351 Windsor Swap

I was thinking that.

 

I'm not so sure about that on all of them. The one that is on the 460 in the motor home is about half as thick as a filter, and it has the oil cooling lines in the base of it. Since it is adjustable, the filter can be pointed up, down, or in between. Worth a look , anyway, and would be cheaper at Pull-A-Part than buying an aftermarket adapter. Trying to help on the budget!

 

Um, so I went and got my engine today... Heard it run, sounded great. Actually sounded rather cammy. No smoke, good oil pressure, no knocking or anything... Oil looked like honey, antifreeze looked good, so we pulled it and stuck it in my van.

Guy who sold it to me doesn't know its history. He bought the truck as parts for his '76. He already has a stout FE engine in it so he didn't care about the 351w. He just wanted the absurdly big front and rear differentials it has. (Yeah, about those... "79 pickup" is all I knew about what turned out to be "competition mud bogger with tractor tires")

So he's taking off the bigass tach, steering wheel, roll bars, etc, getting his diffs off it and scrapping the truck. Couldn't do any of that until he got the engine sold but his place is rather remote, so he didn't have a lot of interest. I saw his ad on Craiglist drop in price twice, till finally it was $350. I got it for $300.

He got it from a guy who was into mug bog racing. Sadly this guy's house burned down and he sold everything off. It was a complete truck, just didn't have any information on it.

I was only interested in the bottom end. Anything else might have is just a bonus. Well it's got a good carb, that's a bonus... Also I just opened up a valve cover and found this:



...I am now extremely anxious to see what else is in here.

I didn't dare hope it might have anything beyond a decent stock bottom end for that amount of money, but now the suspense is killing me! I've got to get this thing on an engine stand so I can open it up and check it out!

 

I hear ya on that, and I appreciate it. I will definitely have a look around for one of those. Gotta find an oil pan, AC bracket and a timing cover already, might as well at least look.

 

Alright, so, what are the thoughts on D80E heads?

...And these pistons? Anybody know what these are? They are marked ".060" so they wouldn't be original:



I'm thinking this is a large chambered head and that's a dished piston, yes? So, low compression. I can do something about that if I have to, but what have I got here?

 

Ok, engine is finally unloaded and on a stand. Pics later... I definitely don't want to get into the habit of it, but it's kinda cool to say, just once, that I hauled an engine out of a van and put it on a stand alone and without a hoist!

Now, I have got some serious cleaning to do... Serious. Have I mentioned yet that this engine came from a mud boggin' truck? It also had a nice valve cover leak. (I hate cork.) So you can imagine that's a great combo right there. What's gonna make this easier for me?

(Oh by the way, when I say "mud boggin' truck" I don't mean somebody's lifted pickup that they take offroad sometimes, I mean this:





The second and third trucks you see in this vid look just like what my engine came out of. Yeah it had tractor tires. My four year old son is extremely stoked about putting a "monster truck engine" in the Maverick.)

 

You are right, large chamber heads and dish pistons. Although they may not be as Dicshed as the stock pistons it is still probably pretty low comepression with those heads, and those heads have the same size valves as your 302 heads. Double check the casting number on your 302 heads but you probably have a smaller chamber on them and will be better off usung them.

So this motor is already bored .060. SOme will say thats too much for a daily friver and will have overheating issues, and may have head gasket issues with so little gasket material between the bores. I have also heard people say its not an issue and drive it everyday that way. Just have to try it for yourself i guess. But I would use some VERY GOOD head gaskets just to make sure it stays sealed between the bores.

 

I don't know for sure the casting number on my 302 heads, but I will be very surprised if you aren't right. They're in great shape, too. I will plan to use them unless a set of GT40's come falling out of the sky in the next couple of weeks. (Which, with my luck so far, could happen!)

Hey does that .060 overbore affect compression in any meaningful way?

I thought about that too. I do have a good sized aluminum radiator, but I also have AC. Even when it's not on there's the condenser in the way. My 302 runs a little hotter than I think it should when the temperature gets extreme, but then again my 302 is sick enough that I'm pulling it out, so that might have something to do with it. Snot in the oil and all that...

The way I see it, as long as I can keep it cool, (and with the right radiator and enough air going through it I will) then all the .060 overbore means to me is 1: When it's time for the next rebuild, this block is done. No big deal, I can accept that. And 2: If a 351 ci engine is good, then a 362 ci. is more gooder.

When you say a "very good" head gasket, what do you mean? Something like like this maybe? http://www.summitracing.com/parts/SCE-536084/

I notice these are available in a lot of bore sizes. What should I get there? The obvious answer would be 4.060" but something tells me I should ask anyway...

 

I used this compression ratio calculator and the larger bore INCREASED compression ratio. Probably due to taking in more air. http://www.crt-performance.com/compression.htm

For Gaskets I had Cometic on my mind when mentioning to use a good gasket. when I was dealing with the high poerformance import crowd they swore by these gaskets. They worked good for bored out 4 bangers with turbo chargers and crazy high cylinder pressure. But at $90 each they are pricey, http://www.summitracing.com/parts/CGT-C5512-040/?rtype=10

 

More questions. When I get my front sump oil pan I'll need to change the pickup tube too. I assume my 302 pickup tube will work. I assume my nice 1-piece 302 oil pan gasket will not.

And the plate that goes between the engine and trans... I have no reason to think I can't reuse that from the 302, am I wrong?

 

No surprise there. In fact I've been thinking, all other things being equal, assuming you have two engines that are identical in every way except one's a 302 and the other's a 351, the compression ratio in the 351 is going to be higher, maybe much higher. Guess I need to experiment with this and other calculators just to be sure I don't end up with an engine I can't run on pump gas.

I think with the small-chambered 302 heads and the overbore I'm going to be raising the compression quite a bit, but the dished pistons ought to put it back down to something reasonable. I should probably stop guessing though and get the numbers right, measure how much of a dish I have, etc.

 

The pick up tube will work on the 351 with the front sump pan. The One piece gasket will not, the 351 has a wider front and rear seal opening.

 

About these head gaskets... Thinner will get me more compression, but is a thinner gasket weaker and thus a bad idea for a .060" overbore?

 

May want to do the math and see what your compression ratio is going to be to decide if you want a thinner or thicker gasket. I don't think you need to be as worried with the compressed height of the gasket as a concern with the .060 bore. Especially if you are going with some form of Metal gasket. the cocern is more with the distance between bores which is why I would go with a meatal gasket if you want to run a high compression ratio.

 

This seems to be a simpler tool for compression ratio, or at least one that confuses me less: http://www.summitracing.com/expertadvice/popup.aspx?Control=CompressionCalculator

Very interesting stuff, playing with these numbers... If I assume a .045" gasket and 60cc chambers in my 302 heads, that puts my ratio at 10.11:1.

What do you think would be the upper limits of where I'd want my compression for running 93 octane gas?

Edit: That also assumes a 12cc dish, which is a big assumption. I actually haven't a clue how much of a dish that is nor how to measure it. I just saw that 12cc seems to be a common number and went with it. Will have to figure that out before I make my final plan.