I know that a 1959 Lark 259 has different heads than does a 1955 or
1956. Does anyone have a quick handle on the relative compression ratios of the newer vs. older?TIA.
JT
- posted
16 years ago
V8 Compression Ratios?
Loading thread data ...
- Vote on answer
- posted
16 years ago
The highest compression are the 537555 and 1557581 heads and were about 8.5 with the beaded steel head gaskets or about 8.0 with the composition. You can deduct between .4 and .5 for the composition gaskets compared to the beaded steel.
1557570 heads (used on most '63 and '64 and are R 1 heads) and 1555294 were about 8.25 with the beaded steel gasket. The 1557570 used with flat top pistons in the R 1 give 10.25 with the steel gasket. 535976 heads were about 8.0 with beaded steel gaskets. These were used on the Golden Hawks (among some other models) and with the composition gaskets were about 7.5. 1557582 heads were about 7.5 with beaded steel (These are R 2 heads that give 9.0 with flat top pistons).The 537555 and 1557581 have about 54 cc chambers and the 1557582 heads had the most at 67.7 cc's.
These figures should be about right for all 259 engines and the 289's with dish pistons. And you can vary the compression on the 289 since you can get "cup" pistons that have about half the cc's as the dish pistons (or flat tops if preferred).
I think I have these right.
Ted