Like Hank Williams Jr. says, "It's a family tradition!" In the very early 1950's my father was doing similar stuff to flathead Ford V8s- - - -moving the cylinder centerlines apart on the two in the middle of the block to avoid a thin spot in the casting around the exhaust passageways and boring the block 1/4" oversize, and stroking a 49-53 Mercury crankshaft to 4 1/8" to get almost 300 cubic inches from a 239 engine. Connecting rods for an 85 HP flathead. Then he raised the compression ratio to 11.5:1 and ran methanol and Hydrogen Peroxide for fuel on a lot of southeast dirt tracks. He was outrunning most of the grandfathers of current NASCAR drivers with engines he built in a little shop in Nashville Tennessee.
| 
