Alloys heads for Cleveland

[Adrian472]

My friend is looking for Alloy heads to use on a cleveland block, is there anything available? He not sure if he will be stroking to 408 or not.
Adrian

[cobrashoch]

Adrian472 - We often talk about what it takes to make Cleveland heads work on a Windsor block, but we really do forget that it works the other way too. The answer is most aftermarket Windsor heads will also work on a Cleveland or even a Modified for that matter. Make sure that you have the right head gaskets for such a swap, and remember that it will take custom pushrods. Some of those aftermarket Windsor heads have Cleveland cues on them, and those heads tend to test the limits of what is practical. Witness the Blue Thunder heads. As in all things, let the buyer beware.
cobrashock

[RACER X #99]

I don't think Windsor heads will work on a Cleveland Block the Cleveland has a deck height of 9.2 and the Windsor is 9.5 however aftermarket heads are available for the Cleveland from Ford Motorsports with the Yates head and also Brodix makes a Cleveland style head. They're may be others.
For all out performance the Cleveland style aftermarket head outperforms the Windsor aftermarket head.
If your building from scratch start with a Windsor block(much better oiling system) The Windsor Block with Cleveland style heads is what is used in Nascar.

RD

[Adrian472]

thanks guys, its not for me its a friend who is rebuilding his mustang engine and wanted alloy heads, but i have just found out after a little research that edelbrock are offering alloy cleveland heads shortly and air gap intakes.
thanks
Adrian

[John A. Simpson]

Adrian

There is a new alloy head available called the 3V (I think) it has the port size of the 2V heads but outflows the old 4V heads. I saw them in a magazine a while back, maybe you can find them with a search. sorry I can't give more info.

John

[rdorman]

I know AFR makes one and Edelbrock is supposed to have one out soon. There is a company that makes a double over head, four valve per cylinder head for the cleveland block!

Remember, they may have only been made < four years here but down under they made them until 80 or so. The Aussies love the cleveland!

Rick

[Jack21]

The Aussie C3V Cleveland aluminum heads are imported here. Check chiheads.com.

[ruslow]

yes there are some aluim aussie heads here in the states.or you can order them direct from the manufacture,there.IF I remember rite they are rite at 2g's for the bare set.Edelbrock is coming put with a set to that are very close to the aussie but don't know on price.Stan

[grego37]

For the best heads money can buy, look into the Blue Thunder Heads

[Burnd]

The aussies are ahead of us in Clevelands and Jack21 is offering the best of the best suggestion regarding 351C's. Gregro is right that Blue Thunder makes good stuff, but CHI specializes in Cleveland research and you will get the most bang for the buck with CHI's. These things are winners.

If I was to invest more performance improvement on my 351C, it would be for CHI Heads. If you go to the 335 series forum you can explore further, and the contributors there will confirm for you. Just bring your wallet.

http://www.chiheads.com/main.html

IMHO

[Fred Douglass]

Man, what a gift from the gods! I am taking my 351C out to 408 (I hope) and these leads are great! Thanks to you all.

[Burnd]

Fred:

Go to the 335 forum and post your expected build sheet. Ask them for opinions and I'll be surprised if they don't chime in. These guys are die-hard Cleveland guys & are very helpful. A lot of them build performance running 351C's. The Clevelands make their power between 3500 and 9000 and these guys spin them. Heads and carburation are everthing. You can see my build sheet there, and mines a mild build compared to a lot to these guys. They're very enthusiastic bunch when it comes to the C's. Keep in mine that things easily become rolling grenades too. Mine runs fine but I'm going BB in my car this summer.


http://www.network54.com/Forum/119419

Burnd

[Jack21]

Not being a Cleveland buff I'd look at it this way. This Cleveland is going in a Mustang, not a Cobra. Maybe a stroker, and maybe not. Probably a warm street motor.

Remember the complaints about the Clevelands were, as mentioned above, no mid range torque. Worse in a heavy car like a Mustang. Not enough engine for the airflow.

For a street motor, look at the Aussie C3V aluminum heads from CHI (or Edelbrock if you want to wait). The C3V's should put the mid range torque in the street driving range.

For a race motor, or a big stroker that will use the flow (Dart 9.2" deck block 4.125" bore x 4" crank = 427 ci) use the Blue Thunder aluminum heads.

[lovehamr]

Check this site. Blue-thunders $850 each, bare.

http://ford-y-block.com/sbf_head.htm

Hope that helps, Steve

P.S. Don't let the "in-line valvers" sway you in your quest for Mustang power. I'm using a set of C heads that flow 335cfm on the intake with a 372ci Windsor block and I love them. I'd sure like the reduced weight of some al. heads though; they'd take about 50-75 pounds off the beak of my Boss!

[Daniel Jones]

> I know AFR makes one and Edelbrock is supposed to have one out soon.

AFR does not make a 351C type head. Perhaps you meant AFD in Australia.
AFD and CHI are both Australian companies that make aluminum 351C heads.
Edelbrock's heads are based upon a 2V port and are meant to be a street
replacement head. The flow numbers are a bit disappointing. Fine for a
stock displacement street car but they could have done much better. The
CHI 3V's or Ford Motorsport C302's (or similar Brodix BF300's) will outflow
them by a wide margin. My C302B's outflow the Edelbrock 2V's by over 70
CFM on the intake side and more on the exhaust side. In addition to AFD,
CHI, Brodix, and Edelbrock, TFS is working on a 351C aluminum head. Like
the Edelbrock, it's based upon a 2V port.

> There is a company that makes a double over head, four valve per cylinder
> head for the cleveland block!

That would be Arao. No seems to have ever run a set of those, though.

> yes there are some aluim aussie heads here in the states.or you can order
> them direct from the manufacture,there.IF I remember rite they are rite
> at 2g's for the bare set.

Last time I checked, the AFD's and CHI's were around $1600 per pair bare,
about the same as the Brodix and Blue Thunder heads.

> For the best heads money can buy, look into the Blue Thunder Heads

> The aussies are ahead of us in Clevelands and Jack21 is offering the best
> of the best suggestion regarding 351C's. Gregro is right that Blue Thunder
> makes good stuff, but CHI specializes in Cleveland research and you will
> get the most bang for the buck with CHI's. These things are winners.

The Blue Thunders and CHI's are both good heads but are suited to very
different applications. The Blue

> If I was to invest more performance improvement on my 351C, it would be
> for CHI Heads.

The CHI heads are good pieces but for the same money, a set of C302B
or Brodix BF300's are better heads due to the raised ports but require
specific intakes (like the CHI) and exhaust headers.

> Remember the complaints about the Clevelands were, as mentioned above,
> no mid range torque. Worse in a heavy car like a Mustang. Not enough
> engine for the airflow.

Grossly overstated, IMO. When built with properly matched components,
they work just fine on the street. You just find that most people that
build 351C's tend to go with cams, intakes and headers that are larger
than required for the application.

> The C3V's should put the mid range torque in the street driving range.

The mid range torque comes from the combination. At present, the CHI 3V
heads are only available with a very tall single plane intake. I have
the dyno sheets which say the CHI heads and intake combo made less torque
to around 4400 RPM than the same engine equippd with cast iron 4V heads
and a dual plane intake. Above that RPM, the CHI's pulled away.

> For a race motor, or a big stroker that will use the flow (Dart 9.2" deck
> block 4.125" bore x 4" crank = 427 ci) use the Blue Thunder aluminum heads.

Yes but don't be tempted to put them on a milder motor. They really are
race heads and need high flow rates to work well (very large bowl areas).
Also, the seats are quite soft (to be compatible with titanium valves)
and likely wouldn't last long on the street.

Dan Jones

[Andy Dunn]

The CHi 3Vs are killer heads. These are the heads that won this year's Engine Master Challenge. Everyone I talk to says they flow excellent right out of the box. Some people are seeing 335 and 340 at .700 out off the box. Kaase was able to get his to flow 350+. Kaase emailed me a few weeks back and said he rebuilt his winning engine and it then made 712HP using these heads on 92 pump gas (12.5:1 compression). These really are very good heads.
http://www.chiheads.com/heads_02.html



Andy
http://www.piratesofhorsepower.com

[Daniel Jones]

> The CHi 3Vs are killer heads. These are the heads that won this year's Engine
> Master Challenge. Everyone I talk to says they flow excellent right out of
> the box. Some people are seeing 335 and 340 at .700 out off the box. Kaase
> was able to get his to flow 350+. Kaase emailed me a few weeks back and said
> he rebuilt his winning engine and it then made 712HP using these heads on 92
> pump gas (12.5:1 compression). These really are very good heads.
> http://www.chiheads.com/heads_02.html

Andy, CHI makes several versions of the heads (185cc, 218cc 3V's, CNC-ported
3V's). I think you'll find the 340 @ 0.7" numbers you are quoting are for
the CNC-ported version of the 3V head. The heads Richard Holdener flowed
at Westech for the MM&FF article were the CNC-ported versions. They were
the best heads that were legal for the Engine Master's Competition but there
are other heads that were not legal for the EMC that may be better in other
applications. The old C302B's (or the still in production Brodix BF300-series
replicas) have more potential, primarily due to the raised ports. Versus the
218cc 3V's, my 217cc C302B's have better flow across the lift range. The
new Ford Motorsport D3 looks a lot like a raised port version of the already
raised port C302B's (the canted valve angle is back). I've not had them on
the flow bench yet but they are said to be capable of over 400 CFM intake
flow. All of these heads require compatible intake manifolds. The CHI can
usually get by with standard 351C 4V headers but the others require custom
headers. The C302B's have been around long enough that there are off-the-shelf
headers available for certain applications like my Pantera.

Dan Jones

[Andy Dunn]

Hey Dan

I was referring to the 218cc model. You make good points in that there are other excellent choices that would not be legal in competition. Here is some of the flow data on the three heads you mentioned. I've also averaged it which gives a much better picture of the head as opposed to peak

brodix bf300
0.200 152 122
0.300 214 166
0.400 265 195
0.500 300 213
0.600 325 220
0.700 331 225
avg 264.5 190.2
sum 454.7

chi 218cc
0.200 143 114
0.300 203 153
0.400 259 191
0.500 299 208
0.600 319 219
0.700 332 225
avg 259.2 185.0
sum 444.2

c302b (from super ford article)
0.200 156 129
0.300 224 169
0.400 278 200
0.500 306 223
0.600 335 245
0.700 358 256
avg 276.2 203.7
sum 479.8

Those c302 heads do flow super well and I've also heard that some people have them flowing into the 400s which is unbelieveable. I wanted to point out that the chi 218 and the brodix bf300 are very similar. The average flow rates are within 2%. I've heard from more than one source that the out of the box 218s flow bigger than advertised, often close to 340.

I think we need to compare apples to apples when talking about the C302 heads since many of these in the high 300s are heavily ported. Kaase's heavily ported CHis were near 370 peak (367 if I remember correctly).

There are many excellent heads for the Cleveland builder...I personally think the CHi 218 is a very good offering.