engine horsepower

[melridley]

I am considering increasing the horsepower on a 351w that is very stock or replacing engine. Would anyone share with me their engine ,horsepower combinations and their takes on the performance ? I would appreciate all the advice I could get. Iam a novice at performance engines.[?]

[GEARIE]

Here's my two cents worth, call bill or susan at southern automotive, in georgia or check out their website at southernautomotiveengeines.com

thanks
gearie jr.

[Russ Dickey]

I have an early 70's 351W with very mild modifications:

GT-40 iron heads
Edelbrock Performer RPM intake
Ford Motorsport Cam (very mild - I think the duration is around 290)
Barry Grant Street Demon 650 carb

My car puts down around 300hp at the rear wheels. With a 3.31 gear, Tremec 5-speed, and crappy Goodyear Eagle street tires, I can run high 12-second quarters. Personally, I think my car needs a lot more under the hood, but I thought that I would share what you could expect from a combo like mine.

Russ

Unique 289FIA - Chassis #9229 - Viking Blue

[Silk]

I've got a 351 with a fairly mild build - Edelbrock Performer RPM heads & intake, Holley 650 DP. Can't remember the cam specs, but its somewhere between mild and wild. Package produces about 385 HP at the crank. I like having power that I can lay down as aggressively as I want on the street, track, or autocross course. This fits my bill. I drive the car a lot (almost 20,000 in the last 3+ years), and for my purposes this is ideal. Tons of HP is always fun, but for me this is about right. Good luck with your choices.



Gary
Unique FIA 351W

[Rickd]

There are a lot of ways to increase HP and I guess the big question is how you plan on using the car / motor. If you're doing it for full race intentions, you would probably go with a very aggressive cam (a lot of duration and lift), high flow cylinder heads, and an intake manifold to match the heads flow. If your intent is to have a car that is primarily a street driver, with an ocassional run on a 1/4 mile strip and or road course, you would probably go for a street / race cam (less duration and lift, better idle), and the appropriately matched intake manifold and cylinder heads.

You also need to address the carb setup that will be feeding fuel to this more powerful motor. I just went through this same exercise to "tweak" my 302.

I ended up doing the following which will take my stock 302 HO motor (225-230 hp) up to 350 HP at 5800 RPM:

-Aluminum cylinder heads. Was going with AFR 165's (you would
probably need the 185's) until Unique told me I would have to
modify the exhaust system to use AFR heads (this was based on a
car they built for someone using AFR's..they had to modify the
exhaust headers ). They recommended, instead of having to modify
my headers, to go with either Trick Flow or Edelbrock. I went with
Trick Flow Twisted Wedge heads, bought via Panhandle Performance.
They buy the casting, use better valves than stock (Ferrea racing
valves), polish the bowl, use upgraded springs for my roller cam,
and the result is a head that flows better than the 'out of the
box' version. Turns out that the AFR 165 and 185 heads CAN be used
without modifying the headers, and it is the larger AFR's that
require modifying the headers. I have the new TRick Flows on my
desk in the den, and they are beauties. Can't wait to get them
installed in the next 2 weeks.

When you switch from iron heads to aluninum you can run a full
one point more in compression as the aluminum, which has faster
heat transfer characteristics, burns cooler. "iron heads make
more power" is a quote you will come across. In order to pick up
a small additional bit of compression I am not using the normal
relatively thick Felpro gaskets, but a much thinner racing head
gasket (costs $125 a set instead of $45) that is about 20
thousandths thinner, this gives the effective benefit of milling
the heads to slightly decrease the size of the combustion chamber
and increase the compression slightly.

-Intake manifold. My motor had an Edelbrock Performer RPM intake
manifold, and it flows well enough for my 302. Your motor migh
take something a little bigger. Key is to have the flow
characteristics of you intake matched to your cylinder heads. Too
much Volume flow capacity in the intake is not good because then
the velocity may drop, which can cause the air fuel volatized
mixture to separate. Velocity of flow is very important.

-Camshaft. This determines how everything works. The guy I would
recommend you talk to does nothing but grind cams. Jim Dowell
of Racer Brown Cams in Maryland. (410) 866-7660. My stock HO cam
has 209 duration and .444 lift @ .050. I am going with a new one
that has 221 duration and .500 lift @ .050, not an aggressive
cam, more duration (valves are open slightly longer) than my
present cam, and about 60 thousandths more lift, so the valves
open more to let in more fuel / air to the chamber.

-Carb. Having the righ carb and having it tuned properly and
timing etc. set right are critical to be able to get the desired
performance from all of the above. Don Gould in Washington
(web sight is 4secondsflat.com) is THE man. (503) 627-0728. Don
will take in all of your engine, trans, rearend, etc. specs, and
he will recommend a specific Demon carb. He will not have it
shipped from the factory, but for $25 he will receive it as his
shop, he will tear it down, and rebuild it to be sure all of the
parts are correctly intalle

[melridley]

Thank you for the comments. My engine has an edelbrock performer rpm intake,edelbrock 600 cfm carb,and stock cam,pistons ,heads. I will use car primarily on the street but want enough power to play at the track occasionly.

[GeorgiaSnake]

My 351 based 396 build sheet from S.A. This little motor is strong. I'm guessing 420 - 430 HP at the flywheel.

351 W Block – E3AE-6015-18
Scat #8160 3.850” Steel Stroker w One Piece Seal
Ford D60E Forged Rods w ARP Bolts
Engine Tech – Hypereutectic Pistons 9.8:1 Compression
Hastings Molly Rings
Engine Tech Bearings
Elgin E961P Solid Lifter Cam
Valve Lift .512 Int .536 Exh
Duration at .050 238 Int 248 Exh
Melling High Volume Oil Pump
Canton 8 Qt. 15-660 Pan
Edelbrock Performer RPM Aluminum Fully Ported and Polished Heads
Edelbrock Performer RPM Port Matched Manifold
Motorsports Roller Rockers
Motorsports 8.5” Heat Treated Pushrods
Holly 3310 750 CFM with Choke Removed and Quick Change Spring Kit
Centrifugal Advance Electronic Distributor
Carter High Volume Mechanical Fuel Pump
Aluminum High VolumeWater Pump
March Pulleys
Aluminum Flywheel
Ram 11” Power Grip Street Strip Clutch
Lakewood Blow Proof Bellhousing


Randy

Unique 289 FIA #2899420
Southern Automotive 396
Team III 16's
Brilliant Silver

[ralphscott]

Real nice write-up Rick. Is that what you were running at homecoming?

Ralph

[dmiller]

this is what i have, very happy with it. i haven't hammered it often, but it seems very strong.

289 FIA Body
351 W stoked to 408
forged crank, "H" beam rods, and 10.2 CR pistons
edelbrock junior victor heads
edelbrock FI
crane powermax roller cam and rockers
TKO 5 speed
3.31 rear end

[Slither]

Mel,

One thing that has not really been mentioned here, yet, is where in the rpm range you want to make your power. Typically, performance engines continue to increase their ability to make power as you move up through the rpm range, i.e. one setup might make 400Hp @ 5800rpm, but with different heads and intake the same size engine could make 500Hp @ 6600rpm and then still another setup on the engine could make 600Hp @ 7400rpm. The faster you twist it, with better breathing components, the more you can get out of it. The flip side of that is, the better the breathing components on a given size engine, the faster it must turn to take advantage of the power potential. However, the higher in the rpm range you move, the better the bottom-end components that are required to keep it all together. Additionally, the higher power performance in the higher rpm range typically comes at the expense of low end performance.

One problem with an extremely high flowing head on a small displacement engine is that you really need to twist it to see the performance, because the displacement cannot take advantage of the flow rate at low rpm. But, turning them fast is how folks get 500+ Hp out of 302ci engines.

One way to move the power down in the rpm range is to increase displacement. You can do this very easily in a 351W by stroking it (same for any engine for that matter). Dmiller and I have similar setups (mine is being built now by Dan Dutton of Dutton Performance). As is dmiller, I am using a forged bottom end (Eagle 4340 stroker crank to 408ci and H-beam rods, with forged SRP pistons), with Victor Jr. heads and the RPM Air Gap intake. At 0.050, the hydraulic cam has a duration of 236 and 242, with .555 and .576 lift (off-the-shelf Comp Cams grind). If I remember correctly, the static compression ratio is around 9.8:1. I am using a DaVinci 750 carb. The sister engine to this produced 524.7Hp @ 5500 rpm and 541Ft-lb of torque @ 4600rpm. The torque curve is broad (over 500Ft-lb from 3600 to 5500rpm).

The Vic Jr. heads are high flowing heads. They can be used on a fire-breathing 302 (read high rpm), but the increased displacement of the 408-stroker takes advantage of the extra flow to perform well lower in the rpm range. The RPM Air Gap is a dual plane manifold, which improves low end performance. You could get more out of the 408 by using a single plane manifold (like the Victor Jr. intake) and a solid lifter cam to run higher in the rpm range - say 7500rpm - at the expense of low end performance... not what I want for a primarily street car (could get 50-75Hp more).

The Edelbrock Performer RPM package that Rickd mentions is available for the 351W and it produces about 410Hp at the crank. The package is matched for ease of use. It includes the cam kit, heads, intake, and carb. There is a nice write-up on it in a book called "Ford Windsor small block performance," by Isaac Martin. ISBN 1-55788-323-8, which shows the dyno numbers, and it made 409Hp @ 6000rpm and 411Ft-lb of torque @ 4500rpm. (I was planning to go this route until I got a smokin' deal on the Eagle forged stoker crank.) The stock 351W lower end should take this power fine, so it is basically a bolt-on improvement, whereas the stroker setup is much more involved. Sounds like all you need are the cam and heads, then you are good to go... very fast ;)!


Paul

289 FIA

2899464

408 Windsor

Toploader (wide)

3.07 rear

[Tony Radford]

My car originally had Bill's 400 HP Windsor. In my quest for more excitement, he built me a new Windsor with a 427 stroker kit. The Dyno said 385 HP and 402 ft/lbs of torque at the back wheels. The difference in performance was quite noticable.

427SC, Torch Red / white stripes
427 Windsor Stroker from Southern Automotive
Delicious example of Beauty + Power.

[Rickd]

Ralph, I believe you have me confused with another Rick. I was not fortuante enough to make it to this year's homecoming, as I had just gotten by FIA and was getting familiar with it to find out what upgrades I wanted to make. I'm hoping to go to the Reptile Roundup in November in Gainesville. Hope to meet some of you guys then! Rick

289 FIA, #9299, Viking Blue, 302 HO, T-5

[ralphscott]

Sorry Rick, I hope to meet you, but not able to make it to Gainesville. Hope you make it to the homecoming next year.

Ralph

[spd4me]

GeorgiaSnake
Your motor sounds like the one I got. When I bought mine it was advertised on SA website as a 396W Stroker with 455 hp. When I talked to Bill at the homecoming, he said it has alot more than that but they underrate them so nobody will get mad it they dyno it and come up with less. Mine came with a Hurricane Racing single plane manifold. Anything over 500 hp in a FIA is wasted money and tire smoke.
Bob