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"Keep it Inline"

We recently did a poll on the FordSix forum, asking members why they kept their sixes rather than swapping to a V8. Below are twenty five answers, in no particular order, that seem to sum up the replies and the various reasons forum members "Keep it Inline". You can click on most of the replies for a more detailed answer.

Poll Replies
1)
Originally kept the six cylinder because i didn't have the money to swap to a V8 and I enjoyed being different.
2)
Because the Ranchero was Dads, and I promised him that I'd keep it stock or at least stock-appearing. There's a lot of family history in the Ranchero.
3)
I've seen too many falcons with V8s, and I just wanted to be different.
4)
Because it was the original engine and i wanted to keep it that way. It's been modified now, so I'm hoping to get better gas mileage.
5)
My goal is to build a fast car that still gets good mpg, and I'm just tired of V8's.
6)
You run in your own class, as opposed to running with the herd.
7)
I got tired of hearing "You won't make any power with that!"
8)
After realizing how basic and easy, and cheap to work on and maintain, it was love.
9)
There are several other things that drew me to our six.
10)
Because my dad wouldn't let me have a v8, boy did he regret it.
11)
I hated it at first. I wanted a 427 but brought that down to a 289. Dad liked the idea of a 289, but mom said no.
12)
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.
13)
Had we swapped it with a V8, it would've never been in two magazines.
14)
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.
15)
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!!!
16)
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...
17)
I voted "Other" because my reasons are a little bit of everything else mentioned.
18)
I like the hopped up 6 (especially with the aluminum head/intake/4bbl carb) because it draws attention and I like to be the center of attention.....
19)
I originally got the six because I had a set amount of money I wanted to spend on getting a Mustang and that typically did not include a V8.
20)
While doing research and looking for performance parts for my 250 i found out that torque is what really matters on the street and not big HP numbers.
21)
That's when I realized that people were tired of seeing V-8s.
22)

I ended up daily driving the donor car I bought for the V8 swap.

23)
The straight six is a great engine to work on and since I am new to a lot of the restoration stuff, it is a great starting point for a new guy like me.
24)
Then the strangest thing, I realized everything I wanted to do to the car was handling oriented, and I started to get concerned with how that extra weight and power would affect driveability.
25)
The Beatles and the Stones were the newest, coolest things when it was made. The Moon was still 4 years away. The Vietnam war was just starting in earnest. Gas was still less than 50 cents a gallon.

Explanations
6)

V8's are boring, No imagination or inventiveness there. Been there done that, had fun at the time...

But got sick of keeping up with the Jones' (someone is always faster), so now I just diverge. Way more fun and way less money. (and w/ the turbo, I'm keeping up ok despite my best efforts). If you build a V8 car, there is always another V8 car that is faster, better, and cooler that someone will compare it to. With the 6, you are the king of your castle... very rarely is there someone around with a 6 that you can compare to, and if there is - it's usually someone from this forum and you know them already.

So it takes the &^&* measuring out of the car hobby. No one will try to compare you to the multitude of better funded cars out there 'cause you're "just a six". - That's fine by me... and then when people see that you have done some unique, inspirational, and EFFECTIVE things to your six, they really get stoked, and really are willing to dish out the praise - It let's you run in your own class as opposed to trying to run w/ the herd.

My car is way cooler than some gay bellybutton V8 muscle car anyway's. At least I think so - and that's all that matters. Instead of sitting here browsing through summit trying to decide which cookie-cutter bolt-on to add next (which of these 5000 different intake manifolds should I use?), I am constantly using my brain (and this forum) to devise solutions to the problems the car gives me, because the off-the-shelf solution to those problems doesn't exist. If I had a V8 car right now, I would just throw dollars at it and have it working perfect. No thinking needed. Where is the fun in that? I've done that before, but it was more fun 'cause I had less dollars, and that dictated more thinking. Now that I am fortunate enough to have a little more money for the hobby, having a bastard-child of a motor forces me to use my brain, and not just my wallet.

(back to "Answers")

7)

It's the same old saying, " swap that chitty 6 for a V8!" I got tired of hearing "You won't make any power with that!" Well you can figure how far their jaws dropped when I had beaten 12 V8 broncos in the sand drags and won the competition for standard tranny class. Enough said.

(back to "Answers")

8)

I picked "other". It came with the car. I had never seen one before, but thought that since I had a fox-body I could buy a 302. But after realizing how basic and easy and cheap to work on and maintain it was love. "I" can work on this car without having to go to a mechanic to change the spark plugs. I'm new to the "car" hobby so it's been a great learning platform.

Kind of like you found a stray dog, and it wants to be your best friend. And if you don't take care of it, it's going to the pound. Yes, it's almost like a responsibility now. 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.

(back to "Answers")

9)

I voted for "others" because I could have said "yes" to all of the above. It might be interesting for you to do a poll on uses. Like; street driven only, daily driver, sunny day driver, track only, street and occasional 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. Aw, 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 some more 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?

(back to "Answers")

10)

Hmm primary reason for building the 6.... because my dad wouldn't 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.

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11)

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.

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12)

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 I'm not likely to get anywhere near that level of performance, but I think I can get close on handling and power to weight ratio.

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13)

Well, since we're all confessing here...... I owned a '65 Mustang 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. 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 were 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".

(back to "Answers")

14)
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.....

(back to "Answers")
16)
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...

(back to "Answers")
17)
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 SUV's 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.

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19)
I've been lurking around this board for a while since I bought my first Mustang to restore and just had to chime in. I originally got the six because I had a set amount of money I wanted to spend on getting a Mustang and that typically did not include a V8.

Now that I have my car, I'm really enjoying spending time getting to know the complete restoration process of the whole car instead of just dinking around with the engine. Once I found this forum, I realized how much room there is to make a pretty interesting engine. I'm already starting to plan out my engine rebuild to include the Classic Inlines head and intake manifolds. What would I like out of it? A good daily driver with some get up and go. A real sleeper that has an interesting alternative to all the cookie cutter V8 Mustangs out there.

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20)
Torque junky. i wanted to vote for performance and being different. While doing research and looking for performance parts for my 250 i found out that torque is what really matters on the street and not big HP numbers. I want to have great honda killing torque and be different at the same time. I6's are like transformers "More Than Meets The Eye"

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21)

Why did I stay with the six? Well, to be completely honest I almost didn't. My original plan for the 6 cylinder was to rip it out and drop a V-8 into the convertible. I had been hanging out on VMF. My first post was how to go about pulling the 6 out and putting in an 8. The best laid plans.

What convinced me to stay six was one day, after I had owned the car for about 2 months, I went to a local show and shine. At the time, my engine bay was stock. Nothing fancy, in fact I was kind of ashamed. When I pulled into the parking lot, I kept the hood closed. Then people started asking what I had under the hood and I kept answering "Just a Six". Out of the 40 cars there, I was the only car with less then 8 cylinders. Finally, a few of them convinced me to pop the hood. I had more people coming to check out my 200 then any of the other engine bays.... and that's with it looking like crap. That's when I realized that people were tired of seeing V-8s.

This is also about the time I found fordsix.com. Finally I was convinced to stay six. This was only compounded when I installed and showed my Offy set up.

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22)
I ended up daily driving the donor car I bought for the V8 swap. I remember the first time I drove my Falcon... the previous owner had installed a cable throttle but the cable was too long and it couldn't rev all the way. I remember thinking "I know I've been told these motors don't rev very high, but good night... this thing is a DOG and it's got to go". Then when I found the problem with the cable throttle and fixed it I remember thinking "not too bad". Because I literally started at zero, every little bit more I can get out of my motor makes me happy.

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23)
I got my mustang first only looking for v8 cars I really like Cameros' (sorry guys I like chevys a bit too) I finally settled on my straight six coupe with my dad who thought it wouldn't be too crazy and he could help me work on it. I soon started looking for stuff to do to the car and found this forum and all of you guys and realized I had no desire to swap the 6 out for a v8. Though she might not have the power, but she is a great car. It's not like they changed the looks of the car just because it was 6! I still have A LOT of things that I want to do. The straight six is a great engine to work on and since I am new to a lot of the restoration stuff, it is a great starting point for a new guy like me. One final thing, like everyone else it is great being different and telling people I have no desire to swap for a V8.

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24)
I wanted to be different too (with performance a close second). That wasn't how it started out however. I bought the 67 mustang because it seemed cheap and it was a manual. The engine was out and rusting, which was fine because I had BIG PLANS!

Late model 5.0 or 351, EFI, T5, disc brakes all around, modernized steering, IRS rear end, 3 point belts, upgraded seats with headrests, you name it, that was the plan. I had owned a 65 mustang with a 6 and an auto and it was a dog, and i didn't really want anything to do with that this time around. Then the strangest thing, I realized everything I wanted to do to the car was handling oriented, and I started to get concerned with how that extra weight and power would affect driveability.

I remembered an old magazine my boss lent me in 1990, HRM's mustang magazine number 3. So I started looking around for that kind of information, and ran across Mustangs and Fords November issue (sammie hagar on the cover), and that lead me here.

I became convinced that I could get all the power I need out of a six and a stick, and still am. The Mustang unfortunately will have to go, since I bought a convertible 64 falcon.

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25)
There are many reasons. The strongest one came to me while I was standing there, with the hood off. First start after I had gotten it. It was hooked up to an external tank, and my friend was in it, ready to turn the key. I told him to go for it, and the car cranked, and cranked, and cranked until this giant hunk of iron, made in 1965, and nothing mechanically changed since then, breathed life for the first time in 20 years.

I had thought about a V8 swap. But I watched this car struggle to life, and I couldn't entertain the thought of tossing the motor aside. It was telling me that it had seen 43 years of service, and still had stories to tell.

The Beatles and the Stones were the newest, coolest things when it was made. The Moon was still 4 years away. The Vietnam war was just starting in earnest. Gas was still less than 50 cents a gallon.

That kind of nostalgia just doesn't come to me out of a cookie cutter, freshly remanufactured 5.0.

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