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Originally Posted by Carnut427
Ford (nor the other manufacturers) knew siamesed cylinders would work. To my knowledge, Chevy was the first to do it on the 400 smallblock. Dan
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A little bit of drift from the topic, perhaps, but the Bowtie Bozos yet again get credit for an idea they merely copied from their betters. Chebby was NOT the first to utilize cylinder siamesing. All manufacturers were familiar with the design but for various reasons having to do with cost and warranty considerations shied away from the concept for the most part.
While various truck and heavy duty engines earlier had used siamesed cylinder design for low RPM applications, the Hudson 308 inline 6cyl developed in the late '40's and first installed in the Hornet line in '51 had siamesed cylinders and was intended to be capable of all-out sustained high RPM racing. This application most closely tracks our interest in this forum and is probably one of the first American applications of cylinder siamesing as we would use it.
The Hudson 308 engine was a bored version of the 262ci engine which required strengthening as the original design limitations were exceeded. The high chromium content of the block alloy minimized cracking of the siamesed cylinders under ordinary use conditions but an overheated block would occasionally crack under severe (race) use. Despite this, the Hornet was THE car to beat in NASCAR (a brutally harsh racing environment in those crude dirt track days) from '51 up into '54. Anyway, the best overhead valve V8-equipped Olds and Mopars found it very difficult to beat the 308ci (FLATHEAD no less) 6 banger in a Hudson Hornet. The other marques (ESPECIALLY Chebby) were completely outclassed and not even close to being serious contenders.
Doc (The Fabulous Hudson Hornet) Hudson sends his kind regards!
