dont have a lot of money, want to find out what people think are the best up grades mods for a 351w, will be street drivin and mostly mud running, was thinkin sum kind of aluminum heads and rods and pistons, not really sure. so far have a 600cfm vac.2scd. carb, aluminum summit intake, hei dizzy. thats about it so far. any one have input for me? thanks


boom

What is your budget?? I personally will never waste my money again playing with small blocks. Ive had 302s and 351W, 351M and 400s. I run 460s all the way. Youll spend a grand on bolt ons in that windsor and a stock junk yard 460 will out perform it.

However a carb, intake, cam, headders will help the most. Heads are very expensive but will help a lot. There a big down fall on the windsor family engine. IMO if ou can afford a thousand dollar set of heads ide swap to a 460, do the intake and cam with your carb abd out run your buddies all day long.

Questions?

i dont run with any one, jsut a truck im throwing togethor to go out and beat the piss out of. id like to stay away from a 460, i got the 351 for free so i want to stay away from buyin a new one, its got less that 5 k on it to so. id rather put money into this motor for a while.

Ok well i wouldnt worry about rods. The stock ones will hold up fine unless you go way high rpm and lots of HP. Ide do a 750 carb, Wiend stelth intake, Comp 270 cam wich will have a slightly rough idle. Headders and exhaust. If you can affod heads, go for it. On the piston note, you could throw some higher compressuion slugs in there but to do that you have to disamble the entire engine and youll have to do new rings and re bore it to an over size bore to fit the new pistons. The result will net you with a little bit more power and the higher CR would allow for a bigger cam but to much bigger and the idle gets bad and you need spendy valve train parts. I wouldnt do pistons unless your ready for a majior over haul and want to spend some dough. With that displacement youll need lots of RPM if you want big numbers. I have to spin my 472 way over 8000 RPM to get a modest 700HP out of it. Course the Big blocks have the heads where as the small block head design sucks in comparison.

Questions?

Any competition mud racing in your area? Check the rules to see where you'll fit with your mods before getting too deep into what you do to the engine. If your truck looks like it'll be in a class that checks vacuum, you have to be careful on your cam choice. The tech line at Comp Cams will be a big help in that dept.

TEX

yeah only rule is dont get stuck, its the swamp in my back yard, for right now ill prolly only do a cam in headers, when money is there then ill go heads, what would be a good set? i need higher rpm, like 5-7k? idk its goin to be street drivin adn mud so.. comp 270 cam why do u say this? (jsut trying to figure out stuff). why a 750 carb? wont that flood it out? i gotta run the summit intake for right now, its a dual plane and alimunam (sp). what will the stock rods and crank hold to (rpm) with out a problem, with different pistons and heads to flow what is needed.?


thanks guys

I am happy with my 351W. Its a rebuilt '74 0.030 shortblock, with a Edelbrock Performer top kit (heads, cam, intake), roller rockers, shorty headers, 670 truck avenger and HEI distributor.

I estimate around 375hp and 430 lbs/tq under 3000 rpms. Revs strong up to 5500 rpm.

I prefer the HEI distributor for performance in water and mud. I have been practically submerged in water with engine running with no issues.

and what ratio roller rocker if i do that to? 1.6 or 1.73? whats the differnce?

I have 1.6 ratio roller rockers, however i wonder how 1.7's will perform at low/mid/high rpm vs the 1.6.

I have played with desktop dynos and my combo seems the best overall for my lower rpm application (trails, rocks, mud) however a bigger cam will improve HP (not torque) especially at higher rpm and probably let the engine rev higher.
I have a np435/205 tranny/case for a 72:1 crawl ratio. It will idle all day over trails with out stalling the engine, however i always try to choose the right gear to keep engine at its peak torque numbers. Power is incredible when the carb secondaries open, you can really feel the power. I also have a 1 inch spacer in the carb.

i choose the performance package for simplicity reasons. It is supposed to be well matched out of the box, not having to guess with all the variables of the build. So far i am happy.
For your case, maybe a performance RPM will suit you better with bigger valves and higher rev curve for mud bogging.

what are you using for desktop dynos? i dont understand the rocker ratio to even begain with. and yes prolly more rpm would be better, will never idiel cept for stop lights (if not in a brake stand)

I stated a comp 270 cam because its about the biggest off the shelf grind you'll find that works with a stock valve train. If you go more duration you'll need more compression. If you go more lift you'll need better valve train. The idea is to pick a cam for the RPM in which you want to build the most power. I wanted a power band from 4K to 8500. The higher rpm you want the more duration you need. The more duration you have, the higher your compression you need to support it or you have not power at all. Once you have your desired duration you need to maximize your lift to go with it. If you have high lift, low duration your really hard on valve train components cause you open and close the valve to fast. If you have big duration, low lift you have whats called a lazy cam profile and that's not so fun either. Duration is cheap if you have the compression to support it. Lift cost money in parts like springs, longer valves, roller rockers and other things. Higher RPM is very expensive. My BB cam duration @ .50 thousandths tappet lift is 271 intake and 279 exhaust. That's not advertised duration either. I have to run 12.5-1 CR to support that and have aluminum heads as well and will run on 91 octane gas.

If you go from a 1.6 to a 1.7 rocker arm ratio you simply gain more lift. A 1-1 ratio would mean that for every 1 inch the cam lobe goes up, the valve opens 1 inch. A 1.5-1 means that for every 1 inch of cam lobe lift you get 1.5 inches of valve lift and so on. Now obviously your not going to have that much lift but a 1.5-1 means that the valve opens one and a halt times as much as the cam lobe.. Or 1.6 or 1.73 like in my case or sometimes 1.8. Again gaining more lift can cause problems with valve train geometry and needs special attention.

The heads on a Windsor are a big loss of power right there and an upgrade would be a great idea. The stock bottom end is stout, however adding pistons will require a complete tear down and rebuild and re balance. The HP and torque levels have more of an affect of rather or not your bottom end blows apart over RPM however they both come in to play together. 6500 is doable without worry, However actually making that engine build power up that high is another story. You'd need BIG heads with BIG flow numbers, a BIG, HUGE cam and lots of spendy valve train parts. Displacement and low rpm torque is cheaper. Trust me... I have over 8 thousand dollars in my Big Block 472 thattel spin 9000 RPM and build strong power to over 8k. In the end I figure i spent a lot of money to get it to hold together over 6500 Rpm and even more for it to make power over that RPM. Next time ill stroke it and keep a lower RPM power band and rely on the torque and higher gears to get the same tire speed i have now. RPM also kills engines faster. I must admit that it sounds cool having a big ol V8 that will rev up faster and higher than the local ricer croud here.

wow thats anot of helpful info. thanks alot. ill go with the comp 270 for now untill i do more mods. next will porlly be a good set of heads. im not lookin for 9k rpm yet altho that would be bad ass but no. i might try 1.6 rollers and see how they work. they will bolt into stock valve train if im reading right, right? thanks

boom

lookin at plug wire sets, want to know what is better (resistance and ohms) i dont under stand that shit. so heres the chooses http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?autofilter=1&part=TAY%2D73153&N=700+115&autoview=sku or http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?autofilter=1&part=TAY%2D84658&N=700+4294908331+4294924928+115&autoview=sku one is like 1000ohms a foot and other is 50 ohms, i dont know much but i think lower restantace is better?

What is your budget?? I personally will never waste my money again playing with small blocks. Ive had 302s and 351W, 351M and 400s. I run 460s all the way. Youll spend a grand on bolt ons in that windsor and a stock junk yard 460 will out perform it.

However a carb, intake, cam, headders will help the most. Heads are very expensive but will help a lot. There a big down fall on the windsor family engine. IMO if ou can afford a thousand dollar set of heads ide swap to a 460, do the intake and cam with your carb abd out run your buddies all day long.

Questions?

460s are pigs.:shaking:

Go buy a cheap stroker kit off ebay and some cheap edelbrock heads. 100 more hp than that jy 460 and 100lbs less. Or find some gt40 heads. Or port your own, they're simple as shit.

The 302 is the mill that everyone throws cash at to end up with a mediocre timebomb.

If you want to build a big block, find a 454.