Reply to "351C cylinder heads, open chamber vs closed chamber"

Derek, your chassis number tells me you have a late 1972 model Pantera. All '72 through '74 351C 4V engines were equipped with open chamber heads. Unless the heads on your motor have been swapped, they will be the open chamber variety.

All cast iron 4V cylinder heads are externally identical. There is only one externally visible number on the head casting, that's the 4 in the upper coners which signifies it is a large port head. It doesn't indicate what the combustion chamber design is.

The casting date is under the valve covers, amongst the valve gear. But I have never read anywhere what the date is when the casting of the open chamber head began or the cut off date for the casting of closed chamber heads.

Finally there is a casting number on the bottom of one of the intake runners, the closed chamber heads are D0AE, the open chamber heads are D1ZE, but to see the casting numbers, you have to remove the cylinder heads from the block, in which case you can "see" which heads you have!

Your friend on the DTBB, George