[DeTomaso] Windsor or Cleveland question..

[jderyke at aol.com]

 Decades ago -this question comes up faithfully every few years since the late '70s- I weighed a bare-block Cleveland WITH 4-bolt main caps & their 15 bolts and got 155 lbs on my repurposed bathroom scales. Then I weighed a bare-block Windsor with its ten 2-bolt main caps & bolts but without the 5 lb die-cast front cover, and got... 155 lbs. These were both production blocks, not racing blocks. But before buying a 'race' block, Google 'Dart Block Cracking' for an education on what's going on in the Mustang community. Windsor front covers can be converted to use easier-to-service Cleveland front main seals.  Avaid now sells a good oil pan that fits the Windsor block design and also fits in the Pantera's close set frame rails. The conversion from small-valve Windsor heads to 4-V Cleveland heads is well documented on Ford's own site and hundreds have been done. The water hookup often uses a Ford system (which may no longer be sold but not hard to fabricate) and they occasionally turn up on E-Bay or at swap-meets. Finally, using Cleveland heads on a taller, wider Windsor block will require exhaust headers speciific to the Cle-vor design if the engine is intended for a Pantera. Gas tank clearance is the main issue, as is hard contact with the rear coil-overs in some Cleveland/Pantera header-collector designs.

The once-popular iron 2-V Aussie 302-Cleveland closed chamber heads seem to have sort of disappered lately- probably due to the easy availability of aluminum Cleveland-style heads. OEM 4-V valves & ports are really too big for good street running.... in a 351 cubic inch engine. But in a stroker, they really wake up and improve their street manners. Just be careful of 'cheap' aluminum heads for Clevelands. The far-east foundaries seem to have not only stolen the core-box casting designs from their Aussie (and other) customers, they've sold copies to other places and now if you look, you can find aluminum racing heads that have combustion chamber features of one design with ports and other things from someone else's design. Some of this actually went on during the time the Chinese foundarys were casting the original batches of heads for their 'customers'! Business ethics is apparently a western-only concept! Porosity, aluminum of unknown properties (shown by Brinnell hardness testing), cheap valve seats impropertly pressed in and general poor finishing of the assemblies are 'features' of cut-rate heads. Mom-and-pop engine shops the world over also somehow get ahold of rejected castings with all the proper markings, finish them off instead of scrapping them and sell them as originals. Some of these actually turn out OK while others are definitely NOT!  Remenber, 'Caveat Emptor' and 'Google Is Your Friend' before buying!
J DeRyke

 

 



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   Decades ago -this question comes up faithfully every few years since
   the late '70s- I weighed a bare-block Cleveland WITH 4-bolt main caps &
   their 15 bolts and got 155 lbs on my repurposed bathroom scales. Then I
   weighed a bare-block Windsor with its ten 2-bolt main caps & bolts but
   without the 5 lb die-cast front cover, and got... 155 lbs. These were
   both production blocks, not racing blocks. But before buying a 'race'
   block, Google 'Dart Block Cracking' for an education on what's going on
   in the Mustang community. Windsor front covers can be converted to use
   easier-to-service Cleveland front main seals.  Avaid now sells a good
   oil pan that fits the Windsor block design and also fits in the
   Pantera's close set frame rails. The conversion from small-valve
   Windsor heads to 4-V Cleveland heads is well documented on Ford's own
   site and hundreds have been done. The water hookup often uses a Ford
   system (which may no longer be sold but not hard to fabricate) and they
   occasionally turn up on E-Bay or at swap-meets. Finally, using
   Cleveland heads on a taller, wider Windsor block will require exhaust
   headers speciific to the Cle-vor design if the engine is intended for a
   Pantera. Gas tank clearance is the main issue, as is hard contact with
   the rear coil-overs in some Cleveland/Pantera header-collector designs.
   The once-popular iron 2-V Aussie 302-Cleveland closed chamber heads
   seem to have sort of disappered lately- probably due to the easy
   availability of aluminum Cleveland-style heads. OEM 4-V valves & ports
   are really too big for good street running.... in a 351 cubic inch
   engine. But in a stroker, they really wake up and improve their street
   manners. Just be careful of 'cheap' aluminum heads for Clevelands. The
   far-east foundaries seem to have not only stolen the core-box casting
   designs from their Aussie (and other) customers, they've sold copies to
   other places and now if you look, you can find aluminum racing heads
   that have combustion chamber features of one design with ports and
   other things from someone else's design. Some of this actually went on
   during the time the Chinese foundarys were casting the original batches
   of heads for their 'customers'! Business ethics is apparently a
   western-only concept! Porosity, aluminum of unknown properties (shown
   by Brinnell hardness testing), cheap valve seats impropertly pressed in
   and general poor finishing of the assemblies are 'features' of cut-rate
   heads. Mom-and-pop engine shops the world over also somehow get ahold
   of rejected castings with all the proper markings, finish them off
   instead of scrapping them and sell them as originals. Some of these
   actually turn out OK while others are definitely NOT!  Remenber,
   'Caveat Emptor' and 'Google Is Your Friend' before buying!
   J DeRyke