what does EBA stand for ??

[dude]

EBA -8BA what if any are the differences ?

[alanwoodieman]

extra bad ass

[biggieou]

8BA is short for 8 cylinders of Bad Ass

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

[flatford8]

I'm not sure how correct these answers are but I like em!!!!....... Mark

[rotorwrench]

It should be EAB. Ford was trying a new coding system in that time frame to the old system used in the 59A & earlier no longer applied. With 8BA the 8 represented the last digit of the year 1948 since that was the design year of the engine. What the B and the A represented, I'm not as certain but it could be for a V8 engined passenger car. If you look at the 8RT code for trucks you can see that they used the RT to represent a V8 engined truck since the R code represented V8 in the ID number where H code represented the 226 6-cylinder engine. Toward the middle of the 50s it started to use a different code. B was a code for the decade of the 40s. E was a code for the decade of the 50s and so on. Like anything, there are exceptions to the rule and with FoMoCo in particular there were plenty. Mercury cars beginning in 1949 were 8CM (designed in 1948, 255 V8 engine, and Mercury). In 1952 they changed to EAC for Mercury so you can see a departure from the old norm prior to 1952. This was the year that the first OHV 215 6-cylinder and the first Lincoln Y-block came out so things just kept changing after that.

There were no real changes to the 8BA block with exception to the phasing out of stellite hardened valve seats. The later crankshafts were changed to fit the big Ford-O Matic/Merc-O-Matic transmission components. Valves changed to rotator type, the cams changed profiles, and the EAB heads had smaller chambers. EAC Mercury heads still had a larger chambers for the 255 Mercury but there were other small differences.

[oldford2]

Sponsored Links (Register now to hide all advertisements)

Originally Posted by rotorwrench

It should be EAB. Ford was trying a new coding system in that time frame to the old system used in the 59A & earlier no longer applied. With 8BA the 8 represented the last digit of the year 1948 since that was the design year of the engine. What the B and the A represented, I'm not as certain but it could be for a V8 engined passenger car. If you look at the 8RT code for trucks you can see that they used the RT to represent a V8 engined truck since the R code represented V8 in the ID number where H code represented the 226 6-cylinder engine. Toward the middle of the 50s it started to use a different code. B was a code for the decade of the 40s. E was a code for the decade of the 50s and so on. Like anything, there are exceptions to the rule and with FoMoCo in particular there were plenty. Mercury cars beginning in 1949 were 8CM (designed in 1948, 255 V8 engine, and Mercury). In 1952 they changed to EAC for Mercury so you can see a departure from the old norm in 1952. This was the year that the first OHV 215 6-cylinder and the first Lincoln Y-block came out so things just kept changing after that.

Thanks Rotor wrench for your explanation. Too many smart asses that don't know how to help the poster think they are funny.
.

[ford38v8]

Originally Posted by oldford2

Thanks Rotor wrench for your explanation. Too many smart asses that don't know how to help the poster think they are funny.
.

Thanks, oldford2, for your very helpful comment.

[dude]

rotorwrench, thanks for the answer.

[Barry-ct]

From an old parts guy's perspective, the early years, say pre 1950, the prefix's on a part number did not tells us much. I started in the 70's and by then the system had 99% of the bugs out. When you looked at B7AZ 8200-A, B meant the 1950's, 7 was the year, A was full sized car, Z, was never explained to us by Ford. It wasn't always used as there were B7A prefixes also. 8200 meant grille and the suffix of A meant 1st design. In 59-62, they used the engineering prefix's of C0AE on many final part numbers. Confusing times.
The system was pretty good until 1997, when they went to the "world" part number system to align us with the rest of the worldwide operations. They dropped the first letter meaning the decade. The next 2 sort of means the model it applied to. I got used to YC2Z meaning Econoline and YC3Z for Superduty. They did leave the center or basic number alone, but went to a 2 digit suffix. It was a tough change for an old parts guy like myself. Now I know what the guys in the late 40's went thru. Enough rambling for tonight.......

[paul2748]

Barry's correct

The fist letter was always the decade, starting with B for the 50's, although it was not used for the early 50's. Around 57-58 or so they started using the letter for the decade for replacement parts and new oem parts using the first number for the year (6 for 56) so B6 was 1956

Part numbers and engineering (casting numbers) used this method until 1997 per the answer above

[JSeery]

Originally Posted by oldford2

Thanks Rotor wrench for your explanation. Too many smart asses that don't know how to help the poster think they are funny.
.

May be some misunderstanding here, if no one comments on a post it will soon be at the bottom of the stack and possibly overlooked. By placing a comment, even if you don't have an answer, you help keep the post near the top. This is a much bigger issue on the HAMB, but it also applies here to a lesser extent.

[rotorwrench]

Barry-ct
You are correct on the later use of B for the 50s decade. In the early form of the code they were still finding there way to a settlement. The original intention may have been to use the first alpha prefix character to denote the actual year of intro but like I mentioned there are many exceptions so it's hard to say. After 1953, they seem to have finally settled for the character"B" to represent the decade of the 50s. I know in 1952 they started using F and M on prefixes and they likely just represented Ford & Mercury. After the changes starting in 1954 subsequent updated parts started to use the updated prefix that finally started to represent decade, model, and other codes about the vehicle the part was originally made to fit. Adding Thunderbird and Edsel vehicles in in the mid to late 50s made it very necessary to make the changes.

JSeery
I agree on bringing things back up even if it is just a humorous gesture it certainly won't hurt. We can all use some humor now and then. The HAMB is a different story due to the shear numbers of folks that frequent the board. It can become clutter if overdone,

[19Fordy]

Rotorwrench and others;
Thanks for sharing your knowledge about this. Pretty interesting. Amazing wealth of info. in the FordBarn stalls.

[Frank Miller]

I think the 8ba block was pretty much the same. There were some minor differences such as valve rotaters and connecting rod design. Mercury used a longer stroke crank but otherwise the heads made the difference. Mercury heads had larger combustion chambers to account for the greater CI and maintain the same compression. 8RT were the truck heads. I believe these were slightly lower compression for more low end torque. EAB were a little higher compression and the combustion chamber had a better flow design. Do a search and you'll find these are the best performing heads and I have heard they're as good as those expensive finned ones.

[raceron1120]

Yeah those early 50s part numbers baffled me a bit during my tenure as a Ford Parts guy in the 70s too. I got out of it before they went to world #s and am glad I did. I think the 50s-90s system was easiest of all methods they've tried.