Ford’s Forgotten Y-Block: the 1952-57 Lincoln V8

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While we don’t think of the 1952-57 Lincoln V8 as a high-performance engine, in fact it did quite well for itself when it did race. Here are a few of its secrets.

 

While the Ford Y-Block V8 certainly caught the industry’s attention when it was introduced in 1954, it wasn’t the Ford Motor Company’s first overhead-valve V8. That honor goes to the larger Lincoln V8 introduced two years earlier in 1952. While the two engines share Ford’s distinctive Y-Block crankcase design, they are of two separate engine families. (See our feature on the  Ford Y-Block here.) However, there are some similarities, and it’s obvious that both engines came from the same house. We should note that while unlike Ford, Lincoln did not use the term Y-Block for its V8, it has fallen into common usage due to the family resemblance.

 

With its 4.62-in bore centers and 10.375-in deck heights, the Lincoln V8 was a  significantly larger package than its Ford cousin, supporting an initial bore and stroke of 3.80 x 3.500 inches and a displacement  of 317 cubic inches. The roomy architecture also permitted periodic displacement increases to 341 CID in 1955 and 368 CID in 1956. There were also 279, 302, and 332 CID versions for 1952-63 heavy-duty Ford trucks, but we’ll set those aside for now

 

In its original 1952 tune with a modest 7.5:1 compression ratio and a Holley teapot two-barrel carburetor, the 317 produced 160 hp at  3,900 rpm and 284 lb-ft of torque at just 1,800 rpm. For 1953 the carburetor was upgraded to a Holley teapot four-barrel, boosting the output to 205 hp, now up at 4,200 rpm. Through 1957, all production Lincoln V8s would be equipped with the unusual teapot four-barrel.

For the most part, the Lincoln was a standard Detroit-style OHV V8 of its time with five main bearings, pushrod valve actuation via shaft-mounted rocker arms, and hydraulic valve lifters in all applications. It did not share the Ford Y-Block’s unusual over-under intake port configuration, opting for a more conventional layout, and in its final 368 CID version in 1956, the intake and exhaust valve diameters were opened up to 2.00 inches and 1.64 inches, respectively. In this free-breathing form the Lincoln V8 produced 300 hp at 4,800 rpm and an impressive 415 lb-ft of torque at 3000 rpm.

 

While we don’t think of the Lincoln Y-Block as a high-performance engine, in truth it did quite well for itself when it did race, for example in the punishing 2,100 miles of the Carrera Panamericana, better known as the Mexican road race. There, Lincoln V8s ran away with the stock sedan category three years in a row in 1952 through 1954, sweeping the top four places in ’53. Hot rodders also toyed with the Lincoln V8 with some success, discovering that it could be opened up to 425 cubic inches or more.

For 1957 the 368 CID Lincoln V8 was added to the Mercury product line, where it was standard in the Turnpike Cruiser and Colony Park and optional on other models. The M-335, a special version homologated by Mercury for stock car racing, boasted an Isky cam, two four-barrel carbs, and a conservative 335 hp rating.

The fanciest application of the Lincoln V8, however, was in the 1955-56 Continental Mark II, below. (Continental was then a separate Ford division.) Here, the Lincoln Y-Block was dressed up with a pair of exclusive finned rocker covers in cast aluminum. While successful, the Lincoln Y-Block had a rather short production life by Motor City standards: just six years in passenger cars. For 1958, it was retired in favor of Ford’s larger MEL engine family. -Photo below courtesy of Barry Wolk.  

 

16 thoughts on “Ford’s Forgotten Y-Block: the 1952-57 Lincoln V8”

  1. I remember in 53 when Lincoln advertised their engine at 205 horsepower. I was astonished.

  2. This is why I come to Mac’s Garage, to learn things I didn’t know I won’t get anywhere else.

  5. The engine utilized an externally mounted rear oil pump driven by the rear mounted distributor?

  6. I also remember that they were famous for their fuel pumps going out at just about any time and also cracking their rocker arms due to poor oilers, requiring adding external tubing to by-pass the problem.

  7. I briefly owned a 1956 Lincoln Premier with this motor. It had sat behind a gas station for four years when I bought it in 1986. new plugs, oil, battery and plug wires and it roared to life, although the water pump disintegrated immediately. A quick trip to the parts store for a 1956 Ford water pump did the trick. I pumped up the tires and drove it home at 65 MPH , cleaned it up and sold it for four times the asking price a week later. In retrospect I wish I had kept it with it’s white and salmon exterior and interior, chrome tissue box and rear mounted A/C that delivered cold air through clear plastic tubes coming out of the rear package tray to chrome ceiling vents.

  8. Yet again, convention does injustice to a whole family of engines. To set the record straight, yet again, the Ford engines of ’52-thru-’57 were NOT THE ONLY Y-BLOCKS…ergo, though they are Y-blocks, they are NOT entitled to take that phrase exclusively! The MEL family of engines are also Y-blocks (surprise, Ford enthusiasts!). Look up the phrase in the dictionary, not Google; and you will find that to be true.

    The whole Y-block generation, which includes the Y-shaped engines of Lincoln and Ford, the Ford-Edsel subseries, AND the Mercury-Edsel-Lincoln subseries, need to be referred with the same language and the same regard. “But those subseries are not the same internally!” some may argue. Guess what: a 1952 Chrysler Hemi engine is not the same internally as a 2006 Chrysler Hemi engine. They are still both regarded as the same kind of engine. End of argument. Start referring to FEs and MELs as Y-blocks.

  9. A simple click on the Lincoln engine photo at the beginning of this well presented story would served to clear up many of the misgivings so many viewers have regarding this engine’s relationship to the 239 thru 312 engine so often referred to as the Y block.

  10. I had a “57 Merc. Turnpike cruiser years ago, with the 368 cid. It had terrific power in a large car. Kick it into passing gear at 50 mph, and you could almost see that gas gauge going down toward empty. What a car!

  11. Wayback; when I had a Mcjob, I had to pick someone up at the airport in someone’s Turnpike Cruiser, (1957 model?), I was really impressed by the power, and I had an Oldsmobile at the time.

  12. I had a 57 ford Fairlane 2 door hardtop with a thunderbird 312 Y Block which I swapped out for a rebuilt 368 with dual quads and an isky bumpstick, I remember two things: Racing just about every fast car in the county, and my Dad saying that He heard I had the fastest car in town. I did. Then I found the 57 thunderbird supercharger. Game Over!

  13. In my younger years, I owned, built, and ran several Ford Y-blocks. 312, 272, 292, 368. All I can say is that they were all exceptionally strong, reliable engines. I never had a lower-end failure of any kind, no matter how hard I ran them. These engines were all completely stock ! Had upper end issues galore, but I could always rely on the bottom end hanging together.. And, make no mistake, I Abused my engines, routinely winding them up to 5500-6000 rpm. Little weak in the overhead oiling, but what’s a little valve train noise among motor heads ?

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