joe65
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2020
- Messages
- 1,482
- Reaction score
- 1,449
i was thinking i might do the conversion on our Ranger project to the explorer ignition setup.
351M has the canted valves just like the Cleveland and the 429/460. It also shares the big block bellhousing pattern so the C6 that I have will fit a big block if I decide to go that route later on. Unfortunately it also has a large open combustion chamber which dropped the combination down to like 8:1.The good thing is it will take Cleveland heads as a direct bolt on! So you can use Edelbrock or Trick Flow aluminum heads to bump up the compression and get better valves along with better flow on em as well!! The M series also has a deck height about 1 inch taller than the Cleveland, this allowed for them to use longer rods and a better rod/stroke ratio especially on the 400, which had a 4in bore and a 4in stroke, the longest stroke on any stock Ford V8 engine. If you're really interested in the Cleveland and M series engines you outta check out Tim Myers racing engines.. he specializes in these and even has a 435 drop in stroker kit for em and has several different sets of heads for em!!! Richard Holder did a YouTube build up on a junkyard 400M and got over 500Hp and over 500 FP of torque out of it!! They will make power, they're sorta like a tall deck Cleveland...
View attachment 4933 Not really sure how to answer that one, I do know that they mount on the block differently than any other family of Ford engine but from what I can tell there wasn't any kind of fab work done to make it fit in mine. I've only got one 1/2 way decent pic of the motor mounts as it is in mine, I'll try to get some more the next time able to get back outside. Bear in mind that this was originally a 4cyl car as well and I'm not sure if there's anything different there also..btw this is on the passenger side if you can't tell...