Hello all and welcome!! If you enjoyed this video, here are a few others you might find exciting: How V8 Engines Work - ukposts.info/have/v-deo/g4p9rZ2bp51krYk.html Why Pushrod Engines Don't Rev High - ukposts.info/have/v-deo/i2l2ZqR6j4R5tmw.html Mazda's SkyActiv-X Engine - ukposts.info/have/v-deo/sX6ErKWuao1oxp8.html Infiniti's VC Turbo Engine - ukposts.info/have/v-deo/eWZ5amyvnXuLpGg.html Toyota's Dynamic Force Engine - ukposts.info/have/v-deo/r6d9rK6RpJV9s4U.html Mercedes 50% Efficient Engine - ukposts.info/have/v-deo/o3-ZoZ2nop96x5s.html

The next video will be explaining how to look 40 years younger...

Well no wonder it only made 60 hp. Look how small it is

Engineering needs to explain how he was born in 1953? Have you sniffing the Tesla car fumes again?

For all those not understanding the born in 1953 comment: His real name is Jason Miller and he’s originally from Silicate Missouri born on Palate Street in 1989. He drops the age twister 🌪 as a ongoing running joke to see who’s listening, he was 23 in his last video. I’ve known him since we were kids back in Canada 🇨🇦.

As for low compression and inefficiency, one should recall that when this engine was developed, gasoline had an octane rating of about 50. Raising the CR got you nothing but detonation. Phillips 66 took its name for a reason: a big leap in octane rating, all the way to 66. Old engine designs favored long strokes, therefore high torque and low RPM. High horsepower was unnecessary in a land where a great many roads weren’t paved until after World War II and Interstates hadn’t been conceived, because you weren’t going to be driving all that fast. So volumetric efficiency and “breathing” weren’t that important. An engine needed to run with reliability acceptable for its time, achieve reasonable fuel mileage, and have an acceptable service life (which was short in those days). That was enough.

The most impressive thing about this engine is how silently it runs! And the next most impressive thing is how it stays running even with the cylinder head removed and the carbs removed...

You missed the most fascinating feature of the engine: The single cast v-8 block was an enormous engineering feat in 1930. Henry Ford literally bet the farm on it. He also put a lot of decent people under unnecessary stress trying to figure that out. He idled the plants several times to focus on the v-8 development.

My first car was a '50 Fordor Custom. My dad and uncles all had flatties from 1932 on. They were obsolete by 1949. Mine was 100 HP, and had all the usual flattie problems. One thing you didn't mention was the Ford flattie V8's penchant to overheat. The reason was simple... the damned exhaust ports go right through the water jacket! Siamesing the middle cylinders' exhausts into a single port didn't help breathing, either, and only 3 main bearings didn't bode well for longevity. At best, my '50 got 14 MPG around town and 16 on the road. My '55 Olds w/Hydra-Matic got 17 around town and 22 on the road...with almost twice the horsepower available. GM's engines were far better than Ford's Y-blocks that replaced the flatties, as were Chrysler's. Ford finally got their act together with the big block FE in '58, and Ford's small block of 1962 turned out to be a far better engine than the trouble plagued Chevy small block. But all through the mid-50s, Ford engines were just overweight gas-guzzling chunks of iron. As Packard used to say, "Ask the man who owns one." I did, and can tell the real story. Too bad, too, since other than the obsolete V8, the Shoebox Ford was a pretty nice car. Here's a tip...the I-6 available as standard engine in 1950 put out 5 more HP AND got better fuel economy. Ford, of course, never advertised that fact and derated the 6 on paper to sell more V8s.

He's 65. He bathes in 10W40 every day for 3 hours.

Dude, if you're a senior citizen, then I'm 400 years old.

Now, if a 3-cylinder engine makes 65hp, it's considered on the weak side.

that 1953 joke made me laugh good job grey haired jason

It would have made more power if it wasn’t made of plastic.

My first car was a 1950 Ford with the flat head V8 three on the tree, she was a sweetheart. Dad bought it for me, it had been in a front end collision so he got it for 20 bucks back then. He brought it home and told me I could have it after I fixed it up. I think it took me and my buddy about three days to find a front clip out at the City Dump grounds (they were open to the public back then and there were stacks of cars to pick from). Man the stories I could tell about that old car, sadly one day my cousin who pumped gas urged me to spin the tires, so i revved her up and popped the clutch, tore out low and reverse! When dad found out what I had done, he gave the car to my uncle and told me that when I had saved enough money from working on farms and such I could buy myself a car, perhaps then I would learn to take care of them. the old 50 went to my Uncle's farm, the engine came out and went into his farm truck, and the body became a damn chicken coup!

You missed a important point, the flat head was the first v-8 where the block was made from a single casting making it affordable. It was one of important breakthroughs for the v-8 engine design in modern history.

I have now finally found a reason to genuinely want a 3D printer

He has the heart of a young boy! He keeps it in a jar on his parts shelf.

I'm not quite sure how I made the connection, but your amazing explanation and equally amazing use of the model lead me to realize the purpose of a rocker as well as how it works

I have owned several Ford/Mercury/Lincoln flat head V-8 automobiles and loved every one. In 1962, I drove a gunmetal grey 1950 Ford Custom 2-door with the stock motor but with dual exhaust and Smithy Glass Packs and electric overdrive/4:11 rear end. Off the line fast out of overdrive, then engage overdrive and cruise all day at low rpms. So, in 1962, I drove from Los Angeles to Chicago almost non-stop- just a short nap in incredibly star-filled black night in the middle of nowhere Nebraska.Flat Heads Fords with pipes had a sweet low rumble tone.

My buddy's old man 73 yrs young still builds flat heads Last one in a 34 Ford and drove it up to Connecticut and back down to Florida Flatheads sound awesome

Hey Jason. From one old man to another, thank you for these amazing videos.🙏

After all these years, I always assumed that the center exhaust port was really inefficient. Now I understand that the two cylinders shared it independently.

Thank you for the extremely well produced and informative video presentation. One thing I believe is very important to address is the reliability and power generated with 65 to 70 octane fuel. As a simple, reliable Workhorse, these engines are really great. When consumers had available to themselves, the excess Capital to demand higher performance engines; it truly was the death knell.

The flathead never really died, it is still popular, it just got old and out of date with newer higher compression engines that were coming out. The 54 Y-block was 239, the same cu in as the last flathead but had 10hp more. Then the Y-blocks went to 272, 292, and 312. The FE, introduced in 58 gace us the 332, the 352, 390, 427 and 428 as 23ll as the MEL and FT series.

Longer stroke, custom cylinder design, turbo-charging, other engineering tweaks could make improvements. it's simplicity and reliability are legendary.

Wait. This guy is 65??? Get the F out of here!!!

I must say man out of all the videos and i mean all the videos of teaching engineering ive found yours the most interesting and indepth and straight to the point of the video which is bloody useful. Great work👍

Look up Charles Sorenson aka "Cast Iron Charlie" who was the guy that developed the casting techniques which made this block possible for mass production. Or any production level for that matter. Core shifting, cooling cracks, warping- all were insurmountable problems with complex iron castings like this before he came along, and there wouldn't have been a flathead V8 without him. The main reason so many hot-rodders used this engine was that it could be bought cheap and it was common, unlike the OHV V8's which were sold only in expensive cars. The flatty was a known quantity while the performance knowledge and performance parts for an Olds or Caddy motor wasn't. It was only after OHV V8's became common and cheap to buy used that the flathead died away; it was economics that killed the flatty. Once you could buy more power for the same money there was no point in fooling around with it anymore. The SBC and Hemi drove the final nails in it's coffin and the rest is history.

This engine used cooling without a water pump in some applications. It used a convective siphon system to a front mounted radiator. Well it did at least on a Ford truck we used to own that was ex WW II. Another simplistic design characteristic. Granted that by today’s standards its Thermal and Volumetric efficiencies were limited by architecture but one thing I remember was how smooth and quiet the mechanicals were. Thanks for presenting the neat model with detailed explanations.

We had a '51 In-line 6 Ford flat-head engine that spent two seasons in a combine harvester then converted to propane and ran an irrigation pump for the next 32 years. It ran pretty much non stop from late spring through the summer. Except for normal maintenance stuff, this engine was never rebuilt!!

You were born in 1953? Who's your plastic surgeon?

can you do one of these about the VW beetle engine? i know you've done about boxerengines alraedy, but not about aircooled ones with carburetors instead of EFI. airflow and oilmanagement surely is vastly different from subaru engines. plus you'd be doing a video on another car which caused mass motorisation in a country just like this ford engine. following that could be the Austin Mini and the Citroën 2CV.

Love the models that you've been using lately 👏🏻

It is amazing how many times I tell UKposts I don't want to see this guys videos... but-- it keeps popping up in my feed.. and I keep clicking on them, because he talks about the coolest things ever.

The flat head engines were useful before electronic rev limiters- if you over revved the engine the valve float was less likely to damage the engine. For racing and trucks, aftermarket overhead cam heads were available so the engine would not overheat as easily. The record is 700 horsepower with a lot of customization now.

it's essentially a lawn mower engine times 8 cylinders.

They needed these V8's back in your day because you had to drive up hill both ways to work!

Engineering Explained? How about _ANTI-AGING EXPLAINED??_

Enjoy your videos. Although Buick didn't use the flat-head design, they did use a rather restrictive air flow head as well in the famous Nailhead. Would enjoy your synopsis of this engine and how it worked relatively well and how Buick successfully, for the most part, overcame its restrictions. In particular: the spark plug was located directly over the piston almost in a hemispherical configuration. Sound sort of familiar? I have several. Wonderful engines designed with tons of torque at low RPM to move lots of Detroit metal at the time. And at that, they excelled.

Great video and great model. I still have a flathead 4 cylinder in my Ford 8N tractor (1951 vintage). I love that thing, and it still runs great!

Wow you don't look 65 years old, I honestly thought you were 80 years old.

What I'd give for a flat head 8 in my '25 Model T. As it is the flat 4 cranks out a neck snapping 24 hp. But the guy is correct about the low end torque being better in flatheads. So from zero to 10mph it is snappy, but from 10 to 40 is something altogether different and measured on a calendar not a clock. Top speed is 45ish, but I've only done that once and it's not comfortable.

I'm 87 and don't date women over 30. That's my secret for keeping young.

Another problem with the design was the exhaust placement. You had two hot exhaust valves right in the center sharing one port. Older blocks (with a lower quality casting) liked to crack the wall between those two cylinders.

Lots of comments about the shortcomings of the Ford flathead. I recall seeing a documentary about its development that stressed its design as a means to build a V-8 of low enough cost to mass produce for ordinary cars that ordinary people could afford. V-8s (and 12s) had been boutique engines, very expensive, with separate cylinder blocks. The challenge of this block casting was almost insurmountable, and there were severe problems in early production engines, but they eventually worked things out.

Very well explained - thanks! (As a coda to the flathead story - Ford built a factory in France and had tooled up to produce the flathead for an unsuccessful large car called Vedette. SIMCA then bought the ailing works in around 1955 and later released the follow up model Vedette with the same Ford V8...it went out of production around 1961. Also, British Ford trucks may have kept the flatty until the 1960s, too.)

0:10 "In the year I was born, 1953" - you look young enough to be my son, and I was born 12 years LATER lol.

There are positives to the flathead V8. No rocker arms and push rods, more compact less weight. The low compression is great for supercharging. Oh yeah, and its cool looking.

Looking at the timeline, the lower compression engines were fine because high octane gas was not available at the pump until after the Korean war. (Buick had a great OHV engine in 1949 but the compression ratio was abysmal) With the addition of tetra ethyl lead (Used in AV Gas) higher compression engines became practical.

Never knew anything about flathead except they were in really old cars. Now I know the rest of the story. Thanks!

Great video. The valve shrouding was definitely a major hindrance in performance. Flat heads, or at least a variant, of were produced until about 1990 in the Simca Unic Marmon Bocquet (French) military truck, under license by Ford Motor Co.

Awesome videos! Most informative channel on UKposts!

youre 65? lol

I've always felt that the Flathead is an excellent engine for performance builds. The inherently low compression ratio makes it well suited for turbocharging. And forced induction also largely mitigates all the aid flow issues. That the intake and exhaust ports are on the same side of the head is also beneficial for turbocharging as this greatly reduces the distance the exhaust gasses must travel before work is extracted to operate the turbine. With properly reworked heads to support direct injection and some veins for air flow control an improved swirl effect can greatly improve combustion efficiency. I think its well past time for the Flathead to make a come back.

I am very impressed with the knowledge that this "old man" possesses and imparts to us all. The one thing I dispute in this video is his explanation of a portion of the intake mixture having to travel over the valve. I don't know how much clearance there is between the fully open valve and the surface of the cylinder head but I assume it is small. The fuel/air entering the combustion chamber from the backside would seem to be sucked around the valve stem which would not impede the flow too much. The air not really changing direction like he claimed. In an overhead valve design all the intake flow has to go over the body of the valve and the exhaust flow is somewhat impeded by the entire valve as it exits. I'm a big fan tho and not trying to disrespect.

Finally a flat head video! I’ve been waiting for this for a long time!

This is one of the absolutely coolest looking motors for hot rodding. My father has built these with 300+ HP NA and over 500 with a blower (Offenhauser). Their sound is tremendous. If style matters these have that in spades.

My family had a 1953 Ford Customline four door with a flathead V-8. It had three on the tree with overdrive. It didn’t have a lot of power, but was a reliable car. I learned to drive it when I was eleven years old. Still have some fond memories of it. 😃

Man never knew you were that old. Great keep up the good work.

Clyde Barrow was fond of stealing Ford V8s for his getaway cars. He once wrote a letter to FoMoCo, complimenting them on their flathead V8-powered cars.

Fascinating video. I'd like to build a traditional flat head powered hot rod some day.

pretty much knew all this stuff but it was nice to see it all laid out and presented in a video thank you

Back in the early eighties I bought an old 1952 Ford pickup that had a 238 v8 flathead in it and a three on the tree...all original, un- restored. That old truck would snap your head back into the rear window through all three gears...the only problem was that it was a divided block and thus had TWO water pumps...even in the eighties it took me a couple months to find two water pumps for it. Hell of an engine though.

The Ford Flathead V8 is not the most performance oriented engine but it makes the sweetest sound. Nothing beats the sound of a cammed flathead V8 idling.

Compression ratios back in the day were so low because the gasoline octane was in the 60's...and that was on a good day. Indy race engines in the 30's were making nearly 100bhp/liter on methanol.

Funny that some of the old hotrodders could coax a helluva lot of horses out of those flathead engines. I believe the max was 400 hp with aftermarket Ardun heads.

i have a hot rodded flathead. It's bored/stroked to a 296 cu in, 3 carburators, highest cam lift you can easily put in the block. Teh C/R is about 9.2. It get's to about 240 HP. Next steps up would be a supercharger, but you'd have to do things like girdle the Main engine bearings (only 3 of them!). All in all, I think I[m pretty much at the easy limit for the design. The engine runs great, and sound even better.

engineering explained ++++ good video on the ford flathead. the flathead died 1 year before i was born in 1955. i remember the old fords that had those flatheads. i have always been interested in the ford flathead. your video is factual and great.

AMC was still using a flathead six cylinder engine in some of its models till around 1964...

I had a 1950 Ford. My dad bought it for me for $130.00 in 1958 and I drove it back from NJ to South Carolina. The engine was a Flathead V-8 with 100hp. Easy to work on even for a teenager. Under the hood all the room in the world to access everything! Fine little engine! I would like to see Ford bring something similar back.....those good old days are gone forever ☺☺

then Briggs and striation took over, LOL looks like lawmow motor when you take the head off. my old ford tractor is a flat head strait 4.

Loving the 3D printed examples. Great to visualize. Not sure the cost but awesome addition.

This is basically an 8-cyl lawnmower engine.

Also worth a mention is that the exhaust passes through the block before exiting through the manifold, meaning that the hot exhaust causes hot spots in the engine block creating cooling issues and risk of damaging the engine

I had a 53 Ford when in High School. Mine had 3 on the tree with overdrive. Great, nice car. Sounded great!

Cool, would people wanna see a similar episode on the *VW air -cooled engine* ???

LOL! Born in 1953. Love it.

George Kudasch made great strides in the Flathead performance area with his fabled Ardun OHV conversion heads.

I was born on January 30th, 1953, and I havent looked like this guy for about 40 years now. Back then I was a disco king.

Greatest Ford engine ever made! I had two, a '46 and a '51 and my Dad had a '50 Mercury. I got my '46 right after high school much to the chagrin of a neighbor. He said it made the housing unit look trashy. It didn't really look that bad. and it wasn't noisy. (yet) Finally, he told me day he was going to call the police and have it towed off. Well, I talked to my Dad. Dad didn't like the car much either but it was mine,didn't cost him a cent, I lived there also and used it to go to work. So, off we go to talk to said neighbor. Pounded on his door and when he answered the jerk knew he could be in deep, painful trouble. He tried to deny iy but that got my father madder.Finally, the said he had no objection to my fine Ford being parked. I was never so proud of my Father or loved him more. R.I.P. Sir. Anyway, to finish my story. Everything was peaceful for a few month 'till winter hit. Frigid below 0 temps. Dig your car out, etc. By this, with help from friend and a '46 shop manual I got the old girl running a bout as good as it going to get. Got in, pumped the gas twice. Pulled the choke out, and hit the starter button. Fired right off like it was high summer. Well when I got out of the car to sweep it off, guess who's car was next to mine and wouldn't start? Yep, mr. don't like my car. He even asked if I'd give him a jump. I could have since his car was '55 Mercury which was the last year for the 6-Volt systems. The '46 was a 6-Volt also. I told the '46 was a positive ground and his was negative. Which was the truth but as long as the jumper cables were hooked up correctly, it made no difference. I told my Dad a month later and he laughed uproariously. Love ya, Dad. I'm sorry this story rambled on. I was going to give a few quips about my Flatheads But this story popped into my head and it started writing itself. I hope of read read it get a bit of kick out of it

Beautiful, simple and magic sounding engine.

The biggest thing was overheating on many of them, my Army Buddy has a 1952 Ford sedan, the flathead engine has been reworked with all new upgraded parts, we even installed A.C., it's still 3 on the tree the trans was rebuilt too, new clutch, redid the rear, but it flys when punched! nice car to cruse in too!

I am just blown-away by that wonderful 3D-printed model. Bravo!

Cylinder walls are T H I C C

You missed a major point- heat. Or rather the retention thereof. You see, the exhaust ports are long, real long, and they're in the cast iron block, leading to a real 'heat transfer' problem. The exhaust gas would transfer its heat to the cast iron exhaust runners faster than the cooling water in the block could carry it away, leading to the engine overheating, especially under high rpm or high load conditions (think 'racing') or a long up-hill grade in a truck application on a hot summer day and hauling a heavy load. Heck, even the family sedan would have to pull over and be allowed to cool while climbing a mountain road. An overhead valve engine's exhaust runners are in the heads and are a lot shorter, so the heat transfer and heat capture problem were largely solved. However, the 'flat head' engine's design had its' good points, such as being a very compact design relative to power output, and you were right, cheap to make. It put a lot of torque in the cars of a lot of working class drivers, but you forgot to mention why Ford's engineers felt compelled to build it in the first place- the success of Chevrolet's six-cylinder engine while Ford was only offering fours. The horsepower race really started in the 1920's.

He’s 65, guys. He shook Tom Cruise’s hand once. (The secret to eternal youth.)

On V8 configuration exhaust is having a pathway through engine block which is making it longer and also hotter, having opposed valves like early harleys will increase compression and permit higher lift increasing flow making not 1.5k but 2.5k efficient good enough for cruising with better torque at 2k even in those times when gas octane number was so low probably needing for turbulence

Great video. 1953...you don't look one month older from when Infiniti started selling the Q45 in the US. Thank you.

Love that engine, and it’s one of the best sounding engines ever. But it did perform exactly like a 30s engine would.

Good video. Ford flatheads are great to use but a defect in design came in ‘52 when they changed how it cooled. The water spigots on the heads were changed from the middle of the head to the front. This caused the block to crack in the middle . One in a thousand old style cracked. One in a thousand new style didn’t crack. If you are going to use one, ensure you get the old style with the spigots in the center of the head.

Great video. Used to find them on farms along with straight 8's. Hard to find them nowdays. Great model you used.

The engine has many more issues, including having only 3 main bearings, poor cylinder cooling due to exhaust porting around the cylinder, and lack of full flow oil filter.

“They didn’t even have computers “ . 😂😂 It’s a wonder we could build anything .

The USA may have stopped using them in the early 50s but they kept being used in Europe finishing up in a German ford truck in 1973. There was also an Ardun ohv converted version

The two center ports are called Siamese ports. Also that is a model of the early motor not the late motor. The v8 60 hp wasn’t made till later I think 1939-1940. The 1932 was an 80hp with the water pumps in the head. In 1937 they went to a water pump in block as your model has. In 1949 they switched to a short bell 8ba model which was a larger more powerful motor, they also changed it from a front mounted distribution unit to a drop in distributor like a more modern 1950s type motor. They also then took the bellhousing off the engines casting and used bolt on style bellhousings and more modern type transmissions. Your model has speed equipment, the intake was a cast aluminum or steel with a single carb, it would have had one oil bath air cleaner, and no finned heads like you have there.

One thing you didn't mention was that cooling the engine was also difficult because the hot exhaust gases would have to pass through the block before exiting through the exhaust manifold. Apparently they were notorious for cracking blocks if the cooling system was overtaxed.

There would be no hot rodding as its known today and a majority of the performance aftermarket without the flathead V8 being phased out and filling the junkyards. I would say the good ol' flatty died an honorable death instead of just being another piece of obsolete technology.

You may need to research "post war flathead block cracking problems". The existing seasoned blocks were used up during WW2. The blocks were cast originally and semi machined- then piled up outside in the weather for many months.This seasoned the blocks and made them less susceptible to heating and cooling cycles/cracking when finished.The post WW2 blocks were never seasoned, so a new over head valve engine was developed to end this problem.

Imagine one of these in a billit block, larger valves large and displacement. Much bigger bores on the intake and exhaust, great cam, on like 15 psi. The problem was the three main journals every time someone would find a way to hop one up they'd throw the crank out the bottom.