351c rebuild

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yellowmach351

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Jan 12, 2014
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Location
Coal Valley, Illinois
My Car
1971 yellow Mach 1 ram air 351c traction loc 4 speed. Ordered new from the factory in April 1971. 74,000 miles, in excellent condition. Going through complete engine rebuild only to increase horsepower, not because it needed it. Should bring 430 to 450 hp upon completion.
I rebuilt the 351c in my shop and added a few upgrades. I think it came out beautifully. Thought I would share this picture. It's now back in the Mach and sounds great. Sorry I couldn't get it to attach to the post, but here's the link.

http://i66.tinypic.com/9h2yj5.jpg

 
engine looks great.. and i want to thank u for posting it.. because i was thinking of buying new valve covers.. i have a set like yours (no 351 on it). now i'm gonna paint them to match and sand down the fins..

did u do anything special to paint the alum.?

 
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engine looks great.. and i want to thank u for posting it.. because i was thinking of buying new valve covers.. i have a set like yours (no 351 on it). now i'm gonna paint them to match and sand down the fins..

did u do anything special to paint the alum.?
Thank you for the kind comments. Didn't do anything special, however, they are painted with a brush. I know..sounds weird, but I use Eastwood ceramic engine paint. It flows so well, that you can do that on something like the crinkle black finish on cast aluminum valve covers and get away with it. Can't see any brush marks. I used a small artists brush to paint the area between the fins and around the lettering. Then I just used a sanding block with 80 or 100 grit to remove the excess paint and bring out the high spots. I used an HVLP gun on the engine, but didn't know how easy it would be to sand it off again....that's why the brush. It really didn't take very long.

 
Thank you all for the kind comments.

 
I rebuilt the 351c in my shop and added a few upgrades. I think it came out beautifully. Thought I would share this picture. It's now back in the Mach and sounds great. Sorry I couldn't get it to attach to the post, but here's the link.

http://i66.tinypic.com/9h2yj5.jpg
I'm very interested in your rebuild...could you share more details with me?  I also have a 351c 4bbl and want to do a complete rebuild.  So anything you can share would be very much appreciated and you can PM me any info. 

  :D

I think your engine looks great!

 
I rebuilt the 351c in my shop and added a few upgrades. I think it came out beautifully. Thought I would share this picture. It's now back in the Mach and sounds great. Sorry I couldn't get it to attach to the post, but here's the link.

http://i66.tinypic.com/9h2yj5.jpg
9h2yj5.jpg


Here's the pic for anyone who doesn't want to click the link.. looking good!

 
Reading this again... I'm curious, what did you to with the engine besides painting it? Tickle it a bit? if yes, how? Any known results in Torque/HP? Replace any specific parts that were worn out?

 
Reading this again... I'm curious, what did you to with the engine besides painting it? Tickle it a bit? if yes, how? Any known results in Torque/HP? Replace any specific parts that were worn out?
Yes...it is tickled a bit !!

First however, per our discussion a few days ago, I attached the ground wire properly to the alternator case from the picture you sent. Happy to report...it works !!

The engine was not worn out. I ordered this car from the factory in April of 1971 ( I'm an old guy ) so it has never been abused except for an occasional street race. The only thing worn I could tell were the cam bearings. I was dropping oil pressure at idle but it would come back to normal when rpm's increased. That is kind of a telltale sign on Clevelands that the cam bearings are worn, although it could have been rod bearings or oil pump. Anyway, the lower oil pressure is what got me started:

Bored .030 over to 357 C.I.

Balanced and blueprinted.

New pistons, same configuration as stock, rod, cam and crank bearings. High flow oil pump.

Cam Research .540/.560 cam. Cam Research only grinds Ford cams. Scott Main raced Clevelands back in the day successfully as Super Stock champion. He knows that engine very well. All of their cams are custom ground so I told him what I was doing to the engine and where I wanted power in and out, and he ground the cam. Highly recommend Cam Research.  

Edelbrock Performer intake, 670cfm Holley Street Avenger. Need nothing larger for street, it would just be a waste of gas and I'm not racing anymore anyway.

Hooker ceramic long tube headers.

A little head work, new valves springs, etc. Had the compression chambers reworked a little and dropped compression to about 10.1 to make it a little easier to run the 93 octane crappy gas now available. This engine in 1971 was spec'd for 98 octane gas and it would knock and ping on anything less.

I think that's about all....at least that I remember. Ran all the numbers through my computer dyno software and it came back at 463 hp and 432 lb/ft torque.

Now that is theoretical horsepower and torque, and probably would not do that in actuality. However it sounds extremely strong, so whatever it is, it's considerably more than the 285 factory spec.  ;) Thanks for the interest. I appreciate it.

 Dick

 
Glad I was able to help! And thank YOU sir for sharing the work with us :) Interesting that you actually dropped compression a bit but stil got a decent increase in power. I want to have these things done on my engine some day as well.

Cheers!

Vincent

 
Glad I was able to help! And thank YOU sir for sharing the work with us :) Interesting that you actually dropped compression a bit but stil got a decent increase in power. I want to have these things done on my engine some day as well.

Cheers!

Vincent
Minimal compression ratio drop does not have as big of an effect on power as you might expect. I ran both numbers, 10.7 and 10.1 and it was minimal. If I remember correctly, it was less than 5 hp. Now dropping by a few points would be a considerable drop as you allude to, but not dropping only a few tenths. All of the performance parts that are added more than made up for the small H.P. decrease.

Dick

 
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