friend of mine came over the other day with a suprise- his newly picked up I6 66! was pretty cool, decent shape. we started talking and of course he mentions he wants to drop a V8 into it. kinda told him its not that simple, and being a student, hed starve if he started that project. haha. anyway, sorta explained the pros of an I6 to him. he was hapy to hear that you could upgrade them. (carb, intake, exaust would be easiest) MY question is though, what sort of other upgrades make sense on low budget?
(he was asking me if id ever seen a dual exaust on a 6 before, said never heard of it, but never know)
btw, im trying to convince this guy to join up here. hes new to this kinda thing

 

I was planning on doing a major overhaul to my I6 but ended up selling it because i got my hands on a fastback. Anyway if you go on over to http://www.cliffordperformance.net/index.html there are some amazing upgrades you can do to an I6. Most notably is the tri carb manifold. Offenhouser sells a progressive linkage to power the three of them. If you have a 200ci and you manifold is cast as one piece with your head then you have your head drilled and tapped to accept the three carbs. As for your dual exhaust, clifford also makes dual outlet headers which can be adapted to a standard v8 dual exhaust system. It would also not make any sense to do tri carb and dual exhaust without changing out your cam, headers can give something like a 17% power boost, but it will all get lost if you keep your cam stock. Price wise, it gets kinda of expensive, I know your a student and you cant afford all that much, but short of a v8 swap (which is definitely easier to get more horses for your buck) I think this is the way to go. If you really wanted to go big the I6, because it's inline and more stable than a v8, can handle a supercharger, but that's definitely a major investment. Hope that helps

 

My 73 Convert has the 250 CID staight six too. I get tempted to switch to a V8 every once in a while, but the six is easy to work on. Check out this site for upgrades: http://fordsix.com/

 

Headers, 2v carb upgrade, new head, turbo, s/c, ignitor from Pertronix.

I have the 2v upgrade, ignitor from pertronix and working on getting headers.

2v upgrade - 100 dollars
headers- start at like 250
head- 250 head can start pretty cheap, but you have to get the intake and other parts like that.



I am on fordsix forums also. They have a post about doing the 2v swap on there. You can get single or dual exhaust headers.

 

I added Clifford Headers with an X Pipe and dual exhaust. It was not cheap but it looks good and sounds great. If I had the money and knowledge I would love a V8. But since I have neither I will stick with my 6.

The guys I have talked to at Clifford have always been friendly and helpful.

 

there are tons of things you can do to an I6 to make it have some power heck there is a guy on fordsix with a 63 falcon with a 250 turbo that has run in the 10's

and here is a great site for performance parts including a brand new aluminum head for the I6 with a removable intake www.classicinlines.com and i have a 66 with an I6 and tons of mods including dual exhaust and if you build it right you can have people telling you that you have a V8 before you pop the hood then they have the dumbest look in their face once you do pop the hood

 

classic inlines is also a good site. the ford six forums is run by the owner of CI.

www.classicinlines.com

 

The stock integral intake manifold log is the major bottleneck in the 200's. The design starves the #1 and #6 cylinders. If you can find a later 250 head and slap a Clifford intake on it, that's the way to go. The Offy intake is an option, but you need to find a machine shop that will do good work. The one I saw in person was a hack job, with ragged holes and studs screwed in at odd angles.

Headers and dual exhaust sounds great with an I6. With the right mufflers, it sounds almost like a V8.

If you really want to get wild, a small turbo would really wake it up

 

That is what I have planned for next summer.