Piston selection boils down to what you want your Cleveland to do. When you’re planning an engine, you tend to go overboard and build more engine than you actually need. It is best to watch your money and build an engine as conservatively as possible. If you’re building a Cleveland for a daily driver, weekend […]
Ford 351 Cleveland Engines: Crankshaft Guide
Where other Ford V-8 engine families had both cast and steel crankshafts, the 351C was produced in cast only. Based on years of experience with these engines, it is clear to me Ford never produced a mass-production steel crankshaft for the 351C, 400, or 351M aside for perhaps racing and rare factory experimental XE pieces. […]
Ford 351 Cleveland Engines: Block Preparation Guide
You want a block with perfectly machined surfaces that mates well and seals tight without conflict. This calls for extreme measures in machining—and painstaking attention to detail. Before you spend a lot of money on a block, it must first be cleaned and inspected, then confirmed fit for service. You’re not going to find a […]
Ford 351 Cleveland Engines: Block Identification Guide
There has always been some confusion when it comes to Cleveland block identification. The 351C block castings, despite different casting numbers, are all basically the same casting and can all be converted to four-bolt main caps with help from a qualified machine shop. All have the same main webs and pan rails. And if you […]
How to Build a Ford 351 Cleveland Stroker
Just what is a stroker anyway? It is an engine with increased or decreased stroke, which is the distance the piston travels in the cylinder bore. Changing the stroke changes when and how the engine makes power. By increasing an engine’s stroke, you gain displacement. By the same token, when you decrease an engine’s stroke, you […]
How to Build Ford 351 Clevelands: Compression Ratio
What is compression ratio and how do you calculate it? One popular misconception is that pistons alone determine compression ratio; however, this isn’t true. Compression ratio comes from not only piston dome or dish features, but also stroke, bore, and combustion chamber size. Compression comes from piston travel from bottom dead center (BDC) to top […]
Building Ford 351 Clevelands: Organizing Your Build
Engine-building technology has made huge advances over the past thirty years and the 335 Cleveland engine family is no exception. Cylinder head and cam technology have come a long way just to name two areas. Small details can make or break an engine build regardless of technology. The biggest two I can think of are […]
Introduction to Ford 351 Cleveland Engines: Performance Guide
We will probably never know the entire story behind the origins of Ford’s 335-series middle-block 351C and its tall-deck brethren, the 400 and 351M. What we do know is what these engines did for Ford during their brief North American production lives in the 1970s and even longer production periods in Australia. These engines didn’t […]