[DeTomaso] Windsor or Cleveland question..

[Cullen McCann]

Thanks Jack. I also have a POCA newsletter your "stand" addressing this same issue in even more technical detail from sometime ago. I have read it as well when understanding the "ins and outs" of the consideration.

Thank you for the expertise you contribute here and in your writing.

Cullen




> On Sep 3, 2015, at 4:13 PM, Jack DeRyke via DeTomaso <detomaso at poca.com> wrote:
> 
>   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
> _______________________________________________
> 
> Detomaso Forum Managed by POCA
> Posted emails must not exceed 1.5 Megabytes
> DeTomaso mailing list
> DeTomaso at poca.com
> http://poca.com/mailman/listinfo/detomaso_poca.com
> 
> To manage your subscription (change email address, unsubscribe, etc.) use the links above.