[lt1silverhawk]

Hi All,


Did Lincoln and Mercury ever design their own engines like Buick, Olds, and Pontiac did at one time before using corporate engines? Or was it always Ford engines?


Thanks in advance!


Mods: Apologies if this should have been posted elsewhere.

[MARTINSR]

Originally Posted by lt1silverhawk

Hi All,


Did Lincoln and Mercury ever design their own engines like Buick, Olds, and Pontiac did at one time before using corporate engines? Or was it always Ford engines?


Thanks in advance!


Mods: Apologies if this should have been posted elsewhere.

Absolutely, but I don't remember all the differences, we will wait for others to chime in. I could do a "shout out" to my brother and come up with all of it though. I think the Merc engines were largely the same but Lincoln had some more radical changes. They did look very similar as I remember, unlike how different the GM motors looked.

Brian

[OneMoreTime]

As far as I know ford has several different engine production facilities which each built a particular engine family..Those engines were then sent to various assembly locations where they were installed into finished cars..This is why you will find the same basic engines installed into several kinds of Ford cars and trucks. For example you can find the 460 in Ford trucks..Mercury and some Lincolns. Windsor engines were in mustangs, ford trucks, ford cars as well as mercury and lincoln..I forget just where the M's all wound up but those are common in pickups..gets a bit confusing at times but then all we need to know is what family a particular engine comes from and act accordingly in the parts dept..

Sam

[lt1silverhawk]

Hey Brian and Sam,

Thanks for the responses. I should mention that I am focusing on V8 engines only. The more precise question is, were they all Ford blocks with interchangeable parts? Or were they completely different, as was the case for the GM BOP engines?

Brian, if your brother has the info, I would love to read it.

As an added note, I'm just asking this for a personal research project. I'm not working on anything. I plan on asking the same questions for the Chrysler and companies in a separate thread to avoid confusion.

Thanks!

[Irelands child]

Ford used generally the same basic block castings across the three lines, but often they were different cubic inch displacements. In a lot of cases the parts were interchangeable - but ......are they really?

Lincoln had a few odd balls like the 430CID with a 30 degree angle at the top of the block or the 302 Y block

[lt1silverhawk]

Hey Dave,


Thanks for the response. So you answered the main question, and that is all the companies did always use the Ford blocks as the foundations. The different displacements and power outputs is to be expected.


Since you did bring it up, what is the standard angle for the Ford blocks, vs the oddball 30 degrees (I hope I worded all of that correctly)?


Also, which parts will usually not interchange?


Thanks!

[Irelands child]

Originally Posted by lt1silverhawk

Hey Dave,


Thanks for the response. So you answered the main question, and that is all the companies did always use the Ford blocks as the foundations. The different displacements and power outputs is to be expected.


Since you did bring it up, what is the standard angle for the Ford blocks, vs the oddball 30 degrees (I hope I worded all of that correctly)?


Also, which parts will usually not interchange?


Thanks!

When you get into FAMILYS of blocks and different displacements, you get into casting differences - such as cylinder walls and crankshafts. Then there are accessory holes and possibly transmission bell housings. What you need to do is pick an engine home vehicle then go from there.

[jetnow1]

Don't forget the lincoln v-12's and the late 50s/early 60 MEL series that was
used = Mercury/Edsel/Lincoln. I believe there was some crossover of MEL series engines used in Ford trucks but I am not a Ford man so I am sure there
are many on here who know much better than I do. Jim

[MARTINSR]

Originally Posted by lt1silverhawk

Hey Dave,


Thanks for the response. So you answered the main question, and that is all the companies did always use the Ford blocks as the foundations. The different displacements and power outputs is to be expected.


Since you did bring it up, what is the standard angle for the Ford blocks, vs the oddball 30 degrees (I hope I worded all of that correctly)?


Also, which parts will usually not interchange?


Thanks!

I really think it depends on what exact motors you are talking about.
Some of them were quite different.

Here is a discussion on the Lincoln "Y block". Click here

Brian

[lt1silverhawk]

Hey Dave, Jim and Brian,


I got a little ahead of myself with the question about interchangeability. My error was not remembering that, unlike the SB Chevy, which I have read about the most and which remained the same up until the LTx/LSx engines, Ford has had several different families.


But my main curiosity was if there were any engines that Mercury and Lincoln designed in house that were as different from the Ford engines as the BOP engines were from the Chevy. Basically if FoMoCo ever went the "corporate engine" route the way GM did.


@ Brian: the link to the thread on the Y blocks was a good informative read, thank for that.


@ Jim: Thank you for the heads up. I did find more info on the MEL engine family, as well as the V12 you mentioned: "Lincoln-Zephyr V12 engine"


Its obvious I've got some serious reading ahead of me, so I did a quick search this morning and did find a nice breakdown of the Ford engine families: "Ford V-8 Engine Families--A Primer : eBay Guides".


For anyone reading this thread looking for more technical information, the wiki also has two good articles: "Ford engine specifications" and "How to identify a Ford V8".


Thank you all so much for the help and pointing me in the right direction.