Thread: Flathead Newbee Needing Direction!

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It sounds as if you are determined to try to build a flathead so go to it. The point of the cost analysis above is that after all that expense to get somewhere between 200 and 250 HP, it can be compared to an inexpensive 350 SBC which gets 270 to 300 HP. Of course you can spend more on the SBC but nostalgia is the operative effect here and would be fun if only it were easier to find a good flathead block. One thing that might be worth planning on is to change over to hardened valve seats since the flatheads were build for leaded gas. Here is a link to a car/engine based on a flathead. The pictures are interesting because they show the reliefs ground into the block between the valves and the cylinders, that is a rodding trick, not the stock surface of the block.

http://www.34hotrod.com/HotRod/page7.htm

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Anytime you build an engine outside the normal sbc or sbf area, you are going to spend more. I could have built 3 Chevy small blocks for what I have in the 394 Olds in my '39 Dodge, but the wow factor makes it worth it.

I only mentioned the cost of building a flathead so you go into it with your eyes open. Also, finding a suitable core to begin with is tough.

Good luck.


Don