351 Cleveland Into 302 Fuel Injected

KyleEBK

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Jan 27, 2008
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Was talkin to my dad earlier today and he was saying he knew where a 351 cleveland Ho complete engine out of a race car was for probrably cheap.It is no doubt a carbuerated motor. My car has a 92 302 fuel injected motor in it, what kind of stuff would i have to do to drop the cleveland into the car?
 
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It'll fit. You'll need a pan, mounts, and the requisite headers. If it's a cleveland, it'll have a SBF bell housing pattern, so your transmission will mate. But one thing bears mentioning:

Why?
 
make sure it is in fact a cleveland before you buy the motor. if the 302 bell housing fits the block, then it is a cleveland. as noted you will need engine mounts, a swap oil pan, swap headers, and of course all the little headache bits of kit to do the swap.

as to why, why not?a cleveland will make an easy 500hp on a budget while spinning north of 7000 with the right valve train kit. one bit of advice, if you do get the cleveland to build, install a proper oil restrictor kit. this article explains why;

http://351cleveland.wikifoundry.com/page/Oiling+tech

and here are two kits you can buy for the engine;

http://www.summitracing.com/search?...scending&keyword=cleveland oil restrictor kit
 
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Now if you had something like say.... A Ford Futura... :chin THEN I'd probably put a Cleveland in it. :)

Look,...The fact that it IS a Ford Fairmont Futura, and not just another mustang, ( I'll start calling that N.J.A.M for short).... Just by definition of "non-typical", automatically gives me license to put what ever engine I want in it. W/O anybody having to wonder "why" I did it.

Y'all should just just embrace your sameness, walk around w/o shirts, so you can verify that you all have bellybuttons, and throw out words amoungst each other like "HCI", "Letter cam", "dash rattle", and worn out torque boxes. :rolleyes:

Compared to a Windsor, they're pretty expensive to build.

And for the record,...this was the direction I was going in.....poor design, cast iron headed,( for a street car) ,...heavy,....and less bang for the buck because of it.
 
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about the only thing that is really more expensive than 351w parts is cylinder heads, all the other parts are similar in price.
I haven't seen good bearing longevity in any of the Cleveland motors I've played with in years past not to mention dollar for dollar the Windsor wins hands down every single time
 
id take the larger mains out of a cleveland and the head style... after that gimme a windsor

cleveland mains are SMALLER than the windsor mains. one of the problems with the cleveland oiling system is that in stock form it oils the cam bearings first, the mains next, and the rods last, which is why the good cleveland builders install the oil restrictor kits i listed in their clevelands. and you can always cross drill the mains and rods to improve oiling further. the other issue that the cleveland has is cylinder wall cracking due to the shorter rod and the resulting higher thrust loading. personally i do prefer the 351 motorsport block that has 351c mains, 351w oiling, allows for 351c heads, and the taller 351w deck height.
 
Here is how it all goes down. The 351C was the performance small Ford engine of it's time. It had canted valves, and a true 90 degree seperation vs the Windsor's 86.5 degree seperation. Unfortunately, it's time was very short. For a very long time, the C engine was diminished because there weren't any good aftermarket cylinder head options for it. After almost 3 decades, the powers that be have finally made good aftermarket aluminium cylinder heads for it, as well as good fi intakes for the old engine. If you can afford to buy a nice set of aluminium cylinder heads for the C engine, then it's worth your effort, if not, just go with a W.

Kurt
 
cleveland mains are SMALLER than the windsor mains. one of the problems with the cleveland oiling system is that in stock form it oils the cam bearings first, the mains next, and the rods last, which is why the good cleveland builders install the oil restrictor kits i listed in their clevelands. and you can always cross drill the mains and rods to improve oiling further. the other issue that the cleveland has is cylinder wall cracking due to the shorter rod and the resulting higher thrust loading. personally i do prefer the 351 motorsport block that has 351c mains, 351w oiling, allows for 351c heads, and the taller 351w deck height.
your right for some reason i was thinking the windsor was a 2.750 main...
the nitrous car has a 351X block it in ;) they are hard to come by these days
 
Now if you had something like say.... A Ford Futura... :chin THEN I'd probably put a Cleveland in it. :)


Compared to a Windsor, they're pretty expensive to build.

A local guy around me has been 10.90's with junk 1.55 sixty foots. His motor has about 3000 bucks wrapped up in it. They are cheaper if you know what you are doing. Some of the factory heads have a ton of potential.
 
I was wondering why no one had mentioned a "clevor" yet.
Get the top end of a C on a W.

why bother? these days there are seriously good after market heads that bolt onto the 351w block and flow as well as the 351c heads, and you dont have to do all the necessary machine work to adapt the C heads to the W block.
 
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why bother? these days there are seriously good after market heads that bolt onto the 351w block and flow as well as the 351c heads, and you dont have to do all the necessary machine work to adapt the C heads to the W block.

Plus one bajillion. Factory iron Cleveland heads are good for what they are, but junk compared to modern aftermarket heads. I've even pondered on what it would take to put my 205s on a 400M (the 400 is a Cleveland family engine, for those out there who don't know).

Now, companies like Trick Flow have started to make aftermarket C heads... And those are badass.