Hi Everyone!
Can anyone tell me the difference between a 351 Windsor and 351 Cleveland, aside from the place where they were made? Any advanges one has over the other? Thanks!
The main difference between the two is the cylinder head & exhaust manifold mounting. The 351W exhaust manifold is close to vertical and the 351C surface is angled at a 45 degree so it’s generally in line with the cylinder block. This makes the 351C cylinder head wider between the intake & exhaust manifold mounting surfaces. The deck height (as measured from the center of the crankshaft to the deck surface) is also different. 351W is 9.480” & 351C is 9.206” This is for model years 1969 (351W) & 1970 (351C)
I prefer the 351W because in my mind, it is a smoother running engine
This is gonna sound like the old tastes great, less filling commercials, but the factory Cleveland heads are MUCH deeper breathing. The canted valve layout, much like a hemispherical combustion chamber head gives the air a much better path to the plug so it operates much more effectively. Even the 2v heads breathe better given equal conditions of build. The 4v heads are where things get even further apart as far as potential. Cleveland heads love duration and lift.
Am I saying the Windsor sucks? Not by any stretch and is a less expensive engine to build, will take its fare share of abuse and keep running, up until recently has had more aftermarket performance support. I love my baby Windsor. But if I were going to replace it, I would build a Cleveland or a windsor block with Cleveland heads (mock boss engine) and never look back. Look at the factory small block shootout hotrod mag did, look at the Boss 351 dyno results, and you’ll get more of an idea what the Cleveland “mystique” has been about all these years later.
I’ve owned both and from a performance stand point and how well each respond to performance upgrades I prefer the Cleveland. They are both great engines, though.
The Cleveland has the same bore spacing as the 289-302-351 “Windsors,” but was an ahead-of-its-time, cool design that had its valvetrain both angled away from the cylinder bore axis AND rotated from having the intake and exhaust in one big line (inline) like most of its contemporaries. The 4V (Ford called carburetor barrels Venturis) had intake ports larger than the 2V - you could pass a soft pack of cigarettes through it with the valve removed. The 2V had the same modern valve geometry design with smaller ports and slightly smaller valve diameters and was a regular gas, middle of road option. The 2V and 4V (non-“Boss” rocker arms were the first instance of bolt-down fulcrums that I saw (back in '71.) The Boss 302 (a Cleveland head but low deck) and Boss 351 had traditional stud adjustable upper valvetrain.
It is reasonable to write, as Guitar74 expertly says above, that if you do a stock freshening of a 351 4V Cleveland head, especially with a drag racing style multi-angle valve job, “Who needs an aftermarket aluminum head?” They flow big numbers today. Many 4V (big port) Cleveland 351s were overbuilt ineptly and led to the magazine myth that 4V 351 Clevelands were “no good at low RPM on the street.” They were, and one trick was to use a correct cam with a wide lobe separation (114) like Ford did with the Boss 351. Simply and inexpensively built, even today, a mild 10:1 CR big-port 351 Cleveland can be flexible and make power from 1200 to 6000 RPM. I know, because mine idled like a station wagon but ran a best of 13.96 back in 1972. And everyone has a 351 Windsor (“Windsor” = inline valve engine family), so by all means, build a Cleveland if it’s correct for your Cougar ('70 until '73).
The crank bearings are larger on the Cleveland than the Windsor. The Cleveland was the NASCAR motor that Ford needed to stay competitive.
351W went to 3 inches even on main bearing diameter, Cleveland (until 351M and 400M) was 2 3/4 …wasn’t it?
Gawd, I love/loved those engines. What other engine can you swap intake manifolds over a lunch hour? I’ll be seeing cast iron in my sleep now…
Yep! I said that backwards. The smaller crank bearing was supposed to be better for high rpms…
I have never had a 4V Cleveland that was low end deficient. Another thing I tried with a 2V head was to have the exhaust seat machined for the 4V size exhaust valve. It works. You get the velocity from the smaller ports, and increased breathing on the exhaust side. Combine that with a port match, bowl blend, and polishing/short turn work on the exhaust side and you have a very nice set of street heads that work well with a heavier car. They won’t keep up with a 4V on the upper end, but work nice for low /midrange and still breathe better than most heads on the upper end.
I’m with you on how easy they are to swap an intake. I really miss my Cleveland engine! I will, however, be building a tall deck Cleveland build out of my wife’s 351M soon though. I’m also with you on them being built by the inept. My buddy who owned this '68 before me had a '71 Mach 1 w/a 351 Cleveland 4V and it had power EVERYWHERE, not just up high, idled smooth was docile in traffic, and would run consistent mid 13s and you could drive it anywhere. If I had $4000, back in '92 that car would have been mine. Beautiful lime green Mach.
Thank you for making me even more wistful…believe I’ve used the word correctly!
A friend who works at Summit racing says Ford FE parts are on their way out and 351 cleveland not far behind.
That seems wildly illogical considering there are new FE parts being developed by the aftermarket every month. I can’t recall there ever being more people building FE’s than now. No idea about Clevelands, I for sure have never seen much interesting about them.
I’m w/Royce on this one (With the exception of Clevelands not being interesting. But taste like most things is highly subjective). It seems that there is more Cleveland and FE stuff available by the day. All one has to do is look at the latest Eddy catalog. Then you have TMeyer for the tall deck clevelands, and there are still companies that make spacers to adapt Cleveland intakes to the “modified” or tall deck Cleveland engines.
When you consider that it took on average thirty years for the high performance aftermarket to even come up with an improvement over the factory Cleveland head, I would say that parts are pretty much here to stay. It would be counter productive to spend all that money on R&D to quit producing it in only a few years.
Jay Brown quit his day job this year to start making FE parts full time including 2 new cylinder head designs.
I have one Cleveland too many. In addition to the correct 351C-2V in my Std and the 351C-4V in my Eliminator, I also have a 351C in my 69 XR7 Convertible. I am hoping to come across a date code correct 351W-4V to put in that car (5/7/69 build date).