hey guys, I am a regular at another part of this forum but had somthing cross my mind and well i was wondering if it would work. K. You know howthe 351C heads can be put on a 351m/400 and a 302/351W. Y cant you take a pair of good flowing race heads for a 302 and bolt them onto a 351m/400???? wouldnt that be cheaper that buying heads for a cleavland????? You would still get the good flowing ports, with valves that are good for torque and a combustion chamber thats good for compression. like i said just curious.

 

See thats the thing about cleveland heads, the 2V heads are better than most aftermarket windsor heads and the 4V heads are only beaten by a very few of the best. People put cleveland heads on windsor motors because they are so much better, you could go the other direction but even with great 302 heads it is still more than likely going to be a step backwards, and after the cooling passage modifications and the intake alteration it is going to cost more just to make you go slower. The 2V 351C heads are almost identical to the 351M/400 head, so again not really much to gain.
-Johnboy

 

Just for an addition to what Johnboy said, the cleveland heads are canted valve design, the absolute BEST windsor heads are also canted valve design... every wonder why? It works.

 

oh so there are modifications that need to be done. i was not aware of that. like i said i was just curious. just been reading alot of info on them lately and thought that with the very few options to heads for these motors and the huge aftermarket following of the 302, thought that they would be a valid option for truck motors. thanks again.

 

actually in a matter of heads, the aftermarket on a cleveland is way better than to a windsor, also a popular thing is to use cleveland heads on a windsor, not the other way around,,,

 

intake bolt angles are different, there are no intakes... would require custom length pushrods and the head bolts might not fit depending upon hole size, and piston valve reliefs are in the wrong places too.

lots of options recently, CHI, AFD, Edelbrock, TrickFlow, BlueThunder, Procomp/Avenger/DirectMotion...

 

On the subject of heads, were there heads produced for a 351/400 engine that were closed chambers w big valves for better performance? I have a buddy who is 74, and has a big shop with ford parts from flatheads on up. He is going to help me with my 400m, but he can't remember if his heads we have to dig out would work. He does have a set of Boss heads but they would be good only after about 4000 rpm.

 

the 4V heads are the big valve closed chamber heads and they are a high rpm head also.
If your talking about the 335 series heads that is. The problem is also getting an intake manifold to use the 4V heads on a 351M/400 block.

What would be a better choice IMO is the closed chamber aussie 2V heads.

 

Thank you for your reply, monsterbaby, and my sincere apologies to 64fordf100292 for deviating from his thread. I'll probably go with aftermarket heads.

 

Have a 400m that's smoking when i get out of the gas or after its been sitting at idle for a couple of minutes and punch it. I'm not sure if the its the head leaking or not. Do these motors have valve seals or not. Also the engine smell like it's running really, really rich. Tried leaning the carb out but no help. Any suggestions would be a great help.

Thanks,

 

I have taken a look at W heads on a 335 block also. Price Motorsports make adapters for about anything you want. Also make spacers for the wider 335 blocks with C heads (351M/400). The Ford SVO parts catalogs have several pages in back that talk about putting C on W (clevor) and putting W on C.

I have to disagree a little about the aftermarket W heads not flowing as well as the C's. Look at the flow figures for both, and it is clear that most all of the aftermarket W heads, including some with inline valves flow as well or better than the C heads. Some flow considerable better. The C heads all have very bad balance between the I and E ports. I have some of all, 2bbl C's, 4 bbl C's (70 mach I) and 351M/400 heads. That humongous intake port looks great, except that it severly necks down to a small opening just above the intake valve. Dosnt matter how much air that big opening will flow, it only flows what the small part will support. I dont have any W aftermarket heads, but have looked at many flow charts. While flow figures dont necessarily translate into HP, it is a damn good start!

To get anywhere close to the flow figures of W heads (aftermarket only) you have to put port plates/port fillers/turtles and etc on the C's which translates into $$$$$. There are some great looking aftermarket aluminum heads for the 335's. Unfortuneately, the available C blocks have the 9.2 DH and are limited in Cu Ins, unless you want a high RPM screamer not for the street. Those heads on a 400 block (see TMI) are very impressive to me. Thats what I would like to do, with the next available Roundtuit for my Mach I. We (me included) have to face the fact that the old C heads are very old technology. I dont claim to be an expert, so consider all this just my .02 and decide for yourself.

I am not making any opinions about which is best, or what works for your purpose, thats an individual preference. But, yes, most all things are possible-----$$$$$
LOL

 

I don't know what flow charts you are using but when we had my quench heads on the flow bench they were 300-302cfm intake and 225-230 exhaust at .600 with some port work but nothing crazy. I really don't know of many windsor heads that beat that. Heck my 2v heads with big valves and a lot of port work break 270cfm at .600. I have seen the pathetic flow numbers listed for the 4V heads at the carbedford.com site and wander if they didn't use the 4V heads from 73 with the 2V sized valves. You are totally right about the exhaust and intake imbalance with the C heads, there are some pretty extreme mods out there to correct this but aren't worth it todays aftermarket. You and easily beat a Cleveland or a Windsor with some of the after market that pretty much make a hybrid, not too up to date with all the stuff but the SVO blocks that use C main journals with windsor deck height and the Yates C style heads used to be the hot ticket.
-Johnboy

 

not picking on you Ben but you opened the door to an important point.

there's more proven technology through extensive R&D in those old heads than we'll EVER know. guys that are trying(max effort) are finding out that the new alloy 'stuffed as cast' heads WILL NOT perform as well as mildly prepped vintage iron heads. the new heads only perform to a certain level, and while they may 'improve' performance up to that level, they DO NOT equal or surpass old iron. an owner of one of the big alloy companies was asked for help on a forum that he posted to in determining why the alloy heads wouldn't perform as well as the old iron heads they replaced, the customer was ridiculed on the forum. no help was offered.

the large port volume serves a purpose, you hit on it about flowbenches, they don't tell the whole story. they only show what's going on with the valve wide open, but it's closed MOST of the time. the flow stops and restarts all day long, the large volume port is a big buffer zone that 'stores' the flow while the valve is closed.

there's a popular Cleveland forum with a thread on the topic on the front page right now if anyone's interested

 

Hope you understand that I was not "flaming" the old C heads, I have a 70's casting of both the 2 & 4 bbl. From all the information I have seen (I haven't done much to look at info on those heads in quite a while) information the makes me think the 2bbl heads are better for the street. I have a set of 2bbls that I have put hardened seats in the E side that are 1.71 size valves, hope I don't live to regret that. The fact that the boss 302's, 351C's and 429CJ & SCJ use almost exactly the same port is an indicator that 4bbl's are really too big for general street use----not that they dont work for that. Even on the 429/460's the big ports were thought to be too big for overall use.

It does doesn't take a wild alloy head to outflow the C's----on paper, and I understand that. Thats the first time I have heard the the theory about "storing" flow. That sounds reasonable to me. Apparently the large area serves as an "accumulator" for air, much the same as an accumulator on a long plumbing run. I would think (again, my .02) that the flow in the area before the intake becomes a considerably more positive pressure area when the valve closes and thereby is sitting under pressure for the next opening event and with more area of reserve air than a small port. That would be a built in "ram air" that would not show up as raw flow numbers---I wouldn't think.

I still wonder about the lighter alloy heads preforming better in most street use because of better velocity at lower rpm's and just what the margin is between the two.

The answer for the original post, with absolute performance aside, is that a good flowing set of 302 (351 because of head bolt size) W heads could be used on a 335 block. I surfed the Price Motorsports site (again for the 1k time ) and it appears that they make the adapters for the intakes. The SVO catalogs show how to do it, kinda the reverse of the Clevor heads fitment. I asked the same question a while back, and Tim (TMI---I think it was Tim) said that it was not a very easily done thing. Sure would be great if all the parts were available to adapt, because of all the W stuff available, headers etc. Believe me, I am not sad that the iron heads are possibly just as good, maybe better than the new alloy C heads-----they are all "purdy" to me . I am still not certain what I will put back into my 70 Mach, many choices except that it will not be a big block, nothing against them except extra weight.

 

no i didn't get any 'flame' vibe, it just seemed like an opportunity to throw the idea behind the extra-large port concept out there. not that i'm any kind of scientist... i picked up on the concept from others that know a whole lot more about it than i'll ever be able to grasp.

what's really amazing is that with all the new technology, nobody has been able to reproduce the power levels that Dyno Don and a few others were able to achieve with Ford castings.