Why did Ford build 2 different 351 engines?

Blown 4.6: although a solid performer, the 350 Chevy doesn’t have the performance potential of a Cleveland. I had a 350 Chevy Corvette also. That doesn’t make me an expert by any means, but there is a reason why Chevy fans always trash talk Clevelands.
 
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The way I lookat it is, 351W=has potential, 351C=has most potential. Why wouldn't you want the most potential. Upgrade as the $$ comes available.

As for 1/4 mile times, Zora Duntov was much more interested in Can Am racing than drags. He could have cared less. In fact, he was very much against the big block. He wanted a car that would handle in the turns. Zora was the guy behind the Grand Sport Corvette. That was the sb that owned even the 427 Cobra. That's all he cared about. It was the marketing guys who insisted they needed bb for rediculous 1/4 mile times and nothing else.

Dude, I don't know where you got your info from but the Grand Sport never owned the 427 Cobra. :bs: I'm a corvette fan from the early 60s. The two cars were pretty well matched but the GS, more often than not, fell to the cobra.

Furthermore, 72 351Cs were still potent but milder than the 70 & 71 4Vs. I'll see if I can locate the info but I'm sure the cams and timing were changed for emmissions. Clevelands have always been an engine that bowtie people have been hesitant to tangle with.
 
1973mach1 said:
Back before 1974 it seems Mustangs had so many more options then today, you had a big choice of engines: 429's, 351'sC, HO, CJ, 4bbl, 2bbl, 302's, I6's, 390's, 428's, 289's...Sometimes 5 or 6 a year to choose from. 4 different trannies, whole bunch of rear end ratio's. Now you have a choice of a v6 or a v8, a auto or manual. Not much to choose from. Why don't they give us more of a selection? I wonder what kind of power the engines/cars would have been pulling if the OPEC, Insurance, and emissisions had held of for a few more years.

Jim
There's many more brands of cars on the market now and so the sales volume of a particular model has to be pretty good in order that Ford, for example, can produce SVT cars. They have to sell 250,000 V6 Mustangs in order to afford production of the first Mustang Cobra. That's why they aren't always offered for sale each year. People want a variety of cars today and aren't satisfied with a variety of engines in a few cars.
 
Nice post... :nice: If we could just loose the sandbox attitude. Pocking guy for typing errors... Thats low. Who the **** cares if 350 or 351 was 1/10 sec faster than other, 40 years ago? Cleveland is mighty powerplant, it has some problems, but it has potential. Too bad it´s been on the sidetrack for years, and nobody hasn´t been throwing money to developing clevors. I chose to go with 351 Windsor cause aftermarket parts (hp) are cheaper and more available.

It´s always fun to browse thrue this forum. Keep up the spirit :nice:
 
Just for the record here, I have an issue of Car Review magazine where they track down the 50 fastest musclecars from 1961 to 1973 eliminating modified cars and factory ringers.The fastest small block car in their list is a Boss 351 Mustang at 13.80/104MPH while the LT1 Corvette mustered a 13.92/104.Seems to me that on any given day either one could probably beat the other so it is hardly worth arguing.
 
L88 bb with nothing more than headers have been shown to run 11's @125

:BS:

Again, some proof behind these claims would be nice. And seriously... for someone with three fords you sure do trash talk them a lot. If you have a 72 Pantera why wouldn't you list it with your other cars, surely a Pantera is at least as worthy as a Bronco to be on your sig line...

Just for the record here, I have an issue of Car Review magazine where they track down the 50 fastest musclecars from 1961 to 1973 eliminating modified cars and factory ringers.The fastest small block car in their list is a Boss 351 Mustang at 13.80/104MPH while the LT1 Corvette mustered a 13.92/104.Seems to me that on any given day either one could probably beat the other so it is hardly worth arguing.

Well, outside the fact that the 351C managed to beat a much smaller car. We are talking a 71 here, those weren't light. Now please, blown4.6, remove your lips from Chevys...

And as far as 351W vs 351C... the C only has more potential with stock heads. If you talk about aftermarket heads and other parts, the W has far more potential. I love my W :)

edit: Blown 4.6, according to this site (http://www.boss351registry.com/351_Cleveland.htm), the 351C in 72 was the same as 71 except for a compression drop from 10.7:1 to 9:1 (a very, very big drop) and 4 degrees of valve retard. So no, the 72 351C was not the animal the 70/71 was. Mmmk then.
 
blkfrd said:
There is one 351C that hasn't been mentioned and it was one of the fastest production cars that anyone made. The '71 Boss 351 ran consistent mid-13s at about 105 in stock form. All the mags that tested it were running similiar ETs. This car was well into the list of the 50 fastest production cars of all time. That was with stock manifolds and mufflers. Now if that car had open headers, it probably would have been a sub-13 second car. It takes a lot of HP to do that in a heavy '71 mustang. Probably in the range of 400 or more at the flywheel.

I didn't see the 350 vette in the list at all. The 66 427 vette and the 62 327 vette were in the list though.

My understanding exactly. And getting my doors blown off by 351C 4v powered cars on the street.
 
RacerX said:
The way I lookat it is, 351W=has potential, 351C=has most potential. Why wouldn't you want the most potential. Upgrade as the $$ comes available.



Dude, I don't know where you got your info from but the Grand Sport never owned the 427 Cobra. :bs: I'm a corvette fan from the early 60s. The two cars were pretty well matched but the GS, more often than not, fell to the cobra.

If there were turns on the race track, 427 cobra's generally lost to the Grand Sport 'Vettes.....that's fact. http://www.grandsportcorvette.com/gs/

Furthermore, 72 351Cs were still potent but milder than the 70 & 71 4Vs. I'll see if I can locate the info but I'm sure the cams and timing were changed for emmissions. Clevelands have always been an engine that bowtie people have been hesitant to tangle with.

I've got the stock timing in front of me...0 degrees advance for all years. This only difference was compression.

Finally, and this is rediculous how Ford guys will not EVER concede anything to a Chevy (and vice versa by the way), but if anyone decides to really look at the numbers, the real number, there is simply no way to claim a 351C from any year, was beating up on a stock LT1 350 from Chevy. Guys, it's simple, LT1's produced 370 hp in their hayday! Clevelands might have hit 320 in their best year. That's not even close. I just don't recall the Corvette guys exactly shaking when lined up against a 71 Mach1 with a 351C. :rlaugh: :owned:
 
please, PLEASE prove a damn thing you're saying.

Its all in the track times bro. The 351C took out the 350 in a heavier car. There have already been several examples of this posted. And to say that a Boss 351 only put out 320 horses is lunacy. Pure lunacy. And I think saying a stock 350 LT1 putting out 370 is lunacy too. It also would make sense to think the 351C has more horsies because it is known as a revving engine, with heads designed especially for that highend power, which would probably result in inexplicably high horsepower ratings. So before you post another thing, post a link or something to a site that helps your point. Thank you.
 
Edbert said:
I though the 351W and 351C both came out in 69?

Why did Ford kill the Cleveland? Only one correct answer (not talking racetracks)....OPEC!
the 352 was released in 1958, the Windsor came out in 1968 in Canada, and 1969 in the US....the Clevo came out in 70, and the M came out in 1974
 
Blown4.6 said:
I've got the stock timing in front of me...0 degrees advance for all years. This only difference was compression.

Finally, and this is rediculous how Ford guys will not EVER concede anything to a Chevy (and vice versa by the way), but if anyone decides to really look at the numbers, the real number, there is simply no way to claim a 351C from any year, was beating up on a stock LT1 350 from Chevy. Guys, it's simple, LT1's produced 370 hp in their hayday! Clevelands might have hit 320 in their best year. That's not even close. I just don't recall the Corvette guys exactly shaking when lined up against a 71 Mach1 with a 351C. :rlaugh: :owned:

Dude, don’t rely on the magazines or the factory horsepower numbers for your performance criteria, they usually are misleading and wrong. Most of the opinions on how fast or how much potential an engine has on this board have been derived from repeated first hand experience. I didn’t own a 351c 4v motor until 2 years ago. I had owned 351w, 383 Mopar, 302, and 350 Chevy powered vehicles. But I always knew one day I’d own a built 351C 4v because from my first hand experience growing up in the Motor City it was known on the street by anyone who new anything about motors that the 351 Cleveland was probably the best/most powerful small block ever-built. Period. I had my doors blown off by 351c 4v powered vehicles on the street. I had a 71 Mach 1 with a slightly hopped 351c 2v motor that I got passed in on a 2 lane road by a 69 Cougar with 351c 4v that made me look like I was standing still. I’ve never forgotten it.

Talk to some older guys who used to race on the street and they’ll tell you what was fast or not fast. And remember the issue isn’t what engine can make more power with after market heads, etc. Stock block and heads vs. stock block and heads. The 351 Cleveland for being produced only 3 years still has a hell of a reputation. Think about it. 3 short years of production and people are still building these engines. Why? We are talking about an engine with stock cylinder heads that can make 450 horsepower easily, and still act like a sedate street car. No 350 Chevy with stock heads is going to do that.
 
D.Hearne said:
Uh, one mistake in your post 69Stang-- the Cleveland was produced for 5 years here in the US, 1970 thru 1974. And up til like 89 or so down under.( I may be wrong on that, but I know it was sometime in the 80's)

Ford Australia dropped the 'Cleveland' (and all V8's!) in the XE Falcon (ESP Ghia) in about '82, although by then the beast was running only 8.9:1 comp to try and meet emissions on the available fuel, pretty sad really.

The hidden treasures were the XA Falcons ordered with the 'Regular Production Option" no.83. A very sneaky way to say "Phase IV GTHO". These cars received the 4V Cleveland as in the Phase III and other go fast, handle well bits. Ford Dropped the GHTO badging and quietly shipped these to some very lucky people. Essentially public outcry and increasing emissions standards ended the major 3 manufacturer's 'Supercar' race to have the fastest production car.

In '92 Ford reintroduced the 'Windsor' in 5.0 format in the Falcon. These days they're putting the modular motors in the current model Falcons.
 
D.Hearne said:
Uh, one mistake in your post 69Stang-- the Cleveland was produced for 5 years here in the US, 1970 thru 1974. And up til like 89 or so down under.( I may be wrong on that, but I know it was sometime in the 80's)

You are right, my quick math from 1970-1973 = 3 :shrug: , oops. I don't usually count 1974 but I guess Clevelands found their way into Cougars and Torinos I guess. But I'd imagine they were the M variant, not the CJ, right?
 
Well, this thread is a little long now, so I didn't read it all...
Some folks may have mentioned:
3 351s
4 if you count the fact that the only reason it was rated a 351 was because Ford already had a 352 around the time of the 351w's inception and they took a cube off so they wouldn't have another 352 to confuse folks.
Did that make sense?
The engines actually figure out to 352 cid, but they called it a 351 to avoid confusion.
Ironic that a year later they added another 352 and called it a 351c and made major confusion.
The 351c came about at a time when bigger was better and was meant to become Ford's flagship engine, replacing the FE. They had grand plans for it.
Aluminum heads were produced and just barely missed large scale production, for example.
The gas crunch, poor emissions, and an overzelous lightweight design (cause of some of the C's weaknesses we discuss today), made for a very short lived engine.
Although that cannot be totally true, the 400 lived a long life as a workhorse as Ford intended. The part that we missed out on was very tough, large cube, hi-po designs that were surely around the corner.
My .02
Dave