only interest those that wanted to keep the flatheads on the road. Like me.

Re: New block, a further discussion
 

When the SUMB trucks & parts were surplused out by the French military, they were probably relatively inexpensive to folks in the European comunity. The ones here in the USA had to come a long way to get over here. They were never inexpensive this far west. It seems like a fellow brought a large load of them them into Houston, TX. I think the load was sold to Halibrand and then on to San Fransisco Flathead. Each time they changed hands they just got more expensive. Most of them would have stayed in the European comunity if this hadn't happened.

Re: New block, a further discussion
 

Ron if I had anything to say about porting I would suggest these things:

First the end exhaust ports would be wide open at the top just after the valve pocket. Then they would curve around the cylinders and exit the block with no dog leg. This is exactly how the Lincoln 337 is done.

Secondly the center exhaust port convergence area would be solid and shaped in such a way as to form a back port wall and port separator baffle.

Thirdly Ron I'd put a shape to the intake ports. In stock form they are pretty straight, have almost no short side radius, and slam the charge into the back of the valve pocket. I think there is room to "ramp" that area and lessen the approach angle of the intake port.

Now I agree that racers like bigger camshaft diameters and I don't think there'd be much of a problem providing them with enough material to overbore the camshaft tunnel.

Re: New block, a further discussion
 

Henry
Do you have a flow bench? I Built a home made on which I published the results in my book. Later I had access to a digital one which measured CFM, These thisga will break your heart. For one thing the exhausr is not the issue. If you can't get it in, you don't have to worry abput getting it out, Blower motors don't seen th have any trouble. I agree with you on the intake tho.