You thought we were pretty crafty be remembering and recognizing the Buick 430 today, right? Well what about the MEL (Mercury Edsel Lincoln) 430ci V8 that powered some of the biggest and heaviest cars of the late 1950s and 1960s up to ’65. The MEL engine shared some similarities with the FE but there were lots of major differences as well. It is a “plank” head engine meaning that the head is totally flat and the combustion chamber is actually created by the angle of the block deck and the top of the piston. This is the same style setup that the 348/409 Chevrolet used although the Chevy was designed to be spun a lot harder than these guys. Torque was the primary objective when engineers were drawing up the MEL engines and this 430 delivered it in spades.
With cars that measured some 19-feet long and had curb weights pushing 6,000lbs, the MEL engine was a necessary commodity to get them rolling. The mill on the dyno below doesn’t generate a ton of horsepower but it makes torque like a mother, producing nearly 400 lb/ft at 3,000rpm. They spin the thing to 5,200 RPM in the dyno video and it was all done by then. The horsepower number is lower than we expected at about 280 but we’re thinking that the factories were a little liberal during this era anyway. The engine itself weight 740lbs which was a direct function of its deeply skirted and thickly cast block. On the upside, these engines could be stroked to over 500ci and some were back in the 1960s. There are cackle cars out there now with MEL engines replicating the few and the proud hot rodders that pushed them to their limits on exotic fuels at the strip. Hey, a blown version of the 430 powered the winning entry in Top Eliminator at the 1959 NHRA Nationals. That rules!
This engine was known as the “Bulldozer” of the MEL family and while it isn’t the best known piece, like the Buick it has cool history and it more than deserves some recognition on this date that stole its numbers from the engine! Ok, that may be stretching it but it is what we believe.
PRESS PLAY BELOW TO SEE SOME 430CI MEL DYNO ACTION!
