A 354ci Cleveland on the dyno....listen to 8000 rpm.

[Drew Pojedinec]

Thanks! Would have thought open would have been more....like way more!

With great head and intake flow, I would suspect the camshaft requirements are lessened.

[gt350hr]

     My testing over the last 47 years has led me to short or moderate intake duration cams and tall lift on the intake just like Brent found. The intake is big and lazy. It needs help to get the flow going and thrives on RPM as you can see . I use a 6-10 degree split and less lift on the exhaust.
    Those are really good numbers for a 351C with stock iron heads.

[blykins]

Heads and intake are coming off this week and are going to my head guy. 

Oil pan is coming off as well and going back to Milodon.....all the gold finish wiped away....LOL

[cjshaker]

Heads and intake are coming off this week and are going to my head guy. 

Not happy with the power, or just looking for improvements?
That's some pretty darn good power, especially considering the iron heads and small cubic inches. Too bad Ford only made them for a few years, they really are the ultimate small block design.

[blykins]

Just looking for improvements I suppose.  Everyone always orders a 408 with CHI heads, and I've only got to build a couple stock stroke Clevelands.   It's interesting to see what they can do. 

I've got a 2 hp/cube goal in mind.   It's an interesting learning experience.

[e philpott]

Sweet engine Brent !! .. Is that one of those brand new after market Clevland block ??

[Heo]

Heads and intake are coming off this week and are going to my head guy. 

Not happy with the power, or just looking for improvements?
That's some pretty darn good power, especially considering the iron heads and small cubic inches. Too bad Ford only made them for a few years, they really are the ultimate small block design.

I cant understand why they killed the Cleveland and continued the Windsor. That's in reality is a 50s design
when they at  the same time made the 385 that's more or less is a "big Cleveland"

[blykins]

Eric, it's a 1970 piece that's been filled to the bottoms of the water pump holes with Hard Blok.  Has ARP studs in the mains.  On cylinder honing, we found a little divot out of a cylinder.  I was a little scared that it was going to eventually go all the way through, so I just went ahead and put a sleeve in it.  Since I sleeved it and concreted it, I just went ahead and put bronze lifter  bore bushings in with a BHJ Lifter-Tru to make sure the lifters were where they were supposed to be.  The block and heads are actually numbers matching pieces. 

Crank is a Scat 3.5" stroke SVO Superlight with 2.100" rod journals that I bought for about $350 on Ebay.  Rods are Molnar 6.400" SBC rods and the pistons are 1.040" compression height Racetec pistons with a small dome.  1mm/1mm/2mm Mahle ring pack with a little header vac action to help out.  Running Clevite coated bearings.

The intake is a Holley Strip Dominator, unported, with the same HVH 4150/4500 adapter that I let Jay borrow for his testing.    It's got a modified 1050 Dominator on top that's about 950 cfm right now. 

Heads are D0 4V heads, with just a really nice valve job and a set of Ferrea 2.190"/1.710" valves.  They were cut down to 58cc chamber size. 

Standard volume, standard pressure pump, and at 175 degree oil temp, it was still pushing 65 psi at 8000 rpm, measured at the rear of the block. 

[blykins]

Same here.  The canted valve head is where it's at and I'm thoroughly convinced the Cleveland head was the foundation for the LS head design. 

[blykins]

I also got to try out one of the 2-piece timing covers that are available.  Actually, it's the only 2-piece timing cover available for the Cleveland and it's made by Procomp, which meant that the front seal leaked....  But, it saved me time since I was trying cams on the dyno.  Also ran a new Frostbite electric water pump for the Cleveland, made by Holley.

[jayb]

Same here.  The canted valve head is where it's at and I'm thoroughly convinced the Cleveland head was the foundation for the LS head design.

You must mean the aftermarket canted valve LS heads, right?  Factory and most aftermarket LS heads (including GM Performance LS heads) use inline valves with a 12 degree valve angle, very similar to an FE in basic configuration.  The ports are a lot better, of course...

[machoneman]

Chevy did do more than just R&D way back then as they figured, rightly so, the soon to be available Boss 302 and later Boss 351 head design would eat their lunch....and did!

Behold the rarer-than-hen's teeth heads and engine:

http://hotrodenginetech.com/1969-z28-canted-valve-302/

Btw, I always suspected that the killer 351C's in Pro Stock directly lead to the 500" CID rule, killing the Ford dominance in Pro with the 351C's in many body styles back then. 

[blykins]

Same here.  The canted valve head is where it's at and I'm thoroughly convinced the Cleveland head was the foundation for the LS head design.

You must mean the aftermarket canted valve LS heads, right?  Factory and most aftermarket LS heads (including GM Performance LS heads) use inline valves with a 12 degree valve angle, very similar to an FE in basic configuration.  The ports are a lot better, of course...

Jay, it was a combination of thoughts there....

I'm thoroughly convinced that the Cleveland head was the foundation for the LS7 design, but it wasn't because of the canted valve layout.  GM took a totally new stance on the LS platform, getting away from the siamese exhaust ports in the middle, and going to more of a "Ford layout", as well as offering layout similarities very close to the Cleveland head.

The 351C 4V valve angle is 9.5°, while the LS7 was 12°.  The 4V Cleveland intake valve size was 2.190" where the LS7 valve is a 2.200".  Exhaust valves are 1.710" for the Cleveland, 1.610" for the LS.  Port CSA is 2.91" for the Cleveland and 2.97" for the LS head. 

The heads are even so close dimensionally that the LS head will bolt onto a Cleveland block. 

Now, there may be a little bit of a bias there as I'm a Ford guy and not a Chevy guy, but if you look at the old Windsor head and traditional SBC head, then look at an LS7 head vs a Cleveland head, there are quite a few similarities.

As a matter of fact, the whole LS engine is kinda Ford-esque.  Skirted block like a Modular Ford and FE.  Crank driven oil pump like a Modular Ford.   You can even buy a timing cover for an LS so that you can run a distributor and carburetor.  The timing cover setup uses an MSD 302 Ford distributor...hahaha

[thatdarncat]

Chevy did do more than just R&D way back then as they figured, rightly so, the soon to be available Boss 302 and later Boss 351 head design would eat their lunch....and did!

Behold the rarer-than-hen's teeth heads and engine:

http://hotrodenginetech.com/1969-z28-canted-valve-302/

Btw, I always suspected that the killer 351C's in Pro Stock directly lead to the 500" CID rule, killing the Ford dominance in Pro with the 351C's in many body styles back then.

In the summer of 2016 I was in northern Minnesota for a friend's wedding. Later that weekend I took a trip with friends to the town of Warroad Minnesota to "The Shed", the classic car collection of Bob Marvin, one of the family that owns Marvin Windows, which has their factory across the road. Bob Marvin's collection contains about 100 cars, mostly 50's & 60's muscle cars, but a few other older and newer classics. Two of the cars Bob has are semi-Hemi Z-28's. I'm thinking these could be the same two cars from your linked article. I don't know that for sure, but it's interesting ( and probably not just a coincidence ) they are the same silver and blue. The pictures I took that day are below. Bob Marvin's collection is open to the public ( on days he or an employee are there ) and is definitely worth the visit if anyone is up that way. Bob was in that day and he was more than happy to answer any questions and is pretty knowledgeable about all his cars. He told us all the cars he has are drivable at anytime and they are all regularly taken out and used. Bob himself is now confined to a wheelchair, but he lets selected employees and local car club members drive the cars. He is more of a GM and Mopar guy, but has quite a few muscle Fords, including a Boss 429, Boss 302, 427 Comet, Talledaga, multiple Shelbys, and more. Sorry Brent, didn't mean to take your post sideways lol.

[blykins]

A 600hp 302 would have been something......would have needed lots of rpms and lots of gear.

Got the heads and intake pulled so that they can be ported.   Got the oil pan off so I can send it back to Milodon.  While the pan was off, I went ahead and pulled some bearing caps just to see how everything was doing. 





Bearings look brand spankin new, even after 14-15 pulls to 8500 between 590-620 hp.  My mic tracks are still visible.  For those that think a high volume pump pushing 110 psi of oil pressure is necessary, this was done with a standard volume, standard pressure pump, with no modifications.  Oil pressure was between 65-70 psi.   Main bearing clearances were .0031-.0033" and rod bearing clearances were .0019-.0021". 

The bad news is that the caps were starting to move around a little bit.  To be honest, I didn't think it would be making over 600 hp, so I'm going to have to do a little more detail work on the caps to prepare for the next stage...