There's not much in front of the passenger-side motor mount on a Cleveland, maybe an alternator if you choose to mount it in a low position (that's the adjustment bracket for the alternator on the green floor mat, right?). Is this where the interference with the
oil filter is? Admittedly, it's been many years since I ran a 351C, but I don't remember the
oil filter being on the passenger's side...but, then, yours is an Aussie block and maybe that was one of the differences, they might have switched the location of the
oil filter as they steer from the right side down under, right?
What mounts onto the angled bolt right in front of the motor mount? Suspension brace? Looks like it is made to accept a rubber doughnut fitting....
IMHO that's a nice, solid looking frame...very nice welds. I can see why the other posters say the finished product will be nice!
Did the Cleveland come with an intake? If not, consider Edelbrock's Air Gap. I was speaking with Jay Nordstrum at the TCC spring meet a few years ago and he mentioned that conventional wisdom would dictate that the added height of the Air Gap would move the torque/hp curve higher in the RPM range, but in actuality what happened was that the curve was just spread much better, resulting in better numbers in the lower RPM range as well.
Sadly, there is inadequate room in my engine bay for tahe added height of an Air Gap manifold. My dream engine would be to turn my current 5.0/302 into a Clevor with a set of quench chambered AFD's and one of Edelbrock's Clevor intake manifolds. The only problem would be the wholesale re-arrangement of the exhaust system...probably a deal-breaker at this point.
How about a photo of the Cleveland? I'm intrigued, would like to see how it came equipped. In a (hopefully) not too distant future, I'll be building a different car and will be modifying my Cobra to accept a Cleveland...like you, I had one in a '72 LTD/Galaxy and it ran circles around most of my friends' other Fords, not to mention the obvious "other brand". They were great motors.
Not much support out there for Celvelands in the Cobras, though...leaves one to source the things like headers in the custom market.
Looks like a great project....I'll be keeping up with it, for sure!
Cheers!
Dugly
