quote:
My 2 cents ... Ive owned a couple 351C as a young guy and pushed them real hard and I cant say they blew up any easier then any other Ford Motor. Not sure I see all the Hiep on weak 351C blocks.
But I would go with Dan's advise.
Ron
I kind of side with you. I've read ad-nauseum about the thin walls of the 351C, and I can buy that up to a point - but the stories I hear about blocks being bored .030 and running into the water jackets is just too hard for me to believe. Take some calipers and spin them out to .015 - that's how much would come off of one side of the walls on a .030 overbore. If the boring bar hits water with that small amount of metal removal, why wouldn't the friction of the rings, on a cold morning not either split the bore or cave the wall in, even on a standard bore? I'm about to put one together that I previously rebuilt at .030. It didn't have too many miles, so I'm going to hone it and stick it back together without a sonic check. I have an old friend that raced Clevelands for years and he says he bored every block they ran .060 and never had a problem with thin blocks. Says he's never heard of it. My old boss is still an auto machinist at 71 years old, and says he's never seen a Cleveland split a bore. I wonder if some of it is paranoia? I guess if I was building a 500+ hp engine I'd be very concerned. Mine will be mild, and hopefully won't prove me wrong about the thin walls....