351 yes or no

BrentSC

Registered User
my sc motor is giving me nothng but trouble and i have a 351ci ford cleveland motor i can get my hands onto. do you guys think it would be a hell of a job to get it done or should i just look into rebuilding the 3.8L. i dont know if theres alot of guys who have attempted the 351.. im wondeirng if it would weigh the front end down or result in poor handleing. and what i would need to do in order for this engine to fit properly into the engine bay of the 90' tbird sc. thanks

brent
 
do a search for 392bird he put a 351 windsor in his I have a 351w/408 cubic incher in my 94 cougar....dont know about the cleveland swap though
 
4-v cleavlands are beasts.. a 400M with 4-v 351c heads and a performer RPM Intake/Cam/Carb combo is crazy! Why do i know this?? because i did it to a truck and it was absolutely pissed off... 400m's are a dime a dozen because stock they suck a** thanks to retarded timming and low compression heads.. 4-v cleavland heads solve the problem and so does a 351c timming set.
 
Go with a 351 Windsor instead of the cleveland it will be a lot cheaper to build/maintain and parts are readily available. Also lots of performance stuff available pretty cheap.
 
A 351C will fit in your SC but you will need to customize a few things to make it work. You"ll need to get a 351C swap fox body oil pan, then because of the increaded oil capacity you'll likely have to modify the kmember. Also headers for a Cleveland will be hard to find. What you will have to do there is go through the small selection of 351C swap headers for a fox body and see which one fits the best then do the steering shaft mod.

A 351C would be 100x more unique then the windsor but it will take alot more effort to make the cleveland work then the windsor will. Like everyone has already said parts are tons cheaper for the windsor and are more plentiful then the cleveland so decide wisely.

Good luck!

Shane

PS, in the long run it would probably be cheaper to just rebuild the V6 then do the V8 swap. Plus you'll be driving the car again sooner with staying with the V6 but the V8 sounds so much more cooler then the V6 ever will. I know from experience :D
 
clevland all the way. i have one with the 4V heads in my basement waiting for a car to go into. if it was me id do it just becasue everyone else says not to.

everyones got a windsor go clevland.
 
cleveland. If you allready have the parts and knowledge. Other wise the460. Ther fox swap parts are just about all you need.
 
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i could get a 351W because i know where one of those are.. is there alot less screwing around with the 351W is there still an oil pan issue??? it wont mount up to the stock tranny in a SC will it???? im thinking of doing the 351w because the clevland sounds like a crap load of work.
 
The 351w and 351c both have the typical sbf bolt pattern so they will both work with your stock SC transmission. The 351m and 400m both have the big block bolt pattern so stay away from either of those.

If you go with a 351w you will still have to buy an oil pan for it. If you buy the fox swap pan from Ford Racing you should not have to mod the kmember since its based off the factory 5.0L pan.

Shane
 
Yea Shane but its based off the fox-body K-member not the mn-12 K-member so modification to the Kmember might still be neccessary ...I used a moroso 351W swap pan I modified to work with the thunderbird kmember Ive heard you can use a 351 bronco oilpan and it fits fine no mods required.
 
Yea Shane but its based off the fox-body K-member not the mn-12 K-member so modification to the Kmember might still be neccessary ...I used a moroso 351W swap pan I modified to work with the thunderbird kmember Ive heard you can use a 351 bronco oilpan and it fits fine no mods required.

The fox 5.0L pan is the exact same pan as whats used in the MN12 5.0L cars so.... At most he would have to dimple his kmember to make it clear. Hell I am running a moroso 7 quart pan on my 5.0L and all it needed was a small dimple in the front of the kmember near where the rack pops through the kmember.

Shane
 
The aftermarket for the 351C has come a long way thanks to the efforts coming out of Australia where it is popular. Aluminum heads are now offerred by a handful of suppliers, timing chains, cams, intakes, headers etc. are easy to come by. A 351C will stock for stock chew a windsor a new assshole.

The 351W based parts are cheaper and so a plentiful as you need to throw a fair amount of those parts at one to equal the performance of a stock C. The cleveland is a small block with big block heads and intake. Built properly, they can make huge power with little investment in parts and bucks. So the added cost of parts is outweighed by the requirement of fewer of them.

The C is also a short deck block vs the Windsor taller deck. This would make less issue with hood clearance.
 
The fox 5.0L pan is the exact same pan as whats used in the MN12 5.0L cars so.... At most he would have to dimple his kmember to make it clear. Hell I am running a moroso 7 quart pan on my 5.0L and all it needed was a small dimple in the front of the kmember near where the rack pops through the kmember.

Shane

Damn Shane thats some useful info I coulda used you a long time ago
when I swapped a 351W in my cougar:) I used a ford bronco 351W pan and it fit without Kmember mods
 
With a 351W, the aftermarket is much better. Adding the Vortech YSi to mine was one of the easiest parts of the whole project.

belton4.jpg


This is the last power mod to the car.
 
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