Why do Flathead V8 Blocks Crack?

[ford38v8]

Henry's insistence on doing things his way was always with a purpose, to solve or prevent a known problem. He routed the exhaust through the block in order to heat the cylinders as quickly as possible, knowing that cold starts are the most destructive to an engine. As is usually the case, solving one problem creates another.

[Mike51Merc]

Originally Posted by ford38v8

Henry's insistence on doing things his way was always with a purpose, to solve or prevent a known problem. He routed the exhaust through the block in order to heat the cylinders as quickly as possible, knowing that cold starts are the most destructive to an engine. As is usually the case, solving one problem creates another.

If you look at an inline flathead (Ford and all others), the intake and exhaust ports are on the same side as the intake and exhaust valves, therefore they don't have Ford's intentional cylinder-heating as you described.

The problem with joining two inline flathead fours in a "V" is that it is desireable to have the intake and exhaust in a "cross flow" configuration, but there's no practical way to have the valves on opposite sides of the same cylinder bank, so instead they just routed the exhaust out the opposite side by creating ports inside the block. Cadillac decided to put both ports on the "inboard" side.