Time to restore

[71ProjectJunk]

The AOD or the 4R70W can both be run with 2.75 gears with no issues. The Fox Body Mustangs with the AOD came with 2.75 gears and the AOD, and they run fine. The issue with that high gearing is that the car will be a dog out of the hole. Those AOD 5.0 mustangs with 2.75 gears would loose a 1/4 mile drag race to a Honda CRX Si, trust me I was there, LOL. The issue with high gearing is what camshaft you limit yourself to when you are building your engine, besides how the car will perform. The 4R70W has an advantage over the AOD in that the first gear is a 2.84, vs the AOD 2.47. If you are going to build an engine with aluminum heads and try to get 500hp out of it, you really can't run 2.75 or 3.00 gears. It will be a dog out of the hole. To get to 500hp you need a decent sized cam, you will not get there with a small "RV" stock type cam or a little bigger than stock cam, which you can use with 2.75 or 3.00 gears. To make a engine make power AND the car perform, everything is a combination. At 400 HP or below, using a cam with at most 215 @.050 you may be able to get away with 3.00 gears with a good higher stall torque converter, but you are still loosing a substantial amount of performance compared with 3.50 gears or lower, not to mention with a bigger cam. Now you will probably not get to 500 hp, with 351 cubes with a small 215 @ .050 cam, even with the best flowing heads, intake, and exhaust. The bigger the cam, the more gearing it needs and the higher stall speed converter you will need to use. As you move up in HP your torque curve moves up in the RPM range, a 500 HP engine will probably make less torque that a stock 351C 2V under 2000 rpm, but from 3000 rpm on up it will be night a night and day difference. If you are looking at a real 500 HP normally aspirated 351, you really will need at least 3.50 gears, in reality you probably need more, and a 3000 RPM stall torque converter for the car to perform at its full potential.

 

[droptop73]

It sounds like a bunch of highway time for this one. Only MY opinion but I'd back down a bit on the horsepower dream for the sake of drivability. The overdrive automatics are a good option but nothing beats 3 pedals. LOL!! I drive mine several thousand miles a summer and these cars are fantastic on the road. I've known too many over the years that have chased power at the expense of drivability and the cars are rarely seen again. Like I said, just MY opinion.

 

[AcesArneson]

Hi,

In the coming years I'm going to have my own 351C 2V rebuild, may I ask what you are gonna do with your 2V engine to get it to put out 450HP?

Cheers,
Vincent.

Hey Vinnie, my mechanic is rebuilding the motor but I can make some general comments. Really all this motor needs is to breath better to hit 450. I am replacing the stock 2V heads with Edelbrock RPM hydraulic roller heads. He will flow test them to see if he even needs to do any porting to reach 450, he think it will be ok stock but I am ok with some porting to balance it out if necessary. Once he finishes the tear down he will suggest a bore and stroke, as far as I know this engine has not been touched before and had less than 70,000 miles. So unless the crappy oiling system has increased wear it should only be a stage one bore. He is going to correct the oiling deficiencies for me when he starts the rebuild by restricting the first bearing oil flow and using tighter lifter bores to stop the flooding of oil in the heads. I can send out the full rebuild list after all the tear down measurements are taken and firm order list is composed.
I also found a company in the US that makes adapter plates to use a 302 intake on a 351C, so I bought a used GT40 styled intake from an old Mustang. It will have to be ported a bit to make sure it flows properly but it will allow me to install EFI on the engine. I found an EEC-V from a 2003 Crown Vic to run the EFI at the junk yard and pulled it off a couple days ago. I also found a 4R75E tranny from a 2009 Crown Vic interceptor that I pulled as well so I am sending that to the mechanic for a rebuild as so it can handle the torque. It will be nice to have an over-drive on the old girl since I will do a fair amount of hiway cruising with her. It's not going to be cheap but this will be the only rebuild I do with this car.

 

[AcesArneson]

The AOD or the 4R70W can both be run with 2.75 gears with no issues. The Fox Body Mustangs with the AOD came with 2.75 gears and the AOD, and they run fine. The issue with that high gearing is that the car will be a dog out of the hole. Those AOD 5.0 mustangs with 2.75 gears would loose a 1/4 mile drag race to a Honda CRX Si, trust me I was there, LOL. The issue with high gearing is what camshaft you limit yourself to when you are building your engine, besides how the car will perform. The 4R70W has an advantage over the AOD in that the first gear is a 2.84, vs the AOD 2.47. If you are going to build an engine with aluminum heads and try to get 500hp out of it, you really can't run 2.75 or 3.00 gears. It will be a dog out of the hole. To get to 500hp you need a decent sized cam, you will not get there with a small "RV" stock type cam or a little bigger than stock cam, which you can use with 2.75 or 3.00 gears. To make a engine make power AND the car perform, everything is a combination. At 400 HP or below, using a cam with at most 215 @.050 you may be able to get away with 3.00 gears with a good higher stall torque converter, but you are still loosing a substantial amount of performance compared with 3.50 gears or lower, not to mention with a bigger cam. Now you will probably not get to 500 hp, with 351 cubes with a small 215 @ .050 cam, even with the best flowing heads, intake, and exhaust. The bigger the cam, the more gearing it needs and the higher stall speed converter you will need to use. As you move up in HP your torque curve moves up in the RPM range, a 500 HP engine will probably make less torque that a stock 351C 2V under 2000 rpm, but from 3000 rpm on up it will be night a night and day difference. If you are looking at a real 500 HP normally aspirated 351, you really will need at least 3.50 gears, in reality you probably need more, and a 3000 RPM stall torque converter for the car to perform at its full potential.

Thanks again for the input Junk, I am leaning heavily toward 3.50 gears. I found a 4R75E from an '09 Crown Vic and pulled it earlier this week, so pretty sure I wont empty my wallet at the pump by moving higher.

 

[BUCKWHEAT]

as last production Grande, would your car be more valuable as a bone-stock restoration? just asking...

 

[AcesArneson]

I am not rebuilding it to sell, I am rebuilding it to drive. As long as stock parts doesn’t inhibit making the car fun I will keep them on. I am also keeping all of the stock components I replace so if I ever do sell it in the future the buyer can always flip it back to original.
Dropped off the tranny and rear end in Edmonton and they are already rebuilt. Went with a 2500 stall and Dana limited slip with 3.5:1. I found an Offenhauser Port-O-Maroc intake that already has the injector bungs welded in. It was already running so I know it’s good welding so I scrapped the gt40 intake with adapters for now. It will still have an old school intake look with the MAF hidden under the air cleaner. Next I need to find someone local to modify my hood.

 

[c9zx]

450 2V flywheel HP can be done but takes some pro head porting and good cam and compression selection. The stock 2V heads stop flowing at .450 valve lift max. The early 1990s (92-93 IIRC) f-150 AODs had a more favorable gear set in them. The governor still limits shift points at WOT. If you are looking for 450-500 plus from 351CID look at 351c CC 4V heads and matching CR and camshaft. The alternative is open the wallet wide for the CHI heads and intake. The TFS head are a good alternative but, still not inexpensive. Contact Brent, at Lykins Motorsport for sound, results proven, advice if you want the big numbers. Just my opinions, I hope all goes well with the build. Chuck

 

[AcesArneson]

450 2V flywheel HP can be done but takes some pro head porting and good cam and compression selection. The stock 2V heads stop flowing at .450 valve lift max. The early 1990s (92-93 IIRC) f-150 AODs had a more favorable gear set in them. The governor still limits shift points at WOT. If you are looking for 450-500 plus from 351CID look at 351c CC 4V heads and matching CR and camshaft. The alternative is open the wallet wide for the CHI heads and intake. The TFS head are a good alternative but, still not inexpensive. Contact Brent, at Lykins Motorsport for sound, results proven, advice if you want the big numbers. Just my opinions, I hope all goes well with the build. Chuck

My mechanic is an Edelbrock dealer and he has 2V heads oredered that will do the trick, it's a complete tear down so new cam, hydraulic lifters, used intake (nothing new for fuel injection available), pistons, the works... The rebuild looks to cost about $14K without any of the fuel injection components so I will have room to grow by porting heads later and increasing lift with a new cam if I find it doesn't have enough gitty up for me. I'll just have to get a good crank that will take the pounding now while it's apart.

 

[mrgmhale]

Thanks again for the input Junk, I am leaning heavily toward 3.50 gears. I found a 4R75E from an '09 Crown Vic and pulled it earlier this week, so pretty sure I wont empty my wallet at the pump by moving higher.

I am hopping in a bit late in this thread, but... On our 1973 Mach 1, the original tranny was a C4, and the original 302 was replaced with a street/strip built 351W (not C) by the prior owner. He also swapped the rear axle 2.9:1 gears for a 3.5:1 TractionLok gear set. Last year we swapped out the C4 tranny for an AOD. What a good move!

With the C4 the 3.5:1 TractionLok rear axle gear set provided us some nice, spirited performance around town. Acceleration off the line was decent, even though getting traction at WOT was always a challenge. But, by feathering the throttle judiciously I was able to overcome that and still get some nice launches. But, running at 60 MPH for more than 15 minutes proved to be a drag as the engine RPM was funning just under 2,900 RPM, and it always sounded like the engine was on the verge of grenading at any time.

After swapping in the AOD, the engine would be turning just under 1,900 RPM or so at 60 MPH, much nicer to drive. Meanwhile the lower gears (1 and 2) had very close to the same ration as the C4 had, and 3rd is a 1:1 ration like the C4 in its 3rd gear. So, all the lower end performance was still there, but now the car is far more comfortable to drive on longer trips.

If the Mach 1 still had its original 2.79:1 rear axle gears I may not have bothered swapping in the AOD, as frankly the low end performance was being held back enough as it was with the higher gears in it. That said, if a person wants a nice overdrive experience, I would be the first to recommend an AOD swap - BUT, the Throttle Valve (TV) pressure adjustment must be done properly to make certain the tranny does not get smoked from having inadequate pressure for its clutch plates. Although the factory setting is 35 PDI at idle, using the proper adjustment gauge, I opted to set ours to 29 PSI to get a little higher TV pressure, which resulted in the upshifts occurring at a slightly higher point than with the 35 PSI setting. Having the TV a little higher than the factory setting is not a problem. Having a TV pressure that is too low is when problems occur.

 

[Fabrice]

bits late to the party,
I run a 4v/efi/350 gear 9 inch track lock/ 400ish healthy cleveland with the AOD I've rebuilt 2 years ago and it's almost ideal.
I say almost because if I'd do it again, I'd likely go for a non lock 2500TS converter vs a locked 2500TS one. The lock works great and is very economic (and I should be happy about this in a $10 a gallon country) , but it works great only in first and second. In third and fourth(OD 0.67 on AOD's) its in direct and I wish it would rev just a tad to 2500 vs kick down/downshift to accelerate faster from that idling.
Note that if you go for an AOD and a non lock, you must replace the inner shaft by a stronger one, add a ring at the third clutch unless you have non casted drums as in the 90+ AOD's and of course a trans cooler.

With the pressure adjustment of the AOD you can do the pressure test. Tho this makes sense only if you use a used one with a respectable amount of miles on it. Where you end up having pressure diffs because the pistons need to travel more due to friction material gone and therefor have pressure difference and the TV valve engaged differently into its bore. On a healthy/rebuild AOD, the TV valve separate two circuits (low and high pressure) and matches 100% the lever in equilibrium. In other words your cable needs, no tension and no lack. That's all! Just like Ford did when they installed them in mustangs, t-birds etc..

 

[AcesArneson]

I am hopping in a bit late in this thread, but... On our 1973 Mach 1, the original tranny was a C4, and the original 302 was replaced with a street/strip built 351W (not C) by the prior owner. He also swapped the rear axle 2.9:1 gears for a 3.5:1 TractionLok gear set. Last year we swapped out the C4 tranny for an AOD. What a good move!

With the C4 the 3.5:1 TractionLok rear axle gear set provided us some nice, spirited performance around town. Acceleration off the line was decent, even though getting traction at WOT was always a challenge. But, by feathering the throttle judiciously I was able to overcome that and still get some nice launches. But, running at 60 MPH for more than 15 minutes proved to be a drag as the engine RPM was funning just under 2,900 RPM, and it always sounded like the engine was on the verge of grenading at any time.

After swapping in the AOD, the engine would be turning just under 1,900 RPM or so at 60 MPH, much nicer to drive. Meanwhile the lower gears (1 and 2) had very close to the same ration as the C4 had, and 3rd is a 1:1 ration like the C4 in its 3rd gear. So, all the lower end performance was still there, but now the car is far more comfortable to drive on longer trips.

If the Mach 1 still had its original 2.79:1 rear axle gears I may not have bothered swapping in the AOD, as frankly the low end performance was being held back enough as it was with the higher gears in it. That said, if a person wants a nice overdrive experience, I would be the first to recommend an AOD swap - BUT, the Throttle Valve (TV) pressure adjustment must be done properly to make certain the tranny does not get smoked from having inadequate pressure for its clutch plates. Although the factory setting is 35 PDI at idle, using the proper adjustment gauge, I opted to set ours to 29 PSI to get a little higher TV pressure, which resulted in the upshifts occurring at a slightly higher point than with the 35 PSI setting. Having the TV a little higher than the factory setting is not a problem. Having a TV pressure that is too low is when problems occur.

Thank you for all of the detail. Your car looks great underneath. Once I get it on the road I will have to come back and watch these videos again.

 

[AcesArneson]

Well it's been 2 years since I pulled the motor and I am finally picking it up when I get back from Phoenix on Feb 9th.

It turned out to be about the worst time possible to start a rebuild on a Cleveland with the lockdowns and parts shortages caused by Covid. The original plan was to keep the original heads and just get a ton of port work completed to get to my goal of 450 hp but the plan changed so many times along the way that I made lots of compromises; some good, some less good.

My plan is to run the motor on SEFI but I didn't want to pay the rebuilder a ton of money to tune in the engine so I sprang for a distributer and used a shop 750 CFM carb for the dyno. Final pull with a safe 32 degrees of advance timing hit 441 hp @ 6000rpm (was still climbing but 6000 rpm is getting close to safe limits for a regular 20557 Moroso oil pan capacity) and 414 ft/lbs @ 5100 rpm.
I am pretty satisfied with the results and it sounds pretty awesome.

How it got there;
This was the first rebuild on this engine and it was low miles so I kept the original crank and had it ground and micro-polished.
Cylinders were bored to .020 over and stroke remained stock @ 3.5000
IC688C/KTD 2cc Flat Top Forged Pistons with 4000BD8.025 rings @ 1/16, 1/16, 3/16
-after decking to even it out the final is a 10.66:1 Compression Ratio
King Main Bearings
M-84A Oil Pump with IS-84A Drive
32-000-11 Comp Hydraulic Cam on Tymer FP26G Grooved Bearings .621/.624 Lift, LSA of 112 with 237/247 Duration @ .050
8931M-16 Hydraulic Roller Lifters
Weiand XCelerator 2V intake with Shorty Holley 76 psi injectors bunged in for the SEFI with Fuel Rails.
Went with Aluminum Edelbrock 61629 2V 60cc combustion chamber 190cc intake heads
-914-16 Comp Valve Springs
-741-16 Retainers 10 degrees with 630-16 10 Degree Valve Locks
-B202HP Valve Spring Shims
-1630 Comp Rockers
-7693-16 Comp Push Rods
-absolutely no porting work completed on the heads and no port matching work with the intake
Oil mods to the #1 bearing to keep pressure high
ARP Fasteners