Here we go!

[cobrafx]

Hello all, looks like I will be the happy recipient of one of these awesome vehicles! Gonna go get it on the opposite coast and bring it to TN. The build stalled and I am not sure it current condition but it will be in MY garage soon. Still not sure how I am lucky enough but it is happening. I will post pictures at the end of the month when I get it home and almost CERTAINLY stupid questions so please go easy on me hahahaha. Looking forward to this venture!!
Jaime

[Fritz]

Hi Jaime

It's certainly going to be an exciting project. I'm still working on mine now, and it's always been fun. There are a lot of really knowledgeable people on this site who have been very helpful to me. No one has told me I had a stupid question yet. It's better to ask than to mess something up because you didn't ask.

Good luck!

[WardL]

I thought Tennessee was the middle of the country. What do you consider the opposite coast? What did you get? You have to update your profile so everyone knows! These Cobras are so much fun!

[cobrafx]

Ok, so it is in the middle...haha....still a long way to WA state. Anyway, it is finally safely parked in my garage. Has a healthy Aussie based 351C, quench heads and stroked. Gonna need to figure out a pedal assy for the Tremec TKO and headers. Any help in these areas would definately be appreciated. Well, off to make a list and a plan of attack. Looking forward to spending time with yall.
Jaime

[YerDugliness]

Originally Posted by cobrafx

Has a healthy Aussie based 351C, quench heads and stroked.
Jaime

Hi, Jamie! I've been following your other posts and am intrigued by your "Aussie" 351C.

The Aussies had the 351C much longer than we did here in the U.S., so they have various versions. One was the 351C with the 2V size quench heads (ports and valves were nowhere near as large as the factory 4V size ports and valves, so it had better street manners), MUCH better heads for the 351C than our U.S. open chambered heads. The other Cleveland they had was a 302C...based on the 351C block with a shorter stroke and longer rods.

I'm curious about yours....if you have a way to contact your friend (and what a GREAT friend he must be...very generous! ), would you ask him if it is an Aussie block or not? It could very well be a U.S. block with a set of Aussie iron 2V quench chambered heads...maybe even a set of aftermarket 2V alloy heads. If it is a STROKED 351C, most likely it will be a 393 CID or perhaps a 408 CID....big cubes=BIG torque, and b/c of the canted valve arrangement the torque is more firmly placed in the power range appropriate for street use than a Windsor headed engine.

In case you need info or parts for the Cleveland, here are the go-to guys:

Aus Ford Parts - Aussie 351 Cleveland Specialists

They occasionally have the iron 351C-2V quench chamber heads in stock, but the last time I spoke with them they said that by the time you have them reworked with new valves, guides, springs, retainers and seats you are very close to the cost of their AFD aluminum heads....they have also occasionally had the 351C Aussie blocks in stock...reportedly they have a higher nickel content, IIRC....maybe (?) even thicker cyllinder walls, which would be a great idea for the Cleveland, as it is very finicky about overbores.

Unless you want to use the car specifically for racing, I'd stay away from the 351C-4V heads...too much volume, not enough intake charge velocity, they are real pigs until you get them up to about 4K, at which point you'd better be strapped in!

This sounds like a great build....I don't know if you've seen this thread or not, but there's a guy in FL who has the CMC/Street Beasts toolings, if you have any missing parts he might be the best guy to contact (although if I understand it correctly, he only has the molds/jigs, etc, he has never mentioned parts).

Streetbeast Tooling

Good luck.....please keep posting on this one, it sounds like a great gift.

Cheers!

Dugly

[cobrafx]

ALL Aussie! High nickel block and quench heads...ported and polished. Its has cool finned valve covers over roller rockers. I have so REAL Boss 302 valve covers on a shelf too. Snatched the engine out figure out the TKO mating. Clutch is the biggest hurdle. Might just go with the cable since the pedal mount is out of a fox mustang. Hydraulic would be nice but guess I should get the thing running first. Gotta figure out if the engine frame mounts are in the right place. I dont think they are. But what do I know.....Thanks for the link and the help.
Jaime

[cobrafx]

Oh, and I am a SUCKER for the Clevelands ever since I had one in the Mach 1.

[cobrafx]

Here is a pic of where the right front motor frame mount is currently located. The inner fenderwell has recesses molded in them for the bolt heads. Only two have the clearance. So its either use the rear holes in the brackets or the front and drill two in the frame. has anyone done or experienced this style of frame mount? I believe the car to be a CNC, based on replies from the kind folk here.

[YerDugliness]

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

[YerDugliness]

Originally Posted by cobrafx

Here is a pic of where the right front motor frame mount is currently located. The inner fenderwell has recesses molded in them for the bolt heads. Only two have the clearance. So its either use the rear holes in the brackets or the front and drill two in the frame.

Jamie, are the motor mounts suppose to be welded on after you locate them with the bolts? You mention front and rear holes, so I am assuming the other two holes are obscured right now by the frame horn, am I right? It's difficult to understand if they are held in place by two bolts each, or with four bolts each, as I don't see holes in the frame for the bolts that would go through the unused holes in the frame-horn bracket location in the photo.

How about this....remove the motor mounts and switch sides with them. This might give you a more rearward mounting position for the engine mounts without having to drill and tap more holes in the frame.

Just an idea....hard to tell from photos, but let us know what you think about whether or not it might work....

My frame horns are very different from yours, so pics of mine won't help.

Cheers!

Doug

[cobrafx]

The oil filter is indeed on the left side as any other. I just had better light for the pic taking a view of the pass side. I can get one of the dvr side and post it. hahahaha....I actually was gonna snap a pic of the engine but it has a REALLY ugly looking bellhousing on it and didnt want to do it the injustice. As I was looking at the picture I came up with the same idea..to swap sides since there is an angle along the top of the mount that would probably match the down angle of the frame rail. Yes, the mustang2 front end that is on it has the strut rods mount to the angle bracket you mentioned. The frame mount has 4 slotted holes in it. It is currently only attached with two as I want to make damn sure they are in the right spot before I drill two more holes in the frame rails. Oh, and yes, that is the alt bracket on the floor. After I take the bellhousing off and blast it clean I will take some more pics. I very much appreciate you following the progress....If you see me doing something stupid PLEASE tell me!!
Thanks
Jaime

[cobrafx]

hahahaha....I also had '72 LTD with a Cleveland! Did a stock rebuild and installed a 506 Lift 290 dur cam that would just come to life after2500 rpm. I surprised ALOT of guys in that 4 door LTD! Oh, the engine has a Weiand inatke on it. It has Ford Motorsport alum fined valve covers but also had the valve covers provided by the people that did the porting job....Powerheads cnc ported. Stuck my finger in an exhaust port and felt around.....oooooooo feels niiiiice!
Jaime

[Jaydee]

I had a 78 LTD with the Rolls Royce grill, with a 351C. I still have the engine and trans in my shed, waiting to find a home. But they are to wide to fit my Cobra. Also pre emmisions. Great engines.
JD

[YerDugliness]

Originally Posted by cobrafx

hahahaha....I also had '72 LTD with a Cleveland! Did a stock rebuild and installed a 506 Lift 290 dur cam that would just come to life after2500 rpm. I surprised ALOT of guys in that 4 door LTD!
Jaime

I stuffed the 351C from my 1972 Ford LTD into a 1971 Mercury Comet GT, essentially the same car as the Ford Maverick. It required a 12-piece set of headers in which the rearmost two pipes on each side ran across to the other side of the engine and exited through the exhaust pipe on the opposite side...sort of like a set of "bundle of snakes" headers on a GT40. I used a Crane Fireball cam with specs similar to yours, but used a set of Rhoads "bleed-down" hydraulic lifters (at low RPM's the lifters didn't fill completely with oil, thereby reducing not only the effective lift, but also the effective duration) to give the engine good low-end torque, so mine grunted very well from an idle and once the engine was up to 2,000 RPM the lifters were fully pumped up, so the top end was great, too. Yeah, I surprised a lot of guys with that Comet GT, too.....until some dopehead ran into it on BOTH front fenders as it sat in the lot at a body shop waiting for the doors to be reskinned and the car to be painted...that was the end of that one !

Originally Posted by Jaydee

I had a 78 LTD with the Rolls Royce grill, with a 351C. I still have the engine and trans in my shed, waiting to find a home. But they are to wide to fit my Cobra. Also pre emmisions. Great engines.
JD

Jaydee, are you sure it was a 351C? The reason I ask is that the last of the Clevelands was the Q-code "HO" engine and that was discontinued with the 74 model. That engine was a disaster, the large valves and ports of the 351C-4V with an incredibly low compression ratio and open-chamber heads. I drove a 74 Torino with one and it was a REAL PIG, my 351C-2V would have been in the traps before that car ever made the 1/8 mile mark. It had no low-end torque and took FOREVER to accelerate to 60...I bet 10 seconds. What you had in your 78 might have been a 351M...one of the 335 series of Ford engines, but a bit wider (it had a higher deck, and used the bellhousing pattern from the 429-460 Ford/385 series engines. There was a 400M, too. At the time I was driving the big Ford, they were considered to be useful for little more than boat motors, but recently they have been kicking some serious arse in the Popular Hot Rod Engine Masters series....glad to see them getting the respect they deserved. They were large, heavy, and much WIDER than the 351C, though....most 351C engines will fit into most Cobra replicas, the 351M/400m engines, not so much. Here's the Wikipedia info on the 335 engine line:

Ford 335 engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I still have a Cleveland block and two cranks sitting in my garage, along with 4 of the open-chambered 2V heads (which will NEVER get used with the current crop of closed chambered heads available).

Jamie, you mentioned the Cleveland was stroked....do you know what the eventual displacement would have been? I mentioned the two common stroker kits, but an overbore could have added a few CID, too.

Now, my dream engine would be a 427CID Windsor block with Cleveland heads...the "Clevor" combination. For some reason nobody that I know of has managed to stroke the Cleveland to 427CID, that "magic" number. The Windsor, though, has been done many times at 427CID.....and the Windsor engine has the priority oil delivery system that keeps the mains alive at high RPM's, the oiling system was always the Cleveland's "Achilles Heel".

Cheers, guys!

Dugly

[RedEye]

I see you too have a Streetbeast frame. IF you're able I would encourage you check the welds, we found a number of them to be cracked, lacking penetration, or cold welded. When we grinded them out, it was worse. Anyhow, it's otherwise a nice strong setup.

[cobrafx]

Originally Posted by RedEye

I see you too have a Streetbeast frame. IF you're able I would encourage you check the welds, we found a number of them to be cracked, lacking penetration, or cold welded. When we grinded them out, it was worse. Anyhow, it's otherwise a nice strong setup.

Woo! Wouldnt happen to have a pic of where the frame mounts are do ya??!
Jaime

no idea how stroked the thing is.