Reply to "motor build advice - windsor, webers and 180's combo"

Hi Cullen,

Don't know if any of this is useful to you but I thought I would share. I am building an aluminum block Clevor. We are about 3/4 of the way through the build. The block I chose is Ford's Z351-9.2 aluminum Windsor. The main reason I chose an aluminum block is the light weight. Having experience with mid-engine street and race cars, I want to shift the weight distribution forward as much as I can afford to. The lighter the car the better, but my car being strictly a street car I am more focused on overall balance. I chose the 9.2" deck height version. The 9.2 deck was chosen because it is lighter than Ford's 9.5 deck block and to match the Cleveland's DH. The assembly will be more dimensionally similar to stock. The Ford aluminum blocks are designed to have a finished bore of 4.125". With a stock stroke the displacement is about 374CI. I was OK with that but the engine builder talked me into a 3.75" stroke. The displacement will be about 400CI. Probably more than needed but the engine builder said I will like the low end torque for street use.

The crank is a 3.75" stroke SCAT forged unit that has gun drilled mains and lightened rod journals. The rods are 6" H-beam units.

Pistons are Diamond forged units with coated skirts. They are dished for proper compression ratio.

We are using Edelbrock Performer RPM heads. My engine builder suggested these heads because he feels the Edelbrock castings are very good quality. We both acknowledge that they may not be the last word in performance but my goal is to end up with a mild, very street-able engine. He did a complete port job and chamber contour. His goal is to have good flow numbers even at low valve lift. I don't have the final flow number now but with some old non-profiled valves he used just to get an idea we are at 317 intake and 208 exhaust. He said with the good valves the number will likely be a little better. I am most curious to see the low-mid lift numbers. The cambers are 58cc.

After the heads are done and CR is set he will order a custom grind for the cam. We are using roller hydraulic lifters.

The engine will be topped off with EFI and coil near plug, all controlled by the Holley Dominator ECU.

The intake is a Trick Flow unit.

The main issue with this build is the intake manifold. Because this engine is a short deck Clevor there are VERY few choices for intakes. Fortunately the TFS 9.5 deck Clevor EFI manifold has thick enough flanges that we could machine it to fit. We did a trial assembly and so far so good. TFS couldn't tell this. I gambled that they only make one casting for all the Ford configurations. Fortunately I was correct. I really didn't want to build a custom manifold.

I have no idea how accurate the machinist's HP program is but with limited info about certain things and speculation about others the program is predicting about 517hp and about 540tq. More than I need but should be just enough. Mike