351 Cleveland, good choice?

I am thinking of building my first supercharged engine for my next project. I have recently come across the opportunity to buy 4V open chamber Cleveland heads. I was thinking an engine with these heads would be a good choice(without going aftermarket) since they have huge ports and valves for a "small block" engine, and would take advantage of a forced air/fuel mixture. I thought that open chamber heads would be better for a blown motor to keep the compression ratio down, but I read that they were more prone to detonation As for the block, should I go with a Cleveland or a Windsor(Clevor)? I heard the Clevelands were stronger but had oiling issues. Any comments/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.


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I have a 351C in my 71 Pantera - no oiling issues at all - great engine. It pumps out about 550hp and is balanced/blueprinted. Holley 4b. high rise & headers. It does 60 mph in 3 sec. Bulletproof.....

The 351 Cleveland is a work horse engine. The 351 Windsor is one of my favorite Ford engines, but is a completely different animal from the 351C. The 351 W is in the family of windsors like the 302 and 289. In fact the heads on a 351W will fit a 302 or 289 motor but not a Cleveland. Parts from the Cleveland, including the heads you have will not fit on a 351W engine. The parts and aftermarket parts are readily easier to find for the 351W engine versus the Cleveland. There isn't much that is interchangeable between the two engines. I would check on the availablilty of parts you want to use and prices for making the Supercharged motor come to life with the Cleveland. Clevelands are not cheap to rebuild. I love the Cleveland motors and their overall design, however you can't beat the 351W for performance, reliability and cost effectiveness per horsepower as well.

Actually the Cleveland heads will fit on a Windsor block with some modifications to the water passages, which is basically called a Clevor engine or a mock Boss. The 302 Boss was basically a Windsor block with Cleveland style heads.

I love Panteras! I suppose yours is a four bolt main block. I was wondering if the more common 2 bolt block would widstand forced induction.

Yes, one helluva car - and is still quite popular but not many around. Crash 'em and the car (or you) is done. I am not an engineer, but a buddy of mine mentioned the 4 bolt is necessary for such induction. BTW, his had a twin turbo set up with Nitrus making 1100 hp.

Ok, thanks for the info. I believe the 2 bolt main blocks can be retrofitted to four bolts. I think I read that somewhere.

My pleasure.....

The Cleveland is a very strong running motor . I know of 2 guys that use them for drag racing and they are very happy with them . Haven't had any problems and the one guy is gettting around 800 HP now ! You will be very happy with the Cleveland and they can be one mean power house !
Good luck and keep us posted on how it turns out for you .

You are correct in stating that the Cleveland heads will fit on the Windsor. And yes the Boss 302 was designed after that. The problem is you need machine work as mentioned and finding an intake manifold that will work. In this case, the poster wants to use a Blower Supercharger setup. It can be done, but it may require a bail out of your saving account balance.

I went down this same road months ago. Had a Cleveland, built it (longblock) then started listening to everyone tell me the W motor was better. Then I started my own research and started talking to many people outside my immediate circle to really find out what was up. Bottom line, I found out Clevelands are good motors. They're a different beast, but the W motor is hands down better motor from what I found in my own research. Cleveland is a buzz word..buzz word.

I ended up selling the cleveland for Wayyyyy more than I had into it because it was a buzz word and someone had to have it.. and am now building a nice aluminum headed 351W. I just remembered the header issue. I could not find a header for my application..

Ok im sure some of are not going to like this but, I drag clevelands for a few years and here is your answer.
The rods are too short, creating too much side force on the cylinder walls, the oiling system is bad, this is why high horsepower Clevelands use solid lifter camshafts, so you can use oil restricters in the lifter gallys, (forcing more oil to the mains) additionally, a oil line from the front of the engine to the rear (forcing oil in from both directions) is recomended but still will not fix the problem of bad design. The 4v heads seem to be a dream come true but are actually a problem as they are too large to develop any port velocity leaving you with no torque and only work for you after about 6000 rpm which is why any fast Clevland has a standard trans, (I beleive the boss 302 only came in standard trans because it would be a turd with a automatic). These are only some of the problems with a high horse clevland. True, I never ran a supercharged one but I have had 500+ hp. ones. you have to run them between 6000 and 8500 rpm to make real hp. and thats where the motor just does not have the design to last.
Save yourself a lot of grief, go with a windsor bottom end. Sorry but I agree with the nay sayers.

Wow, very well said. Like I mentioned, I prefer the 351W engine as well. I understand exactly what Spanky is talking about here with the Cleveland and he's right. I had the opportunity to work summer vacations, while still in school, at Ed Pink Racing engines in Van Nuys, CA (many moons ago). We use to work with primarily big blocks but did our share of 351 Clevelands. Not so much for drag racing purposes but for speed boat use. Boat racers enjoyed the top end performance and power of the Cleveland at high RPM's. Racers that were die hard Ford usually changed from the 351C for a big block such as the 428/ 429 and even the 460 which at that time was the engine of choice. For the street rodders who just enjoyed the weekend street racing scene, their choice was the 302 (mustangs) and the 351W. Both of those engines ran hard and held together when put together correctly. I also recall that the Cleveland did have problems with oiling issues and usually had a high volume pump put in to compensate, but never really did the job. Clevelands do run strong at 6000 RPM. Like Spanky mentioned, The Cleveland lacked torque off the line so often racers would run some low gearing in the rearend or put the manual transmission behind the engine to utilize the top end performance.

Thanks for the replies. Sounds like I should go with a Windsor block. Maybe I should just bite the bullet and invest in a set of aftermarket aluminum Windsor heads. I just thought the big ports/valves 4V Cleveland heads would come alive with forced induction.

Reading through all the posts, I began to wonder that myself. I had a friend who ran a Cleveland in a 67 Vette (yes, that is what I said). He was class racing (D altered IIRC), so living with the shortcomings was offset with the overall performance of the package. The thing he always lamented was that you had to have the revs in the trees for the heads to work. Forced induction might just allow the heads to work at lower rpm's. In the end, it is your money. Can you afford to experiment and let the rest of us know if it worked? If I had the cash, I think I would try a Clevor. Just my $0.02.