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1963 Ford Y-Block Makes Over 600 HP

- STEVEN RUPP

We love engines that fall into the "different" category and, thankfully, so does Steve Brulé at Westech Performance. When he's not cohosting the Engine Masters video series, he's running countless engines on Westech's Superflow 902 dyno. This time, he's got a 355-inch Ford Y-block stroker in the test cell! We don't see very many of these early Ford OHV engines, so we thought it would be worth checking out this Y-block built by Todd Ferguson and John Mummert for Joe Cebe's project.

We've all heard about the legendary side-valve Ford flathead V8. It was a great engine, but by the late 1940s it was starting to become dated, especially when compared to what the competition was offering. So, in 1954, Ford introduced the new overhead valve Y-block V8 to complement the new OHV six-banger launched in 1952. The engine was referred to as a Y-block because of its deep skirting, which gave the engine a distinct shape like the letter Y. The deep skirting also gave the block a lot more strength.