Flat head engines?

[farmer]

Hey all, I really love the look of these engines in old rods. Curious to know how hard it is to rebuild one? Can normal engine machine shops work on them? What kind of power are they able to put out? Are they cosly to put together and find parts for. O.K. enough newby questions, workin on putin together a 47 kb-2. I currently have a chrysler bb400 thats goin in first but after Sunday scavenger hunt I found 3-4 mid 40's ford trucks with engines and can't help to dream about gettin one of them to run.

I noticed Cycledog is pretty close to home for me, do you know of anybody around eastern Wash that has experience with them?

Sorry for not havin pics, still workin that out
Boe

 

[Gastrick]

Well don't expect big horsepower numbers out of one without spending boat loads of cash. 85 horsepower in factory trim in most cases. I think you can bump that up from 125 to 150 hp without too many headaches. Beyond that, things get expensive. They definitely have a cool factor that's hard to beat though. The cost can depend on a lot of different things such as the condition of the engine that you start with and how far you want to go with a rebuild. Sometimes you can find a good runner that's reasonable and can go with a few bolt ons. I'm not very well versed on flatheads but there's a link below that has plenty of info and links to other sites.

Here's a good place to start for some research and resource links.

http://www.vanpeltsales.com/FH_web/flathead_home.htm

Also take a look here.

http://www.fordbarn.com/

 

[farmer]

Thanks Gastrick, all the info I can get definetly helps. The engines I found don't look to good but are still complete in trucks. More head scratchin to do Boe

 

[22dodge]

Flat Heads..

You can also check this out, but very pricey.
Always fun to look, though... '22

http://www.uncommonengineering.com/index.html

 

[roddguy1]

Before you get to involved in a flattie I would suggest you find a book Called Ford Flathead V8 by Frank Oddo. I had my heart set on a flathead model A coupe till I read this book. Don't get me wrong, there a great engine and the cool factor is way off the scale. I just need to be in a better finacial bracket before I can justify building one the way I would like it.

 

[donsrods]

I've used the same machinist here in town for about 20 years, and he does everything, but when I got the flathead home that I bought from Paul on here, he told me he didn't do them. He did say he knows someone, and when I get close to doing it I'll call him and get the mans name so I can ship it off to him.

They are a little different and require some special machining tools, I guess.

Don