Читать книгу Ford Flathead Engines - Tony Thacker - Страница 8

INTRODUCTION

I’m not sure when Mike Herman and I became acquainted, but it seems as if it was in the early 2000s, when I was marketing director at SO-CAL Speed Shop and he was just starting out at H&H Flatheads.

We had intended to collaborate on this book some years ago, but circumstances dictated otherwise. However, the planet gears recently aligned, and we were able to work together to make it happen. It wasn’t easy.

Although I had written books about the 1932 Ford, originally in 1982 and then a revised edition to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Deuce in 2007, they were primarily a historical reflection and to some extent a socioeconomic history of the 1932 V-8 and its impact on society. I didn’t get too much into bearing sizes.

Flathead Ford V-8 rebuilding: piece of cake, I thought. However, I quickly realized that while the flathead is a simple enough engine, its idiosyncrasies, changes, and development are in fact quite complicated.

Henry Ford’s stubbornness resulted in the first V-8 being less than its potential. The water pumps literally sucked. The engine overheated and used oil, but nevertheless it had potential. Over the ensuing years, Ford engineers, with and without Henry’s permission, tweaked the eight until it was great and in so doing gave the enthusiast the world’s first affordable performance V-8, much as Ford’s Model T had given the farmer the means of liberating himself from the land.

Over the years, numerous books have addressed the flathead, its restoration, tuning, and even supercharging, but none has covered it all; the subject is just too big. Likewise, we had to compromise and concentrate on the most popular engine: the 1949–1953 8BA.

Why the 8BA? Well, it was the culmination of the flathead’s development. Ford had done as much as it could to refine the concept, but the overheads were coming as technology moved on. Only overseas did development continue. Consequently, the 8BA is as good as a flathead gets. Plenty of these are available, as are parts and speed equipment. It’s a great hot rod engine.