Roller 351 economical and effective.

[Rodeoclown]

I'm sure this has been posted and talked to death a couple of hundred times. Before I get this project started I want to make sure I have the plan laid out correct first. The idea is to economically assemble a roller 351 that will be the best it can be while staying in a reasonable budget. I'm thinking Timex, not Rolex, and I don't want the Dolex. With that in mind, The Plan so far:

1) 94.5-97 F4TE Roller short block. Will come from a u-pull yard.
2) 96-97.5 F1ZE GT40 Explorer/Mountaineer Heads, not the GT40P's. Will come from a u-pull yard. The GT40 heads will need to have head bolt holes opened to 1/2 inch. Lightning and Cobra heads are not available, ever, at my local yard. Too much money to buy those types of vehicles I guess.
3) Front cover???- W/mechanical F/P =V belts OR W/added electric F/P can do CCW W/P and Serpentine system. Don't know of a front cover that offers the mechanical F/P and CCW W/P.
4) Current Edelbrock intake and Holley 4160 will be kept if possible.
5) Current JBA headers 1628SJT will be kept.
6) Distributor???, this is something I will need some more information on. I know there are a couple ways of getting there. If an item at the u-pull yard will work I'm interested, not necessarily sold yet.
7) Would like to try to use original Ford production type parts so it looks original-ish.

With all of that in mind, I know switching an EFI engine to carb is going backwards.

I wish when the truck was new, the original specifier would've ponied up the extra $120 retail MSRP to upgrade to the 460. Oh well, we work with what we have. No I'm not interested in converting to a 460 or making the truck into an EFI truck. The SB C6 transmission i have is fresh and new inside, and I'm not going to ask my buddy to shift all of the guts over to a BB case that I don't have. This truck has been a bit of a project over the years, It's something of a Phoenix in that it's been raised from the virtual ashes of several trucks. It runs and drives right now but the engine is getting tired. This is the second Frankenstein that I've built, the first was a GMC based unit I got from my Grandfather.

The current engine as I know it:

What I know: 351W, rebuilt at some point in time by a Canadian firm that is now out of business. The normal 9-tooth starter doesn't work, had to go with some oddball 10-tooth starter that had to be special ordered. The block casting numbers and all of the critical production information is blasted away from the block.

If I sound militant or harsh at times, I apologize, I don't mean to be. There are just certain decisions that have already been made because this planning part of the project has been cooking in my brain for years, it's a slow project and time to start getting some parts accumulated before they start getting harder to find and cost more in the JY's.

Thanks for your help.

[Rembrant]

Rodeoclown wrote

1) 94.5-97 F4TE Roller short block. Will come from a u-pull yard.

Great choice. I think the roller block 351w is the cat's ass. A friend of mine has a 1997 single wheel F350 parts truck with a 351w in it, and I would love to have it. Having built a nice little 302, my only regret still is that it isn't a 351w. Good choice.

Rodeoclown wrote

2) 96-97.5 F1ZE GT40 Explorer/Mountaineer Heads, not the GT40P's. Will come from a u-pull yard. The GT40 heads will need to have head bolt holes opened to 1/2 inch.

I have these exact heads on my 302. Some guys argue that the GT40 heads are all the same, but they are not. The Explorer GT40 heads do not have thermactor ports or the thermactor humps in the exhaust ports. They are a nice factory bolt on upgrade. The chambers in them are not small, so they don't offer much in the way of a compression bump, but they do flow nicely.

Rodeoclown wrote

6) Distributor???, this is something I will need some more information on. I know there are a couple ways of getting there. If an item at the u-pull yard will work I'm interested, not necessarily sold yet.

My recommendation is to get a custom curved distributor from Parkland Performance (Scotty). You can send him yours, or buy a new one from him. He will set it up based on your engine specs. I'm quite happy with mine. Prices are reasonable imho.

[Gary Lewis]

You don't sound militant or harsh at all.  And I like the planning.  Thinking things through and asking others for thoughts is the best way to get a well thought out product.

I see no problem with your plan, although you didn't state what cam you plan to use.

As for the dizzy, I recommend you talk to Scott Johnston, aka Scotty The Mad Porter, at Parkland Performance.  He can either re-curve yours or sell you a new one.

Why?  Because if you aren't going to run EGR then whatever dizzy you have won't be curved correctly.  EGR requires a lot of advance during high vacuum 'cause the inert gas slows the combustion process.  But if you eliminate the EGR then you'll have too much timing during part throttle/high vacuum moments and are likely to have pinging if not detonation.

I turned to Scotty to get my dizzy re-curved and discovered that while he will re-curve a worn unit, he can have a new properly-curved unit on my doorstep $200.  He charges $110 to do the curving and it'll cost you at least $15 to ship it to him.  Then there's a new rotor, adapter, and cap which you should have.  And now you are into the same bucks a new dizzy costs.

You tell Scotty what components you are using and he dials it in to match.

[Jacob84]

I just rebuilt a 95 351w roller. You can do it fairly cheap. Things to watch for with a stock roller.

Piston rings- on mine I had a thinner and metric ring package 1.5mm/1.5mm/2.5mm (I think). I can get the Mahle part # for that

The stock roller cam is machined billet steel so requires a steel distributor gear. A lot of replacement cams (I used Melling SYB-51. Stock 5.0 HO cam) are cast iron that have hardened lobes for the rollers (SADI cams). Those SADI cams require an iron gear. Made that mistake and am swapping gears today. If you use a SADI cam using a stock Duraspark II distributor with an iron gear would work. And swapping gears is simple anyways.

I've heard of the cam journals cracking on #3 and #5. Above those journals is where the spider tray bolts to. I've only HEARD of that issue, I did not have that issue but thought it was worth mentioning and I wouldn't be scared of it.

Check the roller lifters religiously for any binding on the rollers. I replaced mine because there was binding on the stock units. I don't recommend Melling stock replacements for those. I was not impressed with the quality. Had my first set replaced and the second set was only decent.  

If you have any questions I'll subscribe to this thread, just let me know!

[myrl883]

Everything looks and sounds good. Take Jacob's advise seriously, I've seen lots of 351 roller blocks that are cracked through the cam journals. You have to remove the cam bearings for inspection.

[Rodeoclown]

Thanks guys.

It's nice to know that at least I'm sniffing up the right tree.

I'm going to concentrate on getting the heads and the block so I can get them into the shop for tear-down, cleanup, and inspection/evaluation.

The Dizzy advice sounds good from all angles.

Looks like my next item to research is a front cover.

I'd like a CCW W/P and serpentine system with a mechanical F/P. So far no such luck.

The search continues.

[Rembrant]

myrl883 wrote

Everything looks and sounds good. Take Jacob's advise seriously, I've seen lots of 351 roller blocks that are cracked through the cam journals. You have to remove the cam bearings for inspection.

I've read about this issue previously. Out of curiosity, what do you do if you find a crack? Scrap the block?

Before building (or, rebuilding) my '84 flat tappet 302, I did briefly keep my eyes open for a local 302 roller block to use. I considered a roller 351w the couple times they popped up for sale, but they sold instantly and were gone. I didn't even get a crack at them. Anyway...I ended up staying with my original block, it was basically still new anyway, but I did toy with the idea of a 351w roller.

[Jacob84]

I've heard people just scrapping them. Maybe they could be welded and trued up but I'm not sure. There's a theory that the taps they used to thread the holes for the spider trays would dull over time and then the tap would act more like a wedge and crack the journals. They may have come like that from the factory and since people weren't having issues with them Ford just left it be. But that's just theory, but I haven't heard of any major motor failures with those blocks, just people discovering they have two cracked jounals.

[Rembrant]

Jacob84 wrote

I've heard people just scrapping them. Maybe they could be welded and trued up but I'm not sure. There's a theory that the taps they used to thread the holes for the spider trays would dull over time and then the tap would act more like a wedge and crack the journals. They may have come like that from the factory and since people weren't having issues with them Ford just left it be. But that's just theory, but I haven't heard of any major motor failures with those blocks, just people discovering they have two cracked journals.

Well that's an interesting theory. Anything is possible I guess. I don't remember ever hearing about similar issues with the 302, wouldn't the 302/351 blocks have been cast the same in this area? I've heard, anecdotally that the 302 will crack down the middle if you push them over 500HP, but I don't know where this crack happens.

Anyway, I've heard about the 351 roller cracks enough to know it's an issue.

Good point on people just discovering the cracks though. I too haven't heard of how they fail...just that they have found cracks. Interesting stuff.

[Rodeoclown]

I'd heard about the 3-5 cracks that have been discussed.

Good thing for me the local u-pull yard only charges $60 for short blocks no matter the unit. Cylinder heads are $30 each. At these prices and with the yard about a mile from the house, I think I don't have a choice.

Since I'll have the engines open I'll be able to see anything that is horribly wrong with the exceptions of the 3-5 cam journal cracks. Napa can hot-tank and do the clean-ups to ensure the block is worth moving forward with or need replacing.

At this price I may just get two short blocks to have insurance, if they are both solid I can hand select the best components.

The real cost is my time to pull the parts.

To shift the discussion slightly, has anyone heard of the Speedmaster PCE-265.1045 small block front cover?

It looks like a universal W/P front cover.

This would give a choice of W/P spin direction.

It also is said to have mechanical F/P accommodations and dipstick options.

This may provide the option to use a mechanical F/P and the CCW W/P with the serpentine system.

Anyone have any first-hand knowledge of this front cover?

Thanks, MJ

[myrl883]

Interesting timing cover, but I really don't see the point. It would taker no longer to pull a factory cover than that one...

I used my original '81 timing cover for CCW pump and mechanical fuel pump. I did have to clearance the P/S bracket to clear the fuel pump.

[Rodeoclown]

Interesting, while I was researching the different W/P options I saw a picture of the different front cover and W/P options. As I interpreted the options to be, first front cover for CW normal W/P only(the passage ways are swept to accommodate the flow) mechanical F/P is an option. The second front cover option is for CCW reverse flow WP(serpentine belt), the passage ways sweep in the opposite direction and no F/P option. They showed pictures of the two gasket options super-imposed on each other. NO-GO. I then found the third option--the non-swept gasket with round holes, this requires a universal cover and universal W/P backing plate. I guess a traditional cover could be used with a universal back plate W/P. The only issue is that there would be some potential for less effective water flow caused by the swept passageway of the older style front cover going into the round hole of the W/P. I'd rather have a round hole front cover matching up to a round hole W/P. Less chance of water flow disruption. If I'm going through he whole re-building process, I think for the $100, I'd just as soon know I have the best water flow potential. I do respect the budget concern. Until I find the tree that grows cash, I'm stuck trying to find the most effective parts with reasonable pricing. This is a slow project, so if I need to save a couple more weeks to get a particular part that makes everything easier, I can wait. Now that I look at the direction of water flow, it would be less of a disruption problem but a lot of unsupported gasket. I think I'll still stand by my original round peg into round hole solution. Thanks for the input, it makes me think about the details, and we all know that is where the devil lives.