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I always thought the "bigger block" Chevy 348 and Ford 332/352 FE engines were a reaction to NASCAR outlawing "smallblock" Chevy fuel injection and blowers in 1957. Many people are familiar with Chevy's Rochester fuel injection of 1957 but most know less about Fords use of the McCulloch VR57 blower in the same year. The blown Y-block Fords kicked Chevy's mouse butt in 1957, by the way. Normally the Ford Y-blocks just couldn't breathe like Chevies.
See
http://www.vs57.com about 3/4 down the page:
"The VR57 equipped Fords basically dominated Motorsport during early 1957, and if it wasn’t for the NASCAR ban on the use of superchargers (and fuel injection) from racing in April 1957 would probably have continued dominating for the rest of the season."
So it looks to me that the start of the HP race was more likely in 1957-58 when "little" big blocks started "mysteriously" appearing in here-to-fore economy factory sedate sedans. The 348's were available with 3 deuces, I believe. And I owned a '58 Ford ragtop that had a 315hp 4-barrel FE352 with a factory solid lifter cam. The valves featured spring dampers that looked like dual valve springs and it had 10.5:1 compression ratio. It was backed by a 3 speed Cruise-o-matic, sort of a C-6 fore-runner.
The Chevy 409 was not too reliable when revved up and was eventually replaced by an improved big block. The W motor actually didn't have combustion chambers but mounted the cylinder head at an angle to produce a wedge between the flat face of the head and top of the pistons. It was a lousy design with poor flame propogation but at least the valves were never shrouded.
Fords little 332+ lived on to become the side-oiler ...side-oiler because it, too, didn't live well(original oiling system) with extended rpms common in stock car racing. The stock Ford FE also tended to break valve rocker shafts for no apparent reason.
Good old days. When cars still smelled like hot
oil and gasoline.
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