Cleveland beating

Mark,

I can't disagree with what Mr DeRyke wrote. Nothing controversial there. Good solid info. I hope I haven't lead anyone to think that in my opinion the Cleveland block is indestructible. Have I?

I don't want to start one of my typical long posts, I haven't eaten dinner yet. I'll just write that the longer you're going to hold a certain rpm under load, the lower that rpm should be, within reason. You could run 5000 rpm all day. The typical solid lifter engine I built in the past could take blasts to 7500 rpm over and over. I know of guys running 7 second Cleveland powered drag race cars, running production blocks, that literally have thousands of runs on their motor. But those motors run high rpm for only seven seconds at a time.

Most engine shops & engine builders draw the line for an "enthusiast" engine using a thin wall production Ford block (Windsor or Cleveland) somewhere between 400 to 500 bhp. That is for an enthusiast motor, a motor that is not run as hard as a serious competitive race motor. 500 bhp is what I have been quoting you guys. Ford's 392 crate motor is rated at 450 ft lbs, 430 bhp. My guess this is intentional for the reasons we are writing about.

Back in the '70s the race teams discovered the production block could not last as a professional race motor, hence the XE block was created. These days even amateur competitors are running Dart, World & FRPP blocks, not production blocks.

Inexpensive stroker cranks, roller cams & modern cylinder heads have brought the capability of producing amazing amounts of bhp to naturally aspirated "street" motors. The poor old thin wall Ford blocks just weren't made to endure that kind of performance, that is no shame to those parts is it? I don't think so. We have several choices for heavy duty Windsor blocks, what is missing is a brand new, heavy duty, cast iron Cleveland block.

In the mean time, have I told you about my idea for a 427C ..........

your friend on the DTBB, George

George,

Why do you say iron block? Other than the difference in price, would you not rather have an aluminium block? Surely if you are about to start from scratch with a new block, this would be a great opportunity to save a load of weight. I am very happy with my 351C. I built this engine myself with great care and have been thrashing the hell out of it for 13000 miles now. Where I live I can really use the car the way it was intended. I rev it to 6000 in every gear quite often. It hasn't broken yet!
But now, after 5 years of 350HP (estimated), I am now ready for more power.
Weight is a major factor for me. My car currently weighs 2926LB with half a tank of petrol and no air conditioning. I have added quite a bit of weight with the campy clone wheels and currently still have iron heads, old heavy Telicar springs and shocks and that brass radiator. So there is a lot of potential to shed more weight yet.

I feel that if I am going to sink a load of money into a new engine, it should aluminium. I want an engine that I can rev to 7500 or so, every time I take it out. For me, an engine that can rev is much more fun to drive than one that is all over by 6000.

So I have been looking at the Dart windsor. A friend of mine here in England has recently put one in his Pantera. It is a 427 that was built in the states and shipped over. The dyno sheet said (550HP and 540LB FT) I like everything except the fact that it is swinging to much stroke to rev more than 6000. Where do you think the compromise between capacity and rev-ability lies? I want 7500RPM with as much capacity as I can get.

Like you, I would rather stick with a Cleveland because as you say, it belongs in the Pantera. I will be interested to see if SJ Performance of Australia come out with there aluminium 351C. If it proves to be good block, I would chose it over the Windsor.

Even if I built an identical engine to what I already have, but in aluminium (block and heads) my car would accelerate faster, change direction quicker and stop better because it would be 140LB lighter!

Johnny Woods

quote:

In the mean time, have I told you about my idea for a 427C ..........

Wait a minute. I need a bag of popcorn, Start a new thread and don't leave out ANY details. Will this be a side oiler Cleveland?? Are we gonna be casting a new block from scratch?? Enquireing minds gotta know.

Johnny,

It's the money, not everyone can afford $4K USD or more for an aluminum block, half the price for an iron block is more affordable for more people. I'm not looking at the Pantera community, but at the community of Cleveland owners & enthusiasts as a whole; i.e. Mustang owners, Falcon owners, etc.

An iron block is needed more than an alloy block and would sell better, I do not understand why SJ chose alloy for their block.

Weight savings is great, but $3K additional USD for the SJ block to save perhaps 60 or 70 pounds is not practical in a non-competitive car.

Drag racers would prefer the iron block because it's stronger, I have decided for myself that I would prefer the iron block because its more reliable.

By the way, too much stroke to rev more than 6000 rpm is a bunch of nonsense. But lets not get into that this morning, I'm late for work.

your friend on the DTBB, George

I think for me the backyard builder that has more questions than answers. Besides the cost of the aluminum block, seems like building an engine based on an aluminum block would be more difficult because not many average joe's have built them. I would have many questions and probably a hard time finding answers.

With that said I would love to have one in the Pantera if I had the money.

DeTom,

can't redesign the block, too cost prohibitive, the new block would have to be designed around existing technology, to have the ability to go to a foundry, point at an existing block and say, cast me some of these. It gets a lot more complicated than that, but starting with a blank sheet of paper would be even more expensive.

The 2 most realistic approaches would be to duplicate the NASCAR block & ask for increased cylinder wall thickness & a Windsor block's oil passages; OR to duplicate a Dart 9.2" Windsor block with changes to the front of the block, the rear of the block, the oil pan rails, the camshaft journals, etc which would allow 100% Cleveland components to bolt on.

Of course, if you want to write about a dream block we can do that, let's set our parameters so that all existing Cleveland hardware must bolt on to our dream block.

My 2 cents regarding a dream block would be the NASCAR block with thicker cylinder walls & decks (capability for a 4.125" bore), a true "main bearing first" oil system with separate passages for the cam bearings & both lifter galleys, increased oil drain back capability and a oil pressure relief valve located in the rear of the block downstream of the main bearing oil passage. The bottom of the water jackets would be higher up on the cylinders, so as to support the cylinder walls better. If we could stray from the Cleveland in one area, I would want cross bolted main bearing caps, which would require a different oil pan. It would be nice to have more than 4 bolts clamping the head around each cylinder, but doing so would negate all existing cylinder heads, which I think strays to far from our parameters. So we'll have to groove our dream block for some sort of copper ring or o-ring type sealing system. Ron, ParaPantera, would have us use neddle bearings for the cam journals, rather than the standard flat babbit type bearing, that's OK with me too. The lifter bores should come with silicon bronze bushings from the factory with close tolerance clearances, and they should be tall enough to run Ford roller lifters without having to resort to a reduced base circle on the cam lobes. I would have the base of the cylinders extend further downward into the crankcase, with factory notches for con rod clearance, which would allow 4.00" strokes while supporting the piston better at BDC. My new block, with it's 4.125" bore & 4.00" stroke, would allow it to be a 427C!

What's your dream block like DeTom?

your friend on the DTBB, George

Well George, I have been thinking long and hard on this very thing. My dream block, would in fact be a dream engine. Remember how I told you I didn't want the valves to have to reciprocate anymore? If you can get away from that, and eliminate the need for a camshaft, you can cast the heads, right in to the block. The heads would be the top part of the block, so now you don't have a head gasket to blow. This is important because we have to make a veriable boost engine. We need to do that so we can run overstochiometric, which is what Honda is trying to do even as I type this. Our engine will have variable everything, so I am afraid one of us will need to get well versed in programing eprom chips.
Anyway by eliminating the camshaft, we can really beef up the block right in that area. Using siamese bore cylinders made from Inconnel 601, we should be able to achieve a bore of 4.25" and leave the stroke at 3.5". This will be magical, because this baby is gonna turn 12 grand all day long.
I figured we can use an old Pantera as a test bed and then challange Ferrari to race one of their formula one cars against our ratty old Pantera. Once we humiliate them, and get twenty miles per gallon while doing it, the whole automotive world will come to our door begging to know our secrets. Of course you and I will sell them for a very pretty penny indeed. You and me will become common household names.
Yep, rich and famous. That is what we will be.

George,

Point taken on the cost of an aluminium block.
So is it possible to have a 427 Dart windsor that can rev to 7500? I though the longer the stroke, the less revable it would be. And what about throttle response. Are long stroke engines as responsive as short stroke engines?

Johnny

Hi Johnny - Charlie here!

I don't know half of what these guys do, but if I were going to lay out any of my hard earned cash, I'd want some kind of assurance that it was well spent. You have two choices here - invent the wheel yourself or copy what someone else has already done, and learn from their experiences.

I don't know of many people who have actually put their money on the line and built a stroker that will rev. But I can think of at least one person - Kirby Schrader built a 377 Cleveland, albeit with an iron block, that he used to spin regularly to 7000 rpm. The only person I know of that revs higher is perhaps Charlie Puckett, and he has a destroked 5.0 liter... Perhaps that is telling you something.

What do you want to do - go fast or rev high? If you want to go fast, the proper thing to do is build a stroker and regear your car to take advantage of the torque it will give you. A stroker could perhaps be made to rev, but it is really designed to be a torque monster. If you want to rev, perhaps you need to forget about stroking, unless you either feel like experimenting (nothing wrong with that) or can find a reliable design to copy.

Just some things to think about...

Hi Charlie, Good to hear from you!

I think RPM is more important to me than torque. I love to rev! it makes the car more fun to drive. I certainly will not be reinventing the wheel. I will copy what someone else has done.
I intend to thoroughly research this before I part with any money. A friend of mine here in England built a stroked cleveland (366 I think) a few years ago. He spent a lot of money on Ross pistons and Carrilo rods, webers etc. I remember riding in the car with him as he reved it to 8000RPM! I dont know how long the motor could last doing that. But I do know he took the car to Brighton speed trials, England's oldest motoring event. This is a timed quater mile along the sea front road. He posted a 12.8 quarter on little 285 tyres. I cant remember the terminal speed.
He has not really used the car enough to prove this engine reliable in the long term.

Johnny

Johnny,

Covering the subject of stroker motors & engine response (acceleration of the reciprocating assembly) involves discussing the very basics of IC engine design, in other words, a lot of material, more than what I'm willing to type in one sitting. Here are some random thoughts that come to mind:

Piston speed is one of the factors that will limit a motor's rpm potential. A piston stroking 3.00" at 6000 rpm is traveling slower than a piston stroking 4.00" at the same rpm. So the question is, is the piston speed of a 4.00" stroker enough to limit the rpm potential of a motor to only 6000 rpm, the answer is no.

Another factor is the connecting rod length to stroke ratio. Basically a performance street motor wants a Rod to Stroke ratio of 1.55:1 or higher to reduce side loading force on the thrust side of the piston to minimize friction. This becomes more critical above 5500rpm. The factory Chevy 400 had really short 5.565 rods and a 3.750 stroke having a 1.48:1 ratio. This motor works fine to 5500rpm, then you can experience a hard or harsh feeling for the motor, not vibration but kind of like it. By putting 5.700 rods in this motor it will happily buzz over 6000RPM with a 1.52:1 ratio.

A 4.00" stroke with a 6.00" rod is a rod to stroke ratio of exactly 1.5:1. Where this limits the Cleveland, or any motor, I have no experience, I've never built a 4.00" stroker. There are guys, such as Kelly Coffield (Panterror) running that combination, perhaps he or someone else can chime in.

In your case, running a 9.5" deck (?) Windsor block, you can run a 6.2" rod (common size) giving you a ratio of 1.55:1. If you intersect the oil ring groove with the wrist pin, you could run a 6.4" rod giving a ratio of 1.6:1. That would be my recommendation if you truly feel you need to rev the stroker motor to 7500 rpm.

On the subject of responsiveness of the engine, the weight of a reciprocating assembly, the frictional forces, the piston speed, the rod to stroke ratio, all these factors come into play, but a good generalization is of course, short stroke motors are more "responsive" than longer stroke motors, but increasing the stroke from 3.5" to 4.00" will not affect dynnamic response to the detriment of the acceleration of a road going Panterra. The difference would be noticable in a F1 vehicle, not in a 3000 lb Pantera.

The point with stroker motors is building more torque at a lower rpm (like Charlie wrote). The end goal is to accelerate the vehicle, so what I want to do is steer your thoughts to thinking of the vehicle as a whole system. The increased power of the motor will quicken the 0 to 60 acceleration rate of your Pantera, even though it will have a longer stroke. This is because other things also affect the acceleration of your car, such as vehicle weight, the weight of rotating parts, drive train friction, the traction of the rear tires, clutch slippage, the DRIVER, etc. Other things you can do to "quicken" the response of your "car" (I did not write motor, I wrote car intentionally) is add a lightened flywheel, or run light weight 3 piece wheels instead of one piece cast or billet wheels, add 3.77:1 final drive gears in the ZF (Charlie's advice).

My advice for a strong street motor is to shoot for a powerband of 2000 to 6000 rpm, with a red line of 6500 rpm. This is easy to achieve, and easy on the motor, and with 427 cubic inches it will be easier to maintain control of the vehicle and provide plenty of acceleration.

On the other hand, if high revving is what is most fun for you, keep the 3.5" stroke and just build a strong, high revving 351 cubic inch motor. A well built Cleveland will take repeated blasts to 7500 rpm with no drama, just a lot of grins, I know, been there, done that. It is easy to hit the 450 bhp mark with a 351 cubic inch motor, I was doing that back in the '70s & '80s, with todays parts you could surely do better.

Just the random thoughts of an old beggar.

By the way Charlie, it's always a pleasure when you contribute. I wish more long time owners were active here on the DTBB, sharing their experience with the Pantera.

your friend on the DTBB, George

From George's post
"Other things you can do to quicken the response of your car (I did not write motor, I wrote car intentionally) is add a lightened flywheel"

Thats it steel flywheel is out, and aluminun is in!

lol

George,

Thank you for taking the time to write that. I now have plenty to think about.
And the aluminium flywheel is definitely in!

Johnny

I'm not convinced high RPM's and strokers are incompatible. I run a 3.85" stroke crank with 6.125" rods in a .020 over cleveland block and spin to 7500 often. Internal balance, solid roller cam, and Al flywheel help.

Yeah, the pins in the oil ring but the only issue in +6000 miles and numerous track events was a broken link bar on a lifter pair.

As Jack says, my 2 cents.

kdb,

your rod length to stroke ratio is 1.59:1.

I recently had the opportunity to correspond with Bob at Scat about his new Cleveland kit featuring a 4.00" stroke and a 6.00" rod, only 1.5:1 ratio, this is what he said: "I do have one for the 9.2 deck Cleveland. It uses the 4 inch crank and a 6 inch chevy rod. The piston is either a flat or 16cc dish and does have the pin in the oil ring. It is used in the Panteras a lot due to the size of the intake ports.It really wakes up that motor around town. It is not a great high rpm motor. But is on par with the 434 chevy. You can get the kit with either a cast or forged crank."

Notice his comment that it is not a great high rpm motor. Bob feels your 3.85" crank, even with a 6.0" rod, is a better combination, but there was high demand for the 4.00" kit, so he produced it.

My point is, the rod length to stroke ratio needs to be above 1.55:1 for a performance motor to run well at higher rpm. Back in my day, I always stuffed 6" rods in the stock 3.5" stroke Clevelands with the solid lifter cams, which gives a 1.7:1 ratio. Chevy guys do the same thing. The motors rev better set up this way.

Great to read about a Cleveland being raced, run to 7500 rpm, without block failure. Your side of the story isn't often told amongst Pantera owners. Thanks for posting.

your friend on the DTBB, George

From Mike Drew on the DeTomaso Mail List:

"All-aluminum Cleveland soon available?"
Johnny Woods turned me onto this Aussie website; they claim to be developing an all-new aluminum 351C block that will be 'available soon' whatever that means.

Probably expensive!

Check it out:
http://www.sjperformance.com.au/Aussieparts.html

The block was originally set to go on sale this month, but there are delays, so now SJ is looking at a spring release date. A block has been engineered & produced, and is under going testing at this time. I have not read anywhere what the delays are about, but delays in bringing a new product to market are not unusual.

The original price, delivered to your door in the US, was set at $5K USD. I fully expect that to also go up.

I would prefer a cast iron block at $2.5K.

your friend on the DTBB, George

What a interesting read/thread.
Geeez George, it sounds like ur trying to opt out of writing as much excellent info on this site as u hav and do....plez dont give up..... what would we do without u.
Johnny; Forget about taking weight out of the very low situated weight of the motor. Concentrate on losing weight in other areas....I am following Goran's advice in past article in PI Newsletter on Weight Loss. It is easy to drop + - 200lbs in other areas than the engine compartment. So far I have lost the useless shitty pop-up lites etc., - fitted projector-lamps and acrilic covers (weight loss + - 50lbs already, with NO wobblly light beams anymore...)...All glass gone (except windscrn. of course...)...center instrument consol gone, door pannels, heater/ AC etc. Have also gone to a frt & back Carbon Fibre decklids ( ...or what ever it is u yanks call them....)Will weight all the parts and post the weights...but, as good ole..(..notice I didnt say "old"...) George says ; ...the main area u should be most weight conscious about is the Unsprung Weight in the Wheels !!!
My 18 x 13" 3piece rims weigh only slightly more than my old 15" magnesium Campys! Really.- The only way to go for lightweight Rims are spun-ally outers with forged inners....DownSide ( there always is a downside to everything remember....)..they lose air over time since they are 3xpiece and difficult to keep air tight... A small price to pay for a very light rim....4 of them !
And YES ! There is nothing that sounds like a 351C with 180 exh. and Webers ( I have run this setup for 8yrs and just love it ...suffered NONE of the problems mentioned by some of the readers of this fine Forum.)...except for maybe a hot V12 or one of those funny little I-tie V8's. ( Ferrari 308's)
QUESTION : Why do these 308's sound so very differnt to 'normal' V8s ???...crank configeration?...Why...apart from the howl from the Webers, these little V8's sound like F1 cars.....to me anyhow.....Cheers tai

Hi Tai,

Your car does sound very radical! I, like you, want my car to be as light as possible, but I want it to appear unmodified throughout. If indeed I do buy an ally block in the future, I will probably paint it blue!
I did away with my heater altogether as I do not drive the car in the winter (salty roads) and fabricated a small, light weight aluminium blower box to go in its place. I designed this box to draw air from out side through the scuttle vent. If you look under the dash, you will see a 2" OD (approx) pipe going up into the scuttle vent. On the early Pantera's this would draw air from outside. But on the later cars they left the pipe in place but put a cap on the bottom. So I simply opened it up again. This has improved the cabin ventilation quite a bit, but not enough for really hot days or Le Mans. I am going to have to think of a way to draw more air in at some point.
As for the sound of Ferrari V8's, yes it's the crankshaft configuration. Ferrari V8's run a flat plane crank. Whereas most American V8's run a duel plane crank.

Johnny