Thinking of a Cleveland stroker for simplicity, opinions?

[cazsper]

With the recent posts concerning possible fitment, spark plug, and header fitment issues, I am now thinking of going the Cleveland stroker route (393 or 408). I want a daily driver that works with both city and freeway driving as well as 91 octane. This is what I have come up with and would like you opinions.. Thank you in advance.

- 393 or 408

- stock 4v heads

- 10:1

- 232/240 @ .050 hydraulic roller

- Edelbrock Air Gap intake

- Holley 750

- 3.50:1 gears

- TKO-600 5-speed

What do you think or what would you do differently?

 

[auron73mach1]

sounds like a good setup

 

[plumbloco]

Dropping in a 408 in my car, did close to the same set up for mine. Got 511hp and 501 ft/lbs torque...put in frame connectors....can't wait to get it on the street.

tremac 5 speed, and 800 cfm and a old school torker, 389 rear. Will run on pump gas.

Regret not going with aluminum heads as there are a lot of options for better street flow, and heck, weight savings a plus.

 

[hyena429]

With the recent posts concerning possible fitment, spark plug, and header fitment issues, I am now thinking of going the Cleveland stroker route (393 or 408). I want a daily driver that works with both city and freeway driving as well as 91 octane. This is what I have come up with and would like you opinions.. Thank you in advance.

- 393 or 408

- stock 4v heads

- 10:1

- 232/240 @ .050 hydraulic roller

- Edelbrock Air Gap intake

- Holley 750

- 3.50:1 gears

- TKO-600 5-speed

What do you think or what would you do differently?

{thumbs up} That would be a good set up..and alot of hp.

 

[mdan575]

Sounds like a real nice thing going. I second the aluminum heads. These cars are boats and 351c with aluminum heads could help that and the front reaer weight bias also. Plus weight loss is always a good thing.

I am thinking 3.89 gears and 500hp must be alot of fun and shifting. I know my 302 with those gears burns through first and second fast.

 

[Jeff73Mach1]

Aluminum heads aren't that much more than buying and building a nice set of 4V CC heads with new valves-I would like the weight savings off the front of the car, but if you have the heads, then your plan sounds very reasonable.

 

[cazsper]

Thanks.. I appreciate it. What heads would you pick? I've seen the CHI heads. They have the 3v and 4v heads. Would you use those or something else?

 

[Finmach]

You didn’t specify which TKO600 you’re going to use. I would suggest going with the 0.64 overdrive instead of the road race 0.82. You could go with deeper gears like the others above, I would go to 3.89, 3.91 OEM Ford gears or to 4.11. It might sound deep but if you choose the 0.64 overdrive it’ll tame the deep gears to nice highway hauler and as a bonus you could enjoy deep gears at traffic lights, drag strip or just to scare the “#¤t of your neighbor. Best part is that the deep gears would really boost your engines performance starting from the first gear. Having 500 hp on tap and 4.11 or 3.89 gears makes the car really snappy but yet though easy to drive on traffic.

I presume that you would got 275/60-15 28” tall tires. With 3.50 gears and with the 0.82 overdrive of the road race tko600 engine would be spinning 2500 rpm at 70 mph. For comparison by going with 4.11 gears and 70 mph on fifth gear the engine would be revving 2300 rpm. By dropping to 3.89 gears the engine would be revving app. 2200 rpm. I believe that even the 393 or 408c has plenty of torque on 2200-2300 rpm so it should be plenty of fun and the lower highway rpm’s makes better mpg.

 

[turtle5353]

I am having a 408 stroker built right now. It should actually be done by the end of the week. I went with a set of AFD 4v aluminum heads and they look really nice quality. Another member on here, Roy, was running these heads on his 408 and really liked them. I am running 373 gears and an auto. I cant wait to see how this thing runs!!! Been waiting all winter. It will run on pump gas and be in the 550+hp range. We had to drop the compression quite a bit to get it pump gas friendly. But if i ever want to upgrade and go racing theres still another 80+hp left on the table. It should be a very fun street machine. I will let you know in a few weeks. But i would definately go with the stroker route over the big block, but that just my opinion. All the brackets and everything is already there ready to go. All the performance is inside and the outside is the same.

 

[cazsper]

I was planning in the .64 5th gear. I have 275/40-17's in the rear. I've heard the Cleveland block has had issues with durability. Is that true? If so, Am I going to have issues at this power level?

 

[wwhite72]

The 2013 boss 302 weighs over 3600 lbs and is rated at 444hp. It is hailed as the best handling Mustang ever produced and has 6 piston brembo antilock brakes and traction control and 67 air bags etc etc ...i can't imagine that a 40yr old car with mildly improved braking, that is driven on the street and weighs less than the 2013 car would need more than 400hp to make it a ton of fun. Our cars are louder and smellier and smokier and have lot more character. But they aren't safer.

 

[Don65Stang]

Looks good. Check your first gear's mph at both your everyday shift point rpm and high rpm shift point. Then check your rpms in 5th at whatever highway speed you want to run. If your rear gears are too low (big numerically) then 1st gear may be a granny gear and useless, I.e. top speed 10mph at 6k rpms. A good 1st gear ratio range is 8.5 to 10.5 when all things are factored in...1gear ratio, rear gear ratio, tire diameter.

A great 1st gear drive ratio, IMHO, is more important than the 5th gear final ratio because to me that's where you take them or they'll take you, all else being equal. Plus mine is more or a street driven car than a highway car. My rule of thumb is to shoot for a 10 1st gear ratio and 2200 rpm at 70mph in top gear.

Your plan sounds great though.