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How to Build a 500 Horsepower Ford 351 Cleveland Engine

There are two Cleveland engine builds for you here: one from Trick Flow Specialties and another from Hot Rod magazine contributor Jeff Huneycutt of www.horsepowermonster.com. Each of these builds shows what can be done with both the 351C and 400 given budget and savvy engine-building technique.

 

Trick Flow Specialties

Trick Flow recognized the dilemma facing Ford buffs saddled with rather pathetic factory iron heads in North America. The 351C-4V heads have great 62- to 64-cc wedge chambers with outstanding quench characteristics, yet have huge ports that deliver at high RPM, but suffer at low speed. The 351C-2V head has right-sized ports designed for low- to mid-range torque and even good highend power. However, they’re ineffective for the kind of power you want to make.


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How to Build a 500 Horsepower Ford 351 Cleveland Engine 1

Trick Flow’s 383C gets mechanical advantage from stroke. This is the Probe forged piston (#14213-030) with 16-cc reverse dome and Eagle Specialties 4340 H-beam 6.000-inch rod.


 

Trick Flow introduced its new Power- Port Cleveland head designed specifically for the 351C, 351M, and 400 with rightsized intake and exhaust ports based on Ford’s 351C-2V. These are ports that give this engine what it needs: velocity at low speed for all kinds of torque. And when it’s time to pin the throttle, you get torque that segues into horsepower at 6,000. Wedge chambers offer the kind of quench Ford chambers never had.

 

How to Build a 500 Horsepower Ford 351 Cleveland Engine 00

 

How to Build a 500 Horsepower Ford 351 Cleveland Engine 2

In the bore, the Probe reverse dome (dish) looks like this. The dish enables you to control compression by size. The larger the dish or reverse dome, the lower the compression.


 
How to Build a 500 Horsepower Ford 351 Cleveland Engine 4

Confirm and dial in valve timing by using a degree wheel and dial indicator to confirm actual cam dynamics versus what’s on the cam card. Valve timing is advanced or retarded as necessary depending upon where you want peak power.


 
How to Build a 500 Horsepower Ford 351 Cleveland Engine 3

Trick Flow went with a .650-inch-lift Crane hydraulic roller cam with small base circle to clear stroker rod bolts. With a 3.500-inch stroke, a large base circle camshaft clears.


 
How to Build a 500 Horsepower Ford 351 Cleveland Engine 5

Permatex’s The Right Stuff is used in critical leakage areas such as cooling passages to keep oil and coolant where they belong. Although there are many different types of sealer, The Right Stuff is used with great success by lots of engine builders.


 
How to Build a 500 Horsepower Ford 351 Cleveland Engine 6

This is the ATI Super Damper from Summit Racing, which keeps vibration and crank rebound under control at high RPM. The ATI Super Damper differs from a stock balancer because it is to SFI specification and fine-tunes crank dampening.


 

 

How to Build a 500 Horsepower Ford 351 Cleveland Engine 7

Trick Flow has chosen the PowerPort 190 cylinder head with 190-cc intake volume, 2.080-inch intake, and 1.600- inch exhaust valves. These right-sized ports and valve offer a nice balance of torque and horsepower for the street.


 
How to Build a 500 Horsepower Ford 351 Cleveland Engine 8

High-swirl, 62-cc chambers mix it up along with good quench. Valve sizing is generous with minimal shrouding. Quench comes from abundant surface area around Trick Flow’s high-swirl chamber.


 
How to Build a 500 Horsepower Ford 351 Cleveland Engine 9

Trick Flow has studded the Cleveland block for improved cylinder head stability. The downside to head studs with a Cleveland is head removal once engine is in the car. This is why bolts are better for vintage Mustang, Cougar, Fairlane, Torino, and other intermediates.


 
How to Build a 500 Horsepower Ford 351 Cleveland Engine 10

Although Trick Flow offers a deep-breathing, single-plane manifold for the 351C, it was more interested in torque numbers, which is why it decided on the Edelbrock Performer RPM Air Gap manifold. Dual-plane manifolds have long runners for better lowand mid-range torque. The Air Gap feature allows cooler runners.


 
How to Build a 500 Horsepower Ford 351 Cleveland Engine 11

On the Trick Flow dyno, this 383C stroker makes 524 hp and 480 ft-lbs of torque. This means plenty of good mid-range torque handing off to horsepower at high RPM.


 

When Trick Flow engineers set out to design these heads, they wanted everything Ford heads didn’t have: exhaust ports raised .100 inch for better scavenging, cooling passages designed for both the Cleveland and Windsor small-blocks, better oil return fl ow, and right-sized intake ports somewhere between 2V and 4V for the perfect balance of low-RPM torque and high-RPM horsepower. Trick Flow decided to build a great street/strip 351C stroker (383 ci) with 3.750 inches of stroke and 4.030-inch bores.

Engine builder Ron Greczanick was enlisted by Trick Flow to build this Cleveland with more than 500 hp. Truly remarkable is the power this engine makes on pump gas and 9.65:1 compression:524 hp at 6,000 rpm and 480 ft-lbs of torque at 4,500 rpm on the Super Flow 902.

 

Written by George Reid and Republished with Permission of CarTech Inc

 

 

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