My next debate: origins of the canted valve Ford cylinder head.

[MichaelThompson]

Okay guys another silly one from me but the dialog could be fun.

There is quite a debate on another forum as to the origins of the big port canted valve Ford cylinder head line.

Starting in 1968 with the 429 Thunderjet then a year later with the Boss 302 and then in 1970 the 351 Cleveland.

There is a faction in that conversation that insists the aforementioned Ford heads were simply copies of the old Chevy “Mystery Motor” after NASCAR forced GM to sell an engine to Ford to meet homologation requirements.

That ^^^ to me is a simplistic view of things simply because I know there was no reason to copy a design that wasn’t necessary to power production cars.

Keeping in mind that Ford was at year two of the “Total Performance” era and Ford was developing the 427 Tunnel Port engine to a point where it was very competitive with even the mighty 426 Hemi in NASCAR.

It is my opinion that the first canted valve Ford head was created in such a way as to facilitate a “tunnel port” intake pathway WITHOUT the negative of a pushrod right inside the port.

That ^^^ would not be feasible for mass production but tilting the intake valve assembly away makes room for a nice healthy compromise.

It doesn’t matter I guess where the idea came from because every advancement is achieved with knowledge of what is at the time.

So is this a discussion worth having? Was Ford plagerizing the bbc head or did Ford actually come up with an idea on their own.

As I said I’m in the production Tunnel Port camp while I think many casual observers would just call a 351 C a “baby bbc”

Who’s right? Was anyone there? Somewhere I read or found something alluding to the tunnel port theory I put forth. Just can’t remember where I found this.

Would be fun to hear your thoughts. Thanks in advance.

P.S. this is my second and last silly thread that doesn’t matter. I’ll try to be more technical in the future.

[Truckedup]

Just a truck engine......IHC 266 -392. V8 was introduced in 1959....Canted valves but a wedge chamber..

https://www.google.com/search?q=ihc+345 ... 9Tn0-tapJM

[MichaelThompson]

Just a truck engine......IHC 266 -392. V8 was introduced in 1959....Canted valves but a wedge chamber..

https://www.google.com/search?q=ihc+345 ... 9Tn0-tapJM

Hey thanks I did not realize IHC did that on their truck engines. I even had a RHD postal Scout with a 152” (half a V8) four cylinder.

That’s pretty wild and again I wonder what the impetus behind that less than conventional design. Looks pretty cool.

[pdq67]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Did not know about IHC'c splayed valve heads.

Anyway, I assume that from the way the valves are placed in the chamber that it is a splayed valve head?

pdq67

[Geoff2]

Chrysler Poly engines 1955-66. Angled valves.

My understanding is that the 429 was designed to beat the 426 Hemi.

[frnkeore]

Michael,
I may have been a party to that other conversation?

To start with, I was born into Ford racing. My dad was a Ford guy, from his early years (born in 1908). His first new car was a '39 Ford and after WWII, he started to work for a Authorized Ford Rebuilder, called Meyer and Welch, in SoCal. Louie Meyer was the Meyer, 3 time Indy winner and owner of the Novi, Indy car, when my dad worked there. A friend of my dad's, did the dyno work on it. Henry Ford set him up in that business and before that, in Novi, MI, his home town and why the car was named Novi. He is also the "Meyer" in Meyer and Drake (Offy), but Ford called him back, from that, to do the 4 cam Indy engine program.

That, only to show how much I'm into Fords and have always been and would not give GM undo credit. I have ONLY raced Fords, also.

As most people know, there has been spying in what used to be called the "Big 3" from, at least the '30's. It has always been curious to me, that in '58, both GM and Ford, came out with same basic upper block design, the "W" and the "MEL". At this point, I don't think that there is anyone, still alive that was in those development programs, to give any clues as to why that happened but, rest assured, it wasn't by accident. I say, chock one up for Ford, in that they at least kept it longer and may have had more invested in it.

"Maybe" Ford had the idea for the canted valves, before GM (I call that unlikely) and was awaiting the 385 block to install them on, and then GM spies found out and beat them to it? My daughter lives in AZ and tells me there is lots of beach front land for sale there, too.

Yes, there is cheap HP in a 385 and I have a 460, in my F350 but, it wasn't possible to get a 428, that I could make a 462 out of

[piston guy]

The retired Ford engineers I've spoken to say the Ford heads were inspired by the Chrysler "polyspherical " head not the Chevy.

[MichaelThompson]

Michael,
I may have been a party to that other conversation?

To start with, I was born into Ford racing. My dad was a Ford guy, from his early years (born in 1908). His first new car was a '39 Ford and after WWII, he started to work for a Authorized Ford Rebuilder, called Meyer and Welch, in SoCal. Louie Meyer was the Meyer, 3 time Indy winner and owner of the Novi, Indy car, when my dad worked there. A friend of my dad's, did the dyno work on it. Henry Ford set him up in that business and before that, in Novi, MI, his home town and why the car was named Novi. He is also the "Meyer" in Meyer and Drake (Offy), but Ford called him back, from that, to do the 4 cam Indy engine program.

That, only to show how much I'm into Fords and have always been and would not give GM undo credit. I have ONLY raced Fords, also.

As most people know, there has been spying in what used to be called the "Big 3" from, at least the '30's. It has always been curious to me, that in '58, both GM and Ford, came out with same basic upper block design, the "W" and the "MEL". At this point, I don't think that there is anyone, still alive that was in those development programs, to give any clues as to why that happened but, rest assured, it wasn't by accident. I say, chock one up for Ford, in that they at least kept it longer and may have had more invested in it.

"Maybe" Ford had the idea for the canted valves, before GM (I call that unlikely) and was awaiting the 385 block to install them on, and then GM spies found out and beat them to it? My daughter lives in AZ and tells me there is lots of beach front land for sale there, too.

Yes, there is cheap HP in a 385 and I have a 460, in my F350 but, it wasn't possible to get a 428, that I could make a 462 out of

That is fascinating stuff frnkeore! I go back with Ford as well. My dad was a parts and service director at a Ford dealership in Rochester New York. We used Beasley Motor Rebuilders up there and when we came to Florida it was Fred Jones.

My dad started about 1959 and I worked for him from about 14/15 years old. I made it about 25 years. I know enough to be dangerous. Lol

You have completed some of a story I had heard about the Novi V8. I heard there was a Ford connection. Something about the 3 main bearing crank was chosen as result of Louie Meyer having the tooling to work with that configuration? I could be all wet on that. Just something I heard and it makes more sense knowing Louie Meyer was involved in the Ford V8 rebuilding business.

So my two cylinder head threads are designed to thread more of the real story together of early Ford OHV V8 engine development. I have seen that misinformation about Ford stuff has pretty much hovered around epidemic levels for as long as I can remember.

It’s like the “tunnel port” story. I’m quite sure the Boss/Cleveland and 385 series heads are related to the tunnel port wedges I just never had the whole picture.

BTW I have maintained that the Boss/Cleveland head with its heart shaped tight chambers, shallow valve angles and intake port angle of attack were really the main design tenants that have stood the test of time and have really formed the basic format for most non-hemi pushrod 2 valve heads out there today.

That ^** opinion has almost wrecked the Internet at times. Lol. Too bad it’s what I see.

[MichaelThompson]

The retired Ford engineers I've spoken to say the Ford heads were inspired by the Chrysler "polyspherical " head not the Chevy.

I wouldn’t doubt that one bit especially the open chamber Cleveland heads. I think Ford was obsessed with octane tolerance and turbulence and what not. Chrysler certainly had some good ideas in those days.

[BCjohnny]

I doubt the Ford engineers at the time would restrict themselves to 'copying' any one engine

They'd most likely take what were thought to be the best features of each design and create what they thought was cutting edge .......

....... and could actually be got past the bean counters

[Truckedup]

As a manufacturer GM performance projects seemed to come out of skunk works back rooms. Ford was more up front in the 1960's....GM was and is about making a buck ...

[frnkeore]

Michael,
Here are 4 paragraphs of my research on the Novi.

I was in error about Meyer being from Novi, MI, it was Lew Welch and lew was the one that new Henry Ford.

In 1935 Ford entered 3 front wheel drive cars, all failed to finish and he was embarrassed. The $25,00 mentioned below, is $473,000 in 2020 but, I use the price of gold for inflation. $20 in '35, 1940, today or $2.425,000. That would seem more like it, in today's world.

“In those days, Ford really wanted to claim success,” said Robert “Buck” Boudeman, who owns this tragically historic 1946 front-drive Novi Governor Special. “Henry really wanted a V-8 to win Indianapolis, but if it wasn’t successful, he didn’t want to have anything to do with it. They were casting about for a way to do it, and this man Lew Welch had excelled in every assignment Ford had given him.”

The exact relationship between Lewis A. Welch and Henry Ford remains uncertain to this day, but it’s clear that Ford respected him as a man who got things done. Having started with Ford as a machinist while still a teen-ager, Welch was a sycophant of the company’s founder, and when he left Ford in 1935 to found the Novi Equipment Co. in Novi, Michigan, he did it with a $25,000 personal loan from Ford. Novi supplied Ford with a variety of components, most notably governors for Ferguson tractors. In 1939, Ford jointly awarded Welch and Indianapolis 500 winner Louis Meyer with an engine-reconditioning plant outside Los Angeles. By then, Welch was already active at Indy as a car owner.

In their two-volume history, Novi: The Legendary Indianapolis Race Car, authors George Peters and Henri Greuter asserted that Ford took great notice of a supercharged straight-eight that fell out of the 1938 race, which was based heavily on the fabled 91- and 183-cu.in. Miller eights of the 1920s, and was tuned in great measure by designer Bud Winfield. Welch and Winfield were already friends, and at some point, possibly with back-channel support from Ford, began to develop a supercharged V-8 for the 1941 race. This engine, originally called the Winfield V-8, would come to be known as the Novi and would sprout from the fertile minds of the very best in racing engineering.

Bud Winfield was a carburetion specialist, and the Novi would use carburetors and camshafts designed by his brother Ed, one of the geniuses of early American performance. The basic layout of the Novi V-8 came from Leo Goossen, with Fred Offenhauser handling the machine work and assembly. These were Miller’s most distinguished alumni. When completed, the Novi was a 181-cu.in., 90-degree V-8 with an aluminum-alloy crankcase and cast-iron integral cylinder heads and walls. Though four overhead camshafts were used, just two-valves per cylinder were used, anticipating the boost of the gear-driven centrifugal supercharger. For 1941, it was fitted into a modified 1935 Miller-Ford front-driver. Ralph Hepburn, whose Indy career dated back to the Twenties, brought the car home fourth.

I am also researching the "Authorized Ford Rebuilder Network". Where, "Beasley Motor Rebuilders up there and when we came to Florida it was Fred Jones." Authorized Ford Rebuilders or independent rebuilders? If Authorized, I will add them to my list.

Onward, a picture is worth a thousand words:

[MichaelThompson]

Yes frnkeore, yes both Beasley Motors and Fred Jones were “FAR”s. (Ford Authorized Rebuilders)

Beasley was located in Syracuse New York and I believe Altoona Pa. Did a quick search and all I found was some Ebay memerabilia but I’m sure there’s more out there on them. They were pretty big back in the 70’s.

Found this great article on Fred Jones. It’s an interesting read.

https://www.okhistory.org/publications/ ... ntry=FR009

I really enjoy these stories and facts. Thanks to everyone who chimed in.

[MichaelThompson]

The valve gear looks pretty darn close but I think the goal was to get the 427TP potential in a head they could make millions of complete with a warranty.

[frnkeore]

Thank you, Michael. That was very interesting.