1930 Farmall Regular Build #2

Howdy folks!! Love the site!!

Rebuilding my 2nd Regular, this one is gonna be a little more "spunkier" than the other. Got some ?"s tho...

Im using 4 inch pistons on the 221 making it a 251!! But want to deck the head. But how much is too much to take off?? What have you guys taken off?? (The age old question)


Have heard of guys making a system to oil the rocker assembly. Anyone got any info on that?

I was able to remove 3/16" of an inch from the head of my f-20. You will want to shim the rocker arm assembly up by the same amount to keep the valve train geometry intact. I was able to avoid using a spacer to raise the upper cooling manifold.

there is an extra hole in most of the oil filter housings that has a plug you can remove and plumb a line up to the valve cover. If not just put a tee before guage and run line from there. I have seen lines go in where the oilers were or holes drilled in cover. Have seen some with shutoffs some just lines running oil full time. Depends how well it seals up I guess. I think the only limit on head milling is when you run out of material between the water passages.If those pistons are 8000ft also they will stick up about .300" above the deck. Might want to do some math, don't want your compression too high with a mag, timing curve issues. Plus the higher the compression the higher the voltage required to fire the plug.That being said, that combustion chamber is huge. A Heisler head used a combustion chamber that was approx .300" lower than the IH head .

If you run full time oil to the valve train it will all run out on the ground through the breather pipe, there is no return galley to the pan. They need a valve put in so you can run some oil in and then shut it off. Or you will have to remove the deflector and modify the block to allow the oil back into the pan. The tin deflector on the side of the block under the head deflects excess valve train oil and condensation away from the riser that vents the lower block. Modifying this system would allow anything in the vent passage on that side of the block into the pan too. Not sure what all that would be but the engine is designed to avoid it.

My $.02 worth on the mag and compression. I agree on the timing being a limitation, but as far as voltage, a well tuned E4A or F-4 mag will put out all the voltage that any compression you can generate in that engine will require. IMHO.

I for one have a lot of faith in the IHC engineers. Those engines were designed for a certain RPM and compression. Notice that you can still get alot of these old girls to run just by lapping the valves, fresh oil, and clean carb, and tune up on ignition. Anytime you push an engine beyond what it was designed for, failure comes faster. Yes, you can push the engines WAY past their stock config. And yes, you can get some impressive HP and torque out of them. But is that what you really want in a Regular? I have always wanted to build a "sleeper" SM, and still may do it. My F series tractors are for fun and trailer queen circuit, not HP or pulling monsters.

You will end up breaking something in the long run, especially if you run it hard and run it frequently to put your extra ponies on display in a pull or similar. Once again, IMHO.

In the end, it is fun to do , and it is your tractor, so go for it. Just not my cup of tea. No offense or flame intended.