Tornado straight six engine with its overhead cam design was ahead of its time back in the early 60s. By the time it was phased out in North America, it had most of the bugs worked out and was a very good engine indeed.

Noteworthy design features:

• crossflow head allows better "breathing"
• hemispherical combustion chambers
• factory 'headers' and massive fuel pump.
• the annoyingly low position of the distributor had a reason... the timing shaft comes directly off the crank, not the cam
• A.C. (Sammy) Sampietro designed a robust valve train with the same cam lobe for both intake and exhaust valves. Later evolution of the engine in Argentina (Industry Kaiser Argentina-IKA) changed to separate lobes
• 4 main bearings were also later updated to 7 and the intake manifold-in-head design was also updated to separate manifold. I would be happy to just put the newer head on the old block (if it were to fit...) The IKA separate intake manifold might well allow a multiport Fuel Injection upgrade.
• long stroke makes for excellent 'low end' torque
• specially hardened crank for extended life.

Here you can see the aftermarket aircleaner that hides the stock Holley 2 barrel carb. I had to remove the factory oil bath aircleaner to make room for the 'can-o-ham' Saginaw power steering pump which was added in 2006.

This engine needs at least a 'minor rebuild' but still pulls faithfully. She is a pushing some blue smoke (fixed with new valve guide seals in 2011) and failed Aircare again with high carbon monoxide readings.

Rear crank oil seal is probably leaking and the distributor has welded itself to the front engine cover making timing adjustments problematic (solved in 2010 with Ford EDIS upgrade).