Reply to "Need Recommendations on 351C Rebuild"

On sleeving a 351-C: the weakest part of a Cleveland block is the cylinder walls, and the next weakest is the heavily sculpted area just above the main bearing mounts. Wet-sleeving cuts a notch in exactly that area at the base of the sleeve just above the main supports, which is also press-fitted into it. Both operations weaken the entire block support. By only doing one cylinder per bank, blocks seem to not fail the crank supports. More than one sleeve per side does sometimes fail the block.

On the water pump discussion: the theoretical higher efficiency of a curved-vane vs a straight-vane pump has never shown up where its needed- by lowering the stabilized temperature of your coolant. So I take the $200 for the fancy pumps, buy a $79 aluminum Weiand 8209- which is half the weight of the cast iron ones, and drive on down the road. I now have 19 years and 50,000 miles on my Weiand.... note it does NOT have the stock warm-up bypass port so any old thermostat will also fit. But changing to a lower range thermostat won't lower your operating temp, either.

On the Duraspark conversion: I was one of the last hold-outs for points until 5 years ago when I changed. The parts are well-tested: they are a stock 460 Ford distributor, brainbox and coil and literally drop into a 351-C; the gear is also correct but still needs to be double-pinned. One other addition: use a later Ford e-coil rather than a stock can-of-oil coil for more temp stability. A can-coil will overheat from leaving the key ON with the engine OFF for more than 5 minutes; the coil will heat up, boil the oil inside, rupture the case, short and take out the Duraspark brainbox as well as a few wires. E-coils are immune to this problem, saving you $75 extra in repair parts. Sure, the parts are available anywhere but its still 30 minutes and $75 to swap out the burned up stuff. I have actually done all this to our Pantera; its not theoretical and it worked (still is working) for me.