"It had a 351 Windsor in it !!..."

[LoneRanger]

Why do some old school guys do this? They refer to either a "351 Windsor" or "351 Cleveland" when reminiscing about some old Ford they had or a friend had, and how hard it ran or whatever. That was just the location of the plant where the engine was assembled.

Am I missing something? Was one plant making stronger engines than the other, or are people just sentimental that way?

edit: changed "stupid" to "sentimental"

 

[KGMtech]

Engines are different designs. You can see it visually from the outside, the heads, the intake.

 

[eljefino]

Wasn't one a destroked big-block while the other was a maxed-out small block?

Companies would kill for this sort of brand loyalty where customers are still referring to subassemblies by name 40 years later.

There's likely a bunch of overhead attached to this... sentimental value, the last engine said person worked on themselves, before stuff got complicated. The early 70s still saw different lines of GM V8s, too, but that amalgamated pretty quickly thereafter.

 

[racer12306]

Originally Posted By: KGMtech
Engines are different designs. You can see it visually from the outside, the heads, the intake.


This.

The Cleveland is a physically larger block than the Windsor, so it's not just the factory.

 

[VNTS]

Originally Posted By: LoneRanger
Why do some old school guys do this? They refer to either a "351 Windsor" or "351 Cleveland" when reminiscing about some old Ford they had or a friend had, and how hard it ran or whatever. That was just the location of the plant where the engine was assembled.

Am I missing something? Was one plant making stronger engines than the other, or are people just stupid that way?



The 351C was a much better performance engine due to the heads, the 351W were slugs, heads had asthma. I have a freind with a 70 Mach 1 with the Cleveland and shaker hood, very nice car with under 40K miles orignal, was his uncles, Graber Green with white interior and Auto.

 

[LoneRanger]

So a Windsor may have had a different feel to it than a Cleveland or one had more hot rodding potential due to it's layout, such as a de-stroked big block having potential to be built into a torque monster stroker by owners so inclined?

 

[A_Harman]

I think the Windsor was a small block with a higher deck.
The Cleveland was the canted-valve small block.
They also had a 351M, which stood for Modified.
But I'm no expert on Fords.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

I recall the Head was redesigned in the Cleveland with angled valves & bigger ports giving the ability to produce more high rpm torque than the smaller port Windsor. I also recall a gasket mod and block deck mod were required to retrofit the heads on a std Windsor block. Hot rodder Falcon and 'Stang and Maverick guys did this mod - Not absolutely sure as I was a BowTie guy in the 70s

I also recall there was a Michigan code that looked sorta like the Cleveland but the destroked 400 was a mutt for racing and hot rodding.

 

[440Magnum]

Different engine designs, just like us old Mopar guys talk about "A," "LA," "B," and "RB," engines. In this case, the Windsor and Cleveland blocks are pretty similar, but the heads are totally different with the Cleveland heads being a canted-valve layout with a lot more breathing potential. A lot like mopar "A" and "LA' engines, except the Fords were produced together and in Mopar-world the "LA" replaced the "A" completely.

In the case of Ford, the later (late 60s on) engines came to be known by the plants where the bulk of them were made, or the lead plant for production. Windsor (Ontario), Cleveland (Ohio), Lima (Ohio). Ford actually referred to them by numbers- the Cleveland being "355" and the Lima big block being "358" if I recall correctly. But that's just dang confusing since those numbers sound like displacements, but aren't.

Older Ford engines had letter designators- the "FE" big blocks (390, 427, 428) and "MEL" engines (410, 430, etc. mostly used in Mercurys and Edsels).

 

[John_Conrad]

yes the heads were better flowing in the cleveland, so that a stock C would out perform the W and t stock chevy 350's...back in the day!

the M was a big block? if i recall currectly...

 

[Trav]

Originally Posted By: eljefino
Wasn't one a destroked big-block while the other was a maxed-out small block?


The 352 was an FE big block.

 

[OtisBlkR1]

my Camero had a mild mod 350 in it, my buddys Ranchero had a stock 351C and he'd pull me every time.. he wouldn't destroy me, but hed get me by a length or two.

 

[Donald]

Originally Posted By: LoneRanger
Why do some old school guys do this? They refer to either a "351 Windsor" or "351 Cleveland" when reminiscing about some old Ford they had or a friend had, and how hard it ran or whatever. That was just the location of the plant where the engine was assembled.

Am I missing something? Was one plant making stronger engines than the other, or are people just sentimental that way?

edit: changed "stupid" to "sentimental"

I had a 351 Windsor in my 1969 Mach 1 Mustang. Great car. I believe the 351 Windsor came from the 289/302 engine and the 351 Cleveland came from the 390 engine.

 

[DSparks]

351c has nothing to do with a fe390/427/428 stuff.....351c is a small block with canted valve heads that came from the Boss302 that had canted valve heads similar to a 429/460 .it was fords performance 351...it came with 2 barrel(2v) and 4 barrel(4v) heads..it was basically a 351 cubic inch version of a boss 302 which is a specialty 302 with the very similar canted valve heads for the 69/70 mustang and a couple cougars...the 351w is nothing more than a stroked 302....the 351m/400m are the total [censored] of the bunch..still small blocks based on a 351c..same 2v heads and little different block/crank/stroke...im a ford guy..been there done all this ..got the t-shirt...

 

[morepwr]

The 351c had two styles on heads. They had 2v and 4v heads which was 2 barrel and 4 barrel. The 4v heads flowed very good on the top end but made very little torque down low which is kind of a bummer in a street car.

Wasn't the "m" in the 351m for Michigan?

 

[DSparks]

M for modified...and not in a good way...they were the lowest compression most anemic step children of the bunch....

 

[topbliss]

completely different.. Look here.

http://www.mustangengines.com/351c Differences.htm

 

[HangFire]

I've owned both. Answers are correct, these are two different engine designs, particularly in the heads.

The Cleveland heads suffered from too-large intakes and WAY too-small exhausts, the Windsor heads from too-small intakes and exhausts. Every Cleveland needed exhaust porting but to reach the full potential of the canted valve head the exhaust ports had to be taken down to the water jacket and rewelded, a risky and expensive proposition. The intakes were also reduced in size and the intake manifolds modified to match.

The Cleveland also suffered from oil pooling in the heads when tracked for any length of time. For quarter mile and street use it really didn't matter.

The Cleveland stayed in production for many years in Australia and was used in the DeThomaso Pantera.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: DSparks
351c has nothing to do with a fe390/427/428 stuff.....351c is a small block with canted valve heads that came from the Boss302 that had canted valve heads similar to a 429/460 .it was fords performance 351...it came with 2 barrel(2v) and 4 barrel(4v) heads..it was basically a 351 cubic inch version of a boss 302 which is a specialty 302 with the very similar canted valve heads for the 69/70 mustang and a couple cougars...the 351w is nothing more than a stroked 302....the 351m/400m are the total [censored] of the bunch..still small blocks based on a 351c..same 2v heads and little different block/crank/stroke...im a ford guy..been there done all this ..got the t-shirt...


The 351W is not a stroked 302, as the deck height is different as is the main bearing size.

The rest of it is pretty much on the money for the most part though

The 351W and 351C were very different engines. What they shared was bore spacing and head bolt pattern.

The 351W was a "low revving" truck engine (not really but that's what it is often referred to as). The heads fitted to it were usually of the asthmatic type and the large 3" mains meant that the RPM range was limited over its smaller main bearing brothers, the 302 and 289.

The 351C on the other hand (and the 335 family in general) were smallblock derivatives of the 385 family sharing the same style of canted valves in the heads and robust blocks. Many of them also had large 4-bolt mains. The actual main bearing diameter was smaller than the 351W.

The 351C had a dry intake with the coolant neck coming out above the timing cover. The 351W has the neck on the intake manifold and has a wet manifold.

The "M" engines, the 351M and 400, were derivatives of the Cleveland. They had a taller deck height (like the 302 vs 351W) and the same size (3") mains as the 351W. This family of engines had the big block bell housing bolt pattern, unlike the 289,302,351W and 351C. Which allowed them to be a direct replacement for 385-series engines. They were all of generally low performance.

 

[DSparks]

Was trying to make it somewhat simple for the guys who have no clue...geeeezzzz...ehhhhh