Is GM's LS V8 not a thing here?

[Island Girl]

How about Whitworth thread system? Gerry must have some spanners for that!

And don't forget BS, (British Standard) . . . went right along with Whitworth if you worked on Triumph, BSA, Nortons, or the other Limey stuff back in the day . . .

 

[choppedtop]

When I worked at a cycle shop wayyyy back in the 60s, I had Whitworth. They were hard to find and I had just enough to get by. Seems like the Whitworth wrenches were poor quality and almost like they were stamped out.

 

[Gerry]

Still got a few... and BA ones a well. Like them cause they are little and cute.

 

[fletcherson]

Yeah, have worked on BSA and Triumphs that required them...

 

[Rip VW]

Back when I was planning this T project I thought about an LS but only for a millisecond. The car was going to be true to itself and be of 1 major manufacture. Being the car was a ford I decided to stick with all Ford drive train. Not to offend anyone, I was just tired of looking at chevy engined cars. The 350/350 was everywhere and there were a few LS motors or big blocks but for the T all ford all the time. Ford only has really the Coyote and that motor is too wide. Also I was not opposed to a F.I. motor. I am a Retired Avionics Field Engineer and computer nerd so the install did not intimidate me at all. I just keep going back to the image in my mind and it was dirt simple. "A large V8 but not to large as with Dual Fours and roadster style headers" My selection of the 351W was more of a lucky break than meeting strict criteria. That story later. So some people like chevies and some like fords and to me an LS was just not a viable option in my coupe. My second choice of engine was a Chrysler Hemi but that was not a ford so I went with the 351!

 

[Spanky]

I like your thinking. For me, if it makes horsepower and sounds cool, I could care less who manufactures the original engine block. That said, there are definitely some power plants that generate a WOW factor, hemi's being one and W-series Chevies another. But in the end convenience and cost come into play, which is why I have a belly-button 350/350 combo in my bucket. It's got all the WOW I need, and in these light cars anything that generates 300+ HP is more than enough.

PS - Here's a pic of my brother's T with a blown Ford 351.

 

[Island Girl]

Looks like he has some pretty good sized tires up front . . . does he like the handling better than with "smalls"?

 

[Spanky]

My brother says, yes handling is improved, but the initial reason for the taller rubber on front was increased ground clearance.

 

[MMC757]

-There's a lot to be said for a carbureted engine in a hot rod.
-It also takes a lot of effort to make an LS or most modern motors look good outside of a hood. Wiring and sensors are hard to make pretty, and there aren't a lot of off-the-shelf dress-up parts.
-There's not a lot of young blood in the T-bucket game, and most people like to use what they know so if you grew up with small block Chevy's or Fords that's probably what your going to use. (Or Flatheads)
-There's a lot of old small blocks sitting in garages waiting for projects...not so many LS's (yet)
-Lets be honest, you only NEED so much power and efficiency in a bucket anyway.

 

[fluidfloyd]

Oh, yeah... I forgot about that part.
Yes... I am guilty of owning both wrenches and sockets in mm, mainly because every time I get a new gadget that doesn't say "Made in USA", I find that all of the hardware is metric (even Allen screws, which is maddening to me...)
So … since I prefer not to use a crescent wrench if I don't have to, and would rather not bugger up surfaces and orifices using a tool that is "close", I have those as backup... the 10mm wrench being the most common one, I have found.

They tried to get the metric system going when I was a child in school.
I am quite sure that we only kept our "inches-feet-yards-miles" system because it was too expensive to retrofit all of America.
From an engineering standpoint, metrics simplify things enormously... and that is the main reason science uses it. (Moving a decimal point beats fractions any day...)
From a humanistic standpoint, basing a number system on anything is still pretty arbitrary, though I suspect our mathematics work better set up with 10's.
But those arguments are far above my pay grade...

 

[fluidfloyd]

I do have some Whitworth tools but only because I have a heavy English engine lathe. My Triumph buddy died and I no longer had a borrowing source. You do what you have to in tough times.