351 based stroker owners, please advise.

[Sluggo]

Ok. That makes a lot more sense. Are you going to stay with the 400M crank, or go with a modern, stroker one? Personally, I'd pony up the money for a modern SCAT or Probe crank/rods/pistons. In fact, if that's how your engine was built, I, personllay, would pony up $250 for a core charge and start with an '85/later, roller ready block.

The PAW way of doing it was cool technology way back then. There's just SOOOO many better ways to do it, these days.

The block is an E9AE block which is an 89.

I'm eyeballing this baby, but it's a budget breaker :sad
http://www.fordracingparts.com/parts/part_details.asp?PartKeyField=11831

 

[Fast68back]

Buy us both one will ya!

 

[daveSanborn]

I'm going to have to refresh my stroker at the very least.
Here's what I know I'm going to do for sure.

Re-ring and bearings if conditions permit.
Another new cam (obviously)
New dizzy gear
Rebalance rotating assembly with new flywheel and balancer.

I'm missing something....

Why are you replacing the flywheel and balancer and having the rotating assembly rebalanced?

Wiping out the distributor/cam gear did not affect the flywheel/balancer.... and a re-ring/new bearings shouldn't neccessitate rebalancing the rotating assembly.




My local Mustang buddy loves to spend money he doesn't have on his Mustang and his race car. If anyone listened to him while trying to fix the simplest of problems... they'd be ordering a new crate motor everytime.

Recently Joe had an exhaust valve spring snap on his F100's Chebby 402 #7 cylinder. My mustang buddy got involved before I did. Joe called me at work with prices for a new crate motor. What happened to just replacing the one spring that snapped? It's a $2 part?

I found him a used exhaust valve spring at the local machine shop and his truck was/is back on the road running/driving fine for the price of a new set of valve cover gaskets.

Moral of the story:

Focus on fixing the problem and don't get too carried away with "well I might as well".

 

[camachinist]

Good point. What's the intended use? If it's a cruiser with an occasional deserted road blast, disassemble, clean, replace worn parts, assemble, cruise. A lot will depend on what is found upon disassembly; e.g. where the metal particles/fragments ended up.

I remember, back in the day, regularly breaking screw-in rocker studs. Drive home on seven, slammed a new one in, raced that night. Did that for a number of years with the same engine. Rolled the pushrod on a smooth surface to check for bend (never bent one), checked the rocker and valve tip for damage (none) and moved on. I was young and didn't care. A good engine cost under 1K to build. If it blew up, there was another 50.00 core to replace it and I didn't have a mortgage to pay. Things are a bit different now.

OP, check your cylinder walls carefully for damage (scratches, etc). If they're OK, the rest is pretty straightforward. If it's not a racer (track car), I wouldn't change a lot of things. I only recommended the balancer because I've seen the OEM ones blow up. Ouch.

 

[johnpro]

Personally, I'd be concerned about running a .060 over engine. If it has to be bored at all, it's time for a new block, anyway, making it SOOOO much easier to spend $250 or so on a '95/later roller block and just do it right and forget about it.

Hell, it's only money, right? And Sluggo's money at that!

 

[Sluggo]

The reason I want to rebalance it is there is a slight harmonic in it at about 4k rpm and up. I want to replace the flywheel because I put in a used 5.0 flywheel when I swapped trannys to get it done with the intention of replacing it a better piece later. Te balancer is fairly new FRRP item and does not necessarily need to be replaced.

The last thing I want if I'm going to refurb this thing is to have a leftover vibration.

I have a D4AE block that has already been bored 30 laying around somewhere. Not too sure that's a direction I want to go.

I'm starting to think I should just clean the snot out of it, put another new cam, lifters, oil pump, screen, double roller chain and put it back on the road. But the vibration is nagging away at me. I'm not sure I'd ever have too much confidence in it. Each time I drive it I'd be anticipating a malfunction.

I pulled no1 rod cap and it looks fine. Cylinders look fine.

 

[Sluggo]

I just turned up some rather interesting information.

I was unaware that Ford changed deck heights on 351Ws.

I just looked at Mallory's website and they list two different 37 series dizzys for a 351W.

Part 3768701 351W 1981-1995
Part 3755401 351W 1969-1980

MSD list two different parts as well. But their year split is different. :wtf

My block is an E9AE-6015........

 

[AzPete]

I see our rates to be on here going up.....

I do agree to look and see where the problems are before jumping to hard.

 

[buening]

AFAIK the 69-70 blocks had a 9.480" deck height and all others had the 9.500". In 92 the lifter bores were lengthened to accept roller lifters but the deck height remained the same. I'm not sure of the difference with those year splits other than a possible EFI or roller cam that would require different part numbers for the dizzys

 

[SAC69]

I remember, back in the day, regularly breaking screw-in rocker studs. Drive home on seven, slammed a new one in, raced that night. Did that for a number of years with the same engine. Rolled the pushrod on a smooth surface to check for bend (never bent one), checked the rocker and valve tip for damage (none) and moved on. I was young and didn't care.

That's funny, I did the same thing with a '65 in the early 80's, kept a couple extra screw-in studs in the trunk tool box too. It was always the same stud.

 

[camachinist]

AFAIK the 69-70 blocks had a 9.480" deck height and all others had the 9.500".

Yep, got a C9 block in the race car and had to mill the TRW's to get proper deck clearance. The tricky part was milling around the domes.

OP, if the surfaces look good (cylinder walls, crank, etc), I'd put it back together with appropriate maintenance parts and go. When checking a crankshaft where the engine is suspected of compromised oiling (don't know if you lost pressure or not), the back of a W is where you check, since the oil pump is at the front.

While annoying, that harmonic likely won't do any damage. IMO, if the engine is coming out for maintenance, it might be worth solving, since everything is apart. Up to you. Couple days and a couple hundred. It's only money

 

[Sluggo]

Yep, got a C9 block in the race car and had to mill the TRW's to get proper deck clearance. The tricky part was milling around the domes.

OP, if the surfaces look good (cylinder walls, crank, etc), I'd put it back together with appropriate maintenance parts and go. When checking a crankshaft where the engine is suspected of compromised oiling (don't know if you lost pressure or not), the back of a W is where you check, since the oil pump is at the front.

While annoying, that harmonic likely won't do any damage. IMO, if the engine is coming out for maintenance, it might be worth solving, since everything is apart. Up to you. Couple days and a couple hundred. It's only money

I think getting the block cleaned out and rebalancing would be money well spent. I'm gonna cool the engines and toss it around for a while.

I'll pass the time picking out some new stuff for it. I used comp cams camquest software and picked out a cam (at least for now) X4270h. Come out a little light on the hp (412 @ 5000 estimated) but had monster torque (501 @3500 estimated) with a range of 1600 to 5800.

And these bad boys here http://www.summitracing.com/parts/FMS-M-6582-W427B/?rtype=10

The next thing on the list is a dizzy. Probably go with a MSD and a MSD box with rev limit abilities. If I gear it down any lower 1st gear is going to go by quickly.

 

[apollard]

Moral of the story:

Focus on fixing the problem and don't get too carried away with "well I might as well".

What? If I did that, I might actually be driving my Mustang now.

Oh. Wait a sec...

 

[PJ Moran]

Mine's a 408 built by Panhandle Performance in Florida. The builder and I kicked around some options. He wanted to go more hard core than I did, but he worked with me.

The #1 thing I wanted was a factory roller block (mid - '90's trucks). No retrofit or "roller ready" setups for me.

I don't have the spec's handy, but we went with AFR heads, Weiand Stealth intake, Edelbrock Thunder AVS carb (850, I think), full roller rockers, etc. etc. The cam's a little bigger than I would have liked, but it's perfectly streetable. I have the idle set to 900 to keep the shake down. Again, roller cam, here.

It has an amazing torque curve, and dyno'd at 524 hp and 514 ft-lb.

I don't know what the vacuum is, but I'm running Hydroboost brakes, so...

I have no vibration problems and it screams all the way to redline. He used a SCAT stroker setup. Apparently the market for strokers has brought some new products to the table that lets builders do a better job without so many "secret tricks". Don't know the balance weight off hand.

If you want real spec's, I have them in a folder, and can regurgitate anything you want to know.

 

[daveSanborn]

Probably go with a MSD....

As it would happen.... I just pulled the MSD dizzy out of Joe's 351W last night and put it back in it's original box. We bought it from Summit a couple years ago, but it's only been on the car less than half of that time.

There's a problem with the vacuum advance on the dizzy. I dunno what it is, but it doesn't seem to be working. It's almost as if the vacuum advance is not working at all.... connecting the cannister to the carb causes the car to stall so we've been running the car for the past few months with the vacuum cannister disconnected. This problem existed when the dizzy was brand new out of the box.... and I've just been too busy with other crap to investigate it.

Joe wanted to put it on eBay, but I'll offer it up here first in case anyone's interested in it.

Here's the exact item:

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/MSD-8478/