Building a 351

[sandbum01]

I want to build a 351 for a 1450 truck I am building. Where should I start. I am pretty set on making it a 393 stroker. But I don't know the little tricks to do as far as work on the block and what parts work well with other parts. Also don't know if I want to do a standalone fuel injection system or just go with the old carb setup.

[Ziggy]

Whats your budget?I just finished a 351w with 500hp for my truck.You can get cheap HO or reliable HP but its tough to get both.

[Prerunin554]

What BHP range are you looking for? Are you looking for an engine that will last 100k miles or one season? Also, with the question of "where do I start?", I am guessing you have never built an engine in any way before. If you tear your engine down right now, make sure you mark every part you take off. Its not a good feeling when you have a hand full of "mystery" bolts and everything is together. =)

With carb vs EFI, carbs can be thought of as old reliable, while fuel injection might take some time to dial in.

[sandbum01]

Not extremelly woried about the cost I know it's going to be expensive to get power and reliability. I want power but I also don't want to be tuning constantly or rebuilding every year. I would sacrafice a little power for that. I have expierience building motor cycle engines jet ski engines and volkswagons and other smaller engines but this will be my first V8.

[OFFRD-JNKIE]

Save yourself some bucks and build a chevy...... Easier to find parts for if you break away from home ford motor parts are specific to the engine for example 351 windsor uses different parts that a cleveland. Where as if you build a chevy alot of the parts are universal whether its a 305 or a 383... just my .02

[Bajajt12]

We built a 351 for my Bronco prerunner, it is not a stroker, but is .30 over we used a Edelebrock Power kit and a Edlebrock 750 cfm carb.

It makes 290 hp at the rear wheels, which are 37 projects (read heavy) which equates to about 400 or so at the crank.

Makes real hp between 4000 and 5500, make good torque below 4000, runs on 87 with no ping.

I have about $4500 in the motor. I thought about strokeing it but felt like the cost (say another $3000) was to much.

If you are going to pay that much, just buy a Ford crate motor, or maybe a ATK crate motor.

[partybarge_pilot]

Save yourself some bucks and build a chevy...... Easier to find parts for if you break away from home ford motor parts are specific to the engine for example 351 windsor uses different parts that a cleveland. Where as if you build a chevy alot of the parts are universal whether its a 305 or a 383... just my .02

That may have been true 10 years ago, but the industry has come a long way since then. There are almost as many aftermarket parts for the 351W as there are for the SBC. Price is pretty comparable also. 351C is a dieing breed.

Common parts? you can swap as many parts between a 351W and a 351C as you can between a 283SBC and a 400SBC.......

[spankdog]

That may have been true 10 years ago, but the industry has come a long way since then. There are almost as many aftermarket parts for the 351W as there are for the SBC. Price is pretty comparable also. 351C is a dieing breed.

Common parts? you can swap as many parts between a 351W and a 351C as you can between a 283SBC and a 400SBC.......
Really? 351C is a different engine family than the 351W. 351C is closer to the 351M and 400 than it is to the Windsor. I cant really think of anything that would swap between the two. Block, heads, manifolds, cranks, balancers,.... all different. What parts do you know of that will interchange between the C and W? The stroke might be the same but Im pretty sure the journals are different sizes also. School me if Im wrong. 302s and 351Ws can share the same heads as well as 429 and 460s. Im coming up blank though on what swaps between the c and W. Maybe the dizzy.

[partybarge_pilot]

Ever hear of a Boss302/351? C heads on a W block from the factory. The Neckcar motors of today are more closely related to this motor than any other production Ford motor.

[Steven_Tolbert]

Well if cost is not an issue, buy a Dart or world block, egale rotating assembly etc........I would, I think that is how most of the engine builders do it.

[spankdog]

Ever hear of a Boss302/351? C heads on a W block from the factory. The Neckcar motors of today are more closely related to this motor than any other production Ford motor.
Ok. I did some research. The Boss 351 and the 351-C 4V heads are "almost" identical. Thats it. Straight from a book called Ford Performance by Pat Ganahl, "The Cleveland engine is obviously an outgrowth of the 90 degree V small block line (289, 302, 351W) but very few parts interchange between the two families"

[bajaruner11]

There is not a lot of magic in building a 393W from a 351.
Using a stock truck 351w block, and a 3.850" stroke crank is almost a bolt in deal, just a little and I mean little clearance work
below the oil pump mounting pad to clear one of the rod bolts and it's in.
The $$ spent are up to you, the needed $$ spent will be dictated by your driving habits and the size of your right foot. For a
serious race car a Ford motorsports SVO 4 bolt block will be a must, but for a hard core pre-runner/1450 truck a 2 bolt truck block that has been
fully studded on the main line and heads, and running a main stud girdle will get the job done just fine and be reliable too, again $$ a SVO block runs about
$3300 once machined, their $2400.00 raw + shipping. None of the aftermarket blocks (Dart, World, or Ford) come ready to run, you have to finish size and square up everything so there is a lot of unseen machine work that needs to be done before you can use it.
So back to the stock blocks, there are a couple issues with the factory block, one of course is it not as beefy as say a SVO block, ( I prefer the SVO blocks over dart or world)
however for your application I don't see that begin a big problem. Another issue is the 3" main journals on the crank,
their large and have a lot of surface area that makes heat, and increases oil temp. Also due to the size of the journal your dealing with higher bearing speeds, not ideal in an all out race
engine. The SVO blocks use the Cleavland journal that's smaller at 2.750", but like I said I don't see this being an issue with your engine because of the stroker crank
your rev limit will be about 6000rpm and that's fine for the 3" journal when set up properly.
If you do decide to go with a stock block, you will want to start with a clean used standard bore block and bore it .020" over, that will give you one more rebuild to go on after that, stock blocks are only good to .040" oversize on the bore.
Keep the silt out of it and the bores last a long time, I generally get 4000 hard race miles out of a bore before needing to go oversize. With no serious tragadies your looking at least 8000 race miles from one block. Not bad IMO.
You will need a good rotating assembly, I have had excellent luck with Eagle, others may say Scat. I have used both and Eagle is my
preference for various reasons, their cranks and rods have worked well for me, no failures thus far and they balance much better than the Scat
cranks.
As for the rest of your combo it's going to be based on your final decision of engine size so that can be covered when you get there, there are
a lot of options on heads, cams and intakes, maybe you already have something in mind?
Out of the box the Aluminum Ford GT-40 turbo swirl head is a great bang for the buck, with that crank they can support right about 485hp on 91 pump fuel.
However to obtain that much HP you will need a mechanical roller cam so the valves, springs and retainers will need to be upgraded, more $$.
Another option is to run a hydraulic roller cam and settle for about 420hp, this way you can run the heads as they are out of the box.
It's all in the $$.
A properly tuned carb that has been setup for offroad can be a real pleasure to drive and tune, on the other hand a properly set up fuel injection
system can be a real pleasure to drive but generally a PITA to tune. For the $$ a good carb is hard to beat IMO, you just need to know how to make it
work in the dirt.
You can plan on about $10,000 + or - a little (usually +) in parts and machine work depending on your final decision for the engine combo.
That's from carb to oil pan and water pump to flexplate based on a stock block (SVO block more $$). Sure you can spend less, but the HP and reliability go down with it.
You may call me crazy now, but that is what it adds up to in the end unless you have a lot of good used parts to recycle into the new engine.

When it comes to engines you can only pic two: Cheap-Fast-Reliable.
Hope this helps you out a little.

P.S. I just read your other thread, sounds like your pretty serious about this. Stick with the SVO block, run a mechanical roller cam, drop a set of AFR heads on it, run the Eagle rotating assembly, and your looking at an easy 500+ hp on pump fuel.

[Scooterinvegas]

bajaruner11, Its nice to read something from someone that knows what he is talking about with out sounding like its coming from a jerk! Nice post... A+