Primary reason for building a six?

JackFish":28thun6l said:

However, if I had not found a site like this it would be extremely difficult.
This site was probably the most compelling reason for me to pursue this obsession.
Without this place there would be a deep void in the access to information.

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I found this site somehow before I even owned a 6... A friend of mine had a 71 mustang w/ 250 and he sent me some links here 'cause he needed help with some stuff...

That was back on the clifford forums He's long gone, and yet somehow I still remain.

Weird. I would have never thought about owning one of these motors w/o this site.

Just as others have said- because it was the original motor in my 68. Then as I got to delve more into it, I experienced how easy it was to work on. While by no stretch a 'wild' or even 'mild' modified 6- a couple of upgrades for performance keep me happy. Later, I also keep the 6 out of spite for all those who have been telling me "man, you should drop a V-8 in that". And did I also mention reliable- the original 200 I had in there kept going! Yeah sure, right before I replaced it, it used a ton of oil and blew headgaskets left and right, but it wouldnt quit!

I posted just to be different. I've had sixes almost all of my driving life.It's also something different.People scoff at you sometimes when you talk about your ride but then again thre's a large majority of Old Schoolers and my generation that like the non cookie cutter, why didn't I think of that stuff aswell. I don't know about some of the other members I'd assume they get the same reaction though, that Kelly gets with her car, the foot traffic that comes by in the pits or at a car show.Seems like its someone older dragging a friend or kid with them to look at the car,taking them back to the good ol' days and they always have a story about a six they owned or a friend owned. I beleive that the Nostalgia and Rat Rod movement have welcomed these motors with open arms and along with strides MR Inliner has made with the performance of these engines and everyone on the forum as well. we'll be around for along time.

Howdy All:

Neat mind-grinder Mike. I voted for "others" because I could have said "yes" to all of the above. It might be intersting for you to do a poll on uses. Like; street driven only, daily driver, sunny day driver, track only, street and ocassional track, and maybe some other uses. The point being that I believe there are more of us who get great pleasure out of driving our cars/engines. I also believe that most of us were drawn to the six because we are on a limited budget.

There are several other things that drew me to our six.
*Required ingenuity and problem solving skills- there is no cookie cutter solution to blindly follow. Our engines require some thought and problem solving skills partly because we are rare, and partly because commercial solutions are scarce.
*Satisfaction- Take a grungy, lowly six and make it look good and run better than when it left Henry's garage. Aww, that feels good!
*Reasonably economical- not only in mileage, but in building and maintaining. By that I mean swapping and upgrading parts, scrounging parts, modifying parts. Our projects are comparable to a 10,000 piece jig-saw puzzle. You don't have to do it all at once. You can do some now, and somemore later. With a plan, you can add parts or modify as your time and budget will allow. Progress and satisfaction can come a little at a time.

Well, as usual, I've gone on too long. You shouldn't get me started. Sorry. I did enjoy it though. Oh, did I mention "enjoyment and pride" in marching to a different drummer?

Adios, David

hmmm primary reason for building the 6.... because my dad wouldnt let me have a v8, boy did he regret it when he found out his sons I6 with a $100 turbo could beat his 5.0.

Misty came with a six. I hated it at first. I wanted a 427 but brought that down to a 289. Dad liked the idea of a 289, mom said no. I even tried a 221 w/a 1v carb to limit the performance. Mom wouldn't budge.

So I kept the six. At first there were plans of swapping it to a V8 after I turned 18 which was the only way mom would allow a V8. But the six started to grow on me.

With the 40 Series it sounds similar to a small block V8 but it gets more looks at shows because it's different.

For a crate motor, I'd like something that could run with the small blocks and still get decent economy.

Like I said in your other poll, I use the Falcon as my daily driver. If I could have some mildly improved performance and keep it at 20mpg, I'd be satisfied.

For a crate engine, I think a stock engine would be pointless, you could get one done locally easy enough.

If/when I get in the market for an engine or a rebuild, I'll be looking for as much performance as can be had in as stock-appearing engine as possible. I'd pay extra for the internal goodies like pistons, cam, head-work, rockers, etc, but I'd really like to avoid a header (which on these engines prolly makes a lot of internal goodies pointless, I know...).

What'd be way cool would be some cast iron exhaust manifolds that acted like a header, kinda like the EFI 300 ones are supposed to.

I want performance and economy and its totally different than a cookie cutter V8.

With gas probably going to hit $4.00 a gallon here soon I want a car that has good performance but gets significantly better gas mileage than a 5.L V8.

People pop the hood of a Fox body expecting to see a V8. They see a long valve cover and assume its a inline 4cyl 2.3L turbo.

Then they realize its too long to be a 4cyl and then the realization its a I6 sets in. The look on their face at that moment is priceless.

While the BMW M3 Coupe has been my role model I do understand Im not likely to get anywhere near that level of performance, but I think I can get close on handling and power to weight ratio.

Well, since we're all confessing here......
I owned a '65 ''Stang with a six back in '87 or so and I hated it. To slow. So I sold it. Never owned another one until we picked up Kelly's car.
And the only reason we kept the six in her Falcon was that we "tried" to race it with the 170 and the crowds that came by the pits was unreal.
So being different was the reason we kept it a six. Had we swapped it with a V8, it would've never been in two magazines.

If Kelly's Falcon would've been powered with a 260, then you would've never heard of "Does10s".

Later,
Will

Allright, I'll give a real answer. My car came with a six. It a nice, convertible cruiser, not a racecar. I like hotrodding cars. Any car, any engine. the fun is in the doing. Getting power is a little more challenging out of some engines than others. this one's a toughie, but that doesn't mean it can't be done, and it certainly doesn't mean that the doing won't be fun. So, I chose a six 'cause that's what came with the car.

Why do I have a six?? Was looking for a truck to tow my boat. Came to a choice between a red Ford w/a 302, a yellow GMC w/ a 292, or a tan Ford w/ a 300. Well, red fades real quick in the sun down here. The GMC dealer wouldn't deal with me on what few options I wanted. So that left the truck I got... a BB six I brag about on the SB thread

Here's my story. About eight years ago my son got his license just before Christmas, so my wife and I decided to buy him a car for X-mas. I had no clue what I was going to buy, but told a friend a mustang would be cool as my first car was a 66GT. Then he told me he had a friend that was selling a 67 with a six. The price was right, and we like the six for two reasons, no power and good economy.

The following summer we decided to restore it, so I let my son drive my pickup while we were working on it. By the time we got it done, my son decided he wanted to keep the pickup. He felt safer driving it and didn't have the emotional ties like I did. It took a while for him to tell me, as he was afraid it was going to hurt my feelings. However, I was having the time of my life working on it, not to mention all the fond memories. Needless to say, we made the swap permanent.

At that point I was sorry I didn't buy a V8. I thought about doing a swap, but I had just installed a fresh motor during the summer, so that was out of the question for the time being. The obvious thing to do, was to look into ways of getting more power out of the six. The more I looked into it, the more I realized how much fun I was having, doing what everyone told me couldn't be done. Of course, I heard the same thing we all have heard a thousands times. I'm the type of person that won't take no for an answer, or someone telling me it can't be done. There's nothing I love more, than proving someone wrong. The rest is history.....

So I guess my reason is, because I can't.

To be different-
Pop the hood at a car show and heads turn!
And of course to be able to "hang out" on this great forum!!!
Thanks for asking!

To be different.

Originally I kept the six just because it was impractical to switch. The changes to suspension, brakes, and driveline were enough (financially) to dissuade me from doing the swap.

Now I really like the idea of having something a bit different. That said, I'm hoping to squeeze as much performance out of it as I can, and I'm planning on upgrading everything else anyway... 8)

I've had a number of v8's...and each time I traded one it was for an I6. Obtaining more performance while retaining a measure of economy has always fascinated me.
A Ranchero, Econoline pick up, Maverick, Fairmont, Chevvy II, Dodge Duster /6, F100, Bronco...except for the Chevvy, I wish I had them all back... My F150 I6 is NOT for sale.

....because I was offered a deal I couldn't pass up on my 65 Mustang vert. Now, I'm going to have about 4K to drop into the engine bay on it. I'd like to do a good street crate engine, but I'm unsure if 4K is going to hack it. If not, I'll just do what I can.

I voted "Other" because my reasons are a little bit of everything else mentioned.

Economy is important to me to a point. (I won't be driving a Prius anytime soon, but I'd consider driving an Escape hybrid if I didn't dislike SUVs so much)

Performance is important to me to a point. I don't race or even like any form of racing, even being next to someone at a stoplight whose pants are figuratively on fire.. but I do love enthusiastic driving. My area is perfect for it, with dozens or even hundreds of miles of little-used roads.

Appearance is probably the least important, but still somewhat important. I want something that I like the look of, even if only half a dozen people aside from myself ever get to look under the hood. I'm not a show-off. I could easily drop 30 grand or more tarting up my Fairmont and never let anyone (aside from friends and family) know what I've done outside of obvious exterior changes.. but I want what I see under the hood to please me. As an example of how I feel about appearance vs. appearances, if that makes sense: My ideal car is an Aston Martin DBS, but only driven at night on rural roads.

To be different.. that's a funny one. Yes, I want to be different.. but I don't care whether or not most people know I'm being different.


Mainly I just love the inline 6.. especially Ford I6s.. but any decent non-Chevy I6 (or V12, if you think of it as two I6s stuck together) would do. I'd consider owning something like a Supra or BMW M3 to enjoy a good I6, if I didn't have ambitious plans for the I6 already in my driveway. I'd even love to get to a point where I had enough money to start my own company to design and build unusual engines so I could build (among other things) a W18 consisting of 3 I6s sharing a crank. Anyway, I have plenty of V8s laying around, and I may even build them as well.. but the project that gets the lion's share of my attention is the I6 project.


I'll be very interested in what products you offer for the small Ford I6s. I'm still hoping to stuff a turbo/EFI 250 into my Fairmont soon. I'm definitely interested in the new head, for example. Assuming all else goes to plan, and the economy doesn't get to Great Depression levels of awfulness, I should be starting my main project within the next 12 months.

Asa":1k1jzxgv said:

i didn't have the money to swap to a V8 and i enjoyed being different

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That is why i still have my I6. My friends says go V8 all the time says the I6 sucks. I told him " I dont like being the same, I want to be different."" My car is original with the I6, yours is V8 and isn't."

jamyers":h7fzlmcv said:

For a crate engine, I think a stock engine would be pointless, you could get one done locally easy enough.

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i don't know about that
the only way i know of a decent machine shop in town is because my dad's friend has been working here for forever, if i hadn't known him i would have to search all over
i'm not even gonna mention getting one from autozoo or wherever

i can see the point of doing a mostly stock crate engine, not a completely stock one though