My best buddy and I tore down a 8BA block flat-head Ford V-8, put new piston rings on the pistons, added new rod bearings, new gaskets all around and put it all back together and had it running in four hours flat.
Loved those old flat-heads and, believe it or not, you could open the hood and see the ground on either side of the exhaust manifolds... something you sure can't do these days !!!
Incidentally, Ford went to small block (244 cubic inches, I think) overhead valve V-8s in 1954... and it "ruled" over the Chevys in '54, but when Chevy went to their ohv V-8 in 1955, the "party" was over... and it got worse in '56 and even WORSE in '57 when Chevy "punched-out" their 265 cu.in. OHV V-8 to their famous 283 cu.in. small block V-8. That engine was a "screamer" !!!
I got a new 1954 Victoria hard-top in June of '54 which, after the Chevy's beat me to death, I eventually got the engine "exchanged" for a "punched-out" V-8, 312 cu.in. block with a "track-grind" full-race, high-lift cam and a "blown" (supercharged) 3-deuce carb set-up with progressive linkage. I had the heads milled down to 12:1... had to torque the head-bolts down to 150 lbs.
It had dual exhaust pipes, glass-pak mufflers together with big, fat chrome laker-pipes coming out just behind the front wheels, running down just under the edge of the car's body and kicking out just in front of the rear wheels.
It was my "Chevy-killer"... and it DID "destroy" Chevy V-8s !!!
I use to wash that car on warm, lazy summer Saturday afternoons and would remove the plugs on the laker-pipes and just sit and listen to that big V-8 idle...
ta-chukka-ta-chukka-ta-chukka... gawd, what beautiful "music" that big-cam'd V-8 made !~!~!
Those days surely were my "Happy Days"... Ohhhhhh YEAHHHH !~!~!
Strength & Honor...
Ron T.