351 Cleveland Aluminum Heads

Pull up a chair! Ford/SVO have been making alloy 351C heads since 1983, mostly for NASCAR & Winston Cup racing. They bolt right on a stock 351C block. Sadly, they use raised, shifted ports for both intake & exhaust, so nothing you own will bolt onto the heads; even the spark plugs are different! Requires SVO intake and custom exhaust headers. Further, they are Boss-type closed chamber heads that need all manner of special pieces to work right (new single-groove valves, springs, spring cups, keepers etc, etc. Depending on the pistons you now have, the compression ratio may need to be adjusted lower for todays gas. Stock rockers will work but after all this, it'd be a shame to use them, so roller rockers and hardened pushrods are recommended. The heads can be any of 9 different models, & are around $1500 each bare; the parts mentioned above will run close to $1000 more. I found mine at a swap meet, already assembled, for 1/3 that price, the intake included. Be VERY careful to not get the very latest C-3L heads- they require even more expensive parts. A friend is currently into a new set of C-3L heads for $9000! Edelbrock, Brodix and a few others make Windsor-type straight-valve heads that are cheaper and produce less power that the SVO stagger-valve heads, and can be adapted to the 351C.