text and photos Dan Jones

The Ultimate Test of the Ford 351 Cleveland and its after market parts.

The engine was assembled by Dave McLain of McLain's Automotive who is also
providing the dyno services. The reusable Cometic head gaksets were provided
by Alex Denysenko of MoneyMaker Racing. The block and iron heads and intakes
were painted by Mike McDougal. For this first round of tests, the CHI 3V
225cc cylinder heads and matching Scott Cook dual plane intake were provided
by Phillip de Cadenet and the CHI 3V single plane intake was provided by
James Kayser. Short block was provided by me. *(Dan Jones) Many more people have
contributed parts or cold hard cash to this effort, so I'll have a lot more
people to thank in the installments to follow.

It's been a long time coming but we finally made some dyno pulls on the
351C test mule! The short block is a standard performance rebuild of a
351C with the following parts:
Block
Ford 351C block, 0.030" over (4.03" bore), 2 bolt mains, block did not
require a re-bore as it had low miles since last being bored and was in
good shape (no ridge), block was decked to clean up gasket surface
Pioneer brass freeze plug set
TRW L2379F forged flat top pistons with dual valve reliefs
Ford 351C forged steel connecting rods (5.78")
Ford 351C nodular iron crankshaft (3.5" stroke)
Powerbond SFI balancer
Ford Motorsport double roller timing chain (French Renold chain)
Melling M84AHV mechanical high volume oil pump
Ford Motorsport M-6005-A351 heavy duty chrome moly oil pump driveshaft
Ford 351C passenger car front sump 5 quart oil pan
Weiand 8209 aluminum 351C water pump
MSD 8480 distributor (mechanical advance, large cap)
Crane steel distributor gear (p/n 52971-1 for 351C with .531" shaft dia.)
Cometic head gaskets (p/n C5871-040 for a 4.1" bore 351C/351M/400)
FRPP M-6500-S58 "Early Block Hydraulic Roller Lifter Set". These are
Crane p/n 36532-16 link bar retrofit roller lifters but were a little
cheaper under the Ford Racing part number.
Trend custom length push rods (for the taller roller lifters)
Hastings moly rings (351C stock replacement)
Clevite rod and main bearings (Std/Std)
Crank treated to a light polishing
Clearances are .0025" on rods and .0027" mains
Fuel pump block off plate (dyno providing the fuel flow)
CAMSHAFT
The camshaft is from Reed Cams in Georgia and is a custom hydraulic roller,
specifically part number 535-TM280HR-284HR-107A, and is ground on a standard
base circle steel core. In picking the cam specs, we were after a street
performance grind that would have a horsepower peak near 6000 RPM with a best
shift point of 6500 RPM, a wide mid-range torque band and some idle rump-rump.
We also wanted a cam that would work well with all the heads to be tested
which range from open chamber 2V iron to Ford Motorsport aluminum high ports
to CHI 3V's. We chose a hydraulic roller to avoid the lobe and lifter wear
problems associated with the low ZDDP content associated with current
automotive oils. Also, I'm a lazy street guy and setting lash on a solid
cam is a bit of a chore in a Pantera. The cam specs are:

228/232 degrees @ 0.050" lift (280/284 @ 0.006"), 0.588"/0.588" lift,
107 LSA, 68 degrees overlap, installed in the engine on a 104 intake
centerline.

The 68 degrees of overlap should put us in the right ballpark for a
street performance cam in an engine of 351 cubic inches, considering
our relatively large intake valves. I picked the lobe separation angle
using David Vizard's cam selection guidelines. Theoretically, for this
combination of bore, stroke, intake valve diameter, compression ratio
and overlap, this LSA should give us the best area under the HP curve
(not necessarily the best peak HP). For our valve diameters, Vizard's
guidelines suggest very large lift (between 0.615" to 0.766") with the
caveat that lift be limited to whatever is consistent with the longevity
goals. Since our goal was a street engine, we went with a relatively
modest lift of 0.588".
ROLLER LIFTERS
Dave originally mocked the engine up using a borrowed set of Crane link
bar lifters. I also wanted to test the Sherman Racing hydraulic roller
lifters. Those lifters are modified OEM Ford lifters that others had
provided others with a 400 RPM increase. However, it turned out we were
unable to use the OEM Ford, Sherman Racing or Comp Cams link bar lifters
in our particular block. Due to the way this block had been machined,
at maximum lobe lift, the oil groove on the lifters is pushed up into
the chamfer at the top of the lifter bores. If we tried to run it this
way, it would dump oil pressure. There are three ways to fix this.
One is to reduce the base circle of the cam so the lifter is lower in
bore. The second is to use a lifter with a lower oil groove location
and the third is to bush the lifter bores with taller sleeves. Dennis
at Reed Cams said that, as a rule, irrespective of how much lift that
a camshaft has, the lifters generally all stop in approximately the same
location at the top, unless the base circle is deliberately reduced which
might cause problems at the other end of the lifter bores. We decided to
go with the Crane link bar lifters since they have their oil hole in a
lower location on the lifter body.