The first iteration of this engine started in 1997. I picked up two cores from a
local gentleman, both of which were D2 casting 351s (1972 vintage castings). I
disassembled both engines, and found the one that I would use. It's a good thing I
bought both engines, since one had gotten wet inside and the cylinders were rusted
to the pistons. This engine also had replacement rod bearings, so it had been
rebuilt at one point in time. The other engine was still sporting it's factory
bearings, and the cylinders had a slight ridge, but nothing extreme for a 25 year
old engine.
The crank, rods, and block were taken to the machine shop where the block was bored
.040 over, magnafluxed, square decked, line honed, and all that good stuff. The crank
was machined .020/.020, and the rods were weight matched, shotpeened, crack checked,
honed for full floating pistons, had ARP waveloc bolts installed, and the big ends
reconditioned.
The entire rotating assembly was balanced.
After all the machine work, I reassembled the engine with a Lunati custom grind solid lifter cam,
Lunati lightweight pistons, Childs and Albert moly rings, Clevite tri-metal bearings,
an Elgin true roller timing chain set, ARP oil pump driveshaft, Melling HV oil pump,
and Felpro gaskets.
For cylinder heads, I chose the World Products Dart Senior heads. These heads were cleaned
up with a mild pocket porting job, and fitted with good hardware including
Manley 2.02/1.60 valves, Lunati double springs, Lunati machined retainers, Jumbo 10 degree
locks, ARP rocker studs/guideplates, teflon posilock seals,
and Lunati 1.6 roller rockers.
While assembling, I checked the geometry of the valvetrain, and discovered that longer
pushrods were needed. As it turns out, the 351C length pushrods were the right length,
so those were installed.
Initially, the engine had an Edelbrock Performer RPM intake on it and used a stock 351W
distributor. Shortly after the race season started, I discovered that the engine
was "running out of breath" at the top of the RPM scale, so the Edelbrock Performer RPM
intake was replaced with a Victor Jr. intake, and the stock distributor was replaced with
an MSD piece. I gained a good .3 ET and 2 MPH by this swap.
The other supporting pieces of the combination were a set of MAC longtubes, a Crane
Hi-6 ignition module, Crane PS91 coil, and FMS plugwires.
The parts list:
Engine
1972 Ford 351W block
1972 Ford crank
Stock Ford harmonic balancer
C9 Ford rods, using ARP Waveloc bolts
Clevite Tri-Metal bearings
Melling HV oil pump ARP heavy duty oil pump driveshaft Lunati/Taylor lightweight pistons with 4cc valve pockets
Childs & Albert rings
Elgin timing chain Lunati custom ground solid lifter cam with the folowing specs:
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