Cleveland vs Windsor — 2.02" Valves Are Why Cleveland Still Wins

[00:00:00]Hey folks, Mark Titus.

[00:00:01]I've been asked why I like Cleveland's as opposed to other Ford model engines.

[00:00:09]And I'll just point out some of the differences and I'll give you a kind of like a top five list of why I like a Cleveland better.

[00:00:15]Um I started working on Cleveland's at a very young age and I think it was probably right around 1977-78.

[00:00:26]I was very young, but I owned a 302 /289. My brother owned a 351 Cleveland and I worked on both of the engines and I could see the massive differences between the two.

[00:00:38]First thing that came to my awareness was when you look at a 302 and now take in mind this is a 2000's version 302, not a 1965 302, which is what I was working on.

[00:00:54]This is a pretty good size aftermarket port.

[00:00:58]Whereas this is about as original of a 1970 Ford Cleveland head as you can get.

[00:01:08]And you see the size of the port there.

[00:01:10]Also, you see the size of the valve compared to the size of this valve. Now, this one has a 202 valve. The stuff that I used to work on back when I was 15-16 years old, if we were lucky, we had a 1.94 valve, which was a Chevy valve that we machined out and put in a Ford cylinder head.

[00:01:30]But the Cleveland has some some big differences. Naturally, we all know a Cleveland when we look at it because the timing cover's cast on the front of the engine. Some people think that that looks really, really heavy or the engine is longer or anything like that, but there's a few facts that I talked to a lot of Ford engine builders that they didn't even realize until it was brought to their attention.

[00:01:50]But a Cleveland and a Windsor, once you put the timing cover on a Windsor or a 302 they're the same length from front of water behind the water pump, which is where the timing cover, to the back of the block they're the same length.

[00:02:05]The four bolts that go in the water pump holes that go right around these four bolts here, these four bolts are common Cleveland to Windsor and they are also the same distance off the crankshaft center line. So, a motor plate in a race car, you can interchange a Cleveland and a and a Windsor without changing your motor plate or any of your other mounts.

[00:02:25]Um but the differences in the engine that I like are naturally the valves, bigger valves, much bigger ports cuz back then we didn't really have fancy porting tools and all we had with stock heads to work with. We didn't have aluminum heads, we didn't have all the other sorts of things that we do nowadays to choose from. Pretty much this was my option or an old 289 head and this was a way better starting point than a 289 head.

[00:02:53]The other port portion of that is is if you look here at the center line of the of the where the piston would go or the center line of the cylinders, you see that there's a valve rotation. So, this valve is located higher in the bore.

[00:03:06]So, a Cleveland has the valve that if we were to take this and look at this head, the Cleveland valve would be higher in the bore.

[00:03:14]We also know that a Cleveland head, the valves are angled toward the center of the bore so they open like this, they don't open straight up and down like a Windsor. So, when you move the valves higher in the bore, you not only are opening it toward more toward the center of the bore because the valve angle and you're also opening it sideways because the valve is canted. So, you get that big valve away from the cylinder wall and gives it the head a chance to flow pretty well. And we all know the more area you move in an engine, the more power you potentially have to make.

[00:03:42]Um the exhaust ports on the Cleveland pretty big out here. They could be smaller out here. Um likewise, the port in here is pretty big right here at the opening.

[00:03:55]Um, over the years we've learned how to make that kind of work uh, to our advantage rather than our disadvantage. There's a lot of people that say, "Oh, the Cleveland doesn't run until you get way a lot of RPM." If you really know how to work the dynamics of airflow and pressure differentials, you can actually make this work for you as opposed to against you.

[00:04:13]The cam to crank center line. So, if you measure the distance between the center line of the camshaft here and the center line of the crankshaft, the Cleveland is 5.045 in.

[00:04:25]A 302 or 351 Windsor are is only 4.805.

[00:04:31]So, it has a the the cam is higher in the block, which for uh, a given deck height of a block, say if you were to build a 9.2 deck aftermarket Windsor or a 9.2 deck Cleveland, the Cleveland would have a shorter push rod and and a more favorable valve angle.

[00:04:48]Um, the other thing is the oil pan on a the rails of the oil pan on a Cleveland are wider and that reduces windage in the block.

[00:05:00]Um, gives you big a bigger area to put a bigger stroke in the engine. So, with that, the the stock Cleveland does have its its downfalls.

[00:05:11]One of the downfalls is that it was uh, of course there is the 400M series or the 351M and the 400 series are a tall deck block. They share almost the same deck height as a um, as a 460.

[00:05:25]They also had a longer stroke. It actually a 400M or 400 has a longer stroke than a 460. A 460 has a 3.85 stroke. A 400 has a 4-in stroke. So, it has a longer stroke, um, even though it has a smaller bore size and the displacement's 400, it actually has more piston speed for a given RPM because it has a longer stroke than a 460.

[00:05:50]So, but going back to the 9.2 deck Cleveland, um because the deck was shorter, you can't put quite as much stroke or rod length or anything like that in the engine.

[00:05:59]Um there is a big deal made over rod length and that sort of stuff when you stroke an engine.

[00:06:04]Um not that important to me as far as rod length is as long as it's reasonable. As a matter of fact, when you have big cylinder heads like this, compared to small cylinder heads like these, you actually don't want a long connecting rod in an engine like this like you would in this because of the dynamics of the port and like I mentioned, we found ways to make this work for us as opposed to against us. One of those is not putting a mile long connecting rod in there.

[00:06:31]Um but the oiling system on the Cleveland is not good.

[00:06:37]So, one of the things that we do pretty much on every Cleveland we build, uh is we machine the lifter board bushings to restrict the oil flow to the lifters to try to make it as good as we can.

[00:06:50]Uh you can't make it a true priority main block, but you can make it a ton better than what it was uh from the factory. The 289, 302, 351 Windsors do have a better oiling system than the Cleveland. Um and the Cleveland also shares the same oiling system with the 460. So, the 460 oiling system was not not good either. But those are the main reasons.

[00:07:13]Um there's just so much more power potential out of a Cleveland than there is out of a 302 this style head.

[00:07:21]Um we need area in order to get to get an engine to breathe at high rpm. You do need port volume.

[00:07:28]Um so with the dynamics of the head, the valve layout of the head, and of course, like I said, back in the late '70s when I first started working on these, we had no idea what, you know, like a pro stock head or something like that was. Of course, this was the pro stock head of the day.

[00:07:46]But, even today, these valve locations uh where they're at in the center line of the bore and the way these are, there's a lot of cylinder heads that are almost, if not so close, they are very, very close to being what this was 56 years ago.

[00:08:05]So, the >> [clears throat] >> the Cleveland does have a lot of potential uh which is why we chose to make our aftermarket block off of a Cleveland platform as opposed to a Windsor platform. But, we did fix the oiling system in it. Um the Clevelands are also the blocks are also known for being very thin in the cylinder wall area, and that's another thing that we addressed with our aftermarket block. Um we also addressed the fact that we can make taller deck heights, so now we can put long strokes uh in the blocks. We can take advantage of this high crank to cam center line.

[00:08:37]And we also even increased that just a slight amount as well to even give it a more favorable um cam to crank center line. So, um the Windsor platform is a good platform, but there's just so much more potential with a Cleveland, so that's why um we've picked the Cleveland to be kind of our engine of choice.

[00:08:57]Um we still build a lot of 289, 302, 351 Windsors, and we still make them fast even though they're not Clevelands.

[00:09:03]But, given our choice, we can make more power with a Cleveland than we can with a Windsor. So, that's it for today. Take care.