Having the intake and exhaust valves together on the intake side of the block made the "crossflow" Ford V8 a boiler and a block-cracker under repeated heavy loads and high rpm. In the early days some adventurous souls tried reversing the intake and exhaust ports on Ford V8s, but i doubt that it worked well. Instead of exhaust gas overheating the engine, one would have overheated fuel in convoluted, restricted passages. That didn't keep people from trying.
If GM had built the early Chevrolet sixes with insert bearings and seven mains -- not to mention a crossflow head! -- the history of hot rodding in the United States would have been quite different. In many ways the Ford flathead V8 was an engine singularly unsuited to high performance modifications, but it had inserts and a short, sturdy crank that would take a beating. When Chevrolet finally built an engine for high-performance driving, it was a V8. They never exploited the potential on the inline design that they already had.
God's Peace to you.
d
Inliner #1450
