cleveland parts

[mikethebike]

Okay son, here we go...
I am a veteran of this arguement!

The Cleveland began development around 67-68.
During that time, there was an unrelated engeering development going on that would become the Boss 302. At the time, it was dubbed "tunnelport 302". This engine was in the works for limited production homologation for the TransAm racing circuit.
Around 68, the TP302 was determined to be a big useless dud of an engine.
They found that the engineers on that project relied way too much on outdated FE TP427 technology and just tried to adapt it directy to a 302.
This project was now set several years back, however Ford was chomping at the bit to win some TA races.
When they realized their heads were going to roll if they didn't do something fast, they looked over at the Cleveland engineers, with their 4v heads. The first thing that was obvious was that the heads used the same bolt pattern and bore spacing as a 302.
The Cleveland development saved their a$$es and the TP302, now dubbed "Boss" won some TA races and eventually championships.

That is how the B302 came out with Cleveland heads one year before the official release of the Cleveland.

I can't stand folks that push 'owning' a Boss in your face to make you think they are experts on the subject.
I have never owned one and I know more about them than you do.

Open your mouth on the subject again if you want to keep going.
I got pics and all. It just ain't worth my PC time to produce them all for you when you can just open your mouth and show how much you don't know.

Btw:
Casting numbers will be different.
Anyone would realize that... the water passages are moved slightly to send the water through the intake of a Boss. Therefore the casting will be different.
Put the two heads side by side from any angle, the biggest difference is the water passage. Everything else is cast the same. A child could determine that without having to match numbers.

YOU may have the pictures but I had the real thing..X-BOSS intake, 2 875 cfm inline 4's, 5.4" rods/pistons bought directly from Jack Roush in 1975, roller rocker conversion, stage II chassis mods, Linclon front disc brakes with the stock fronts moved to the rear, 700lbs front springs, 1.25 front bar, .875 rear (adjustable) bar, Koni's, export/monti-carlo bar, custom made frame connectors, 3.55 Locker 31 spline Nodular rear with under-rides, Hooker long tubes with exit forward of the rear wheels exhaust using Z/28 chambered exhaust, Zoom clutch plate with Borg-Warner 3000lb Lonbg style PP. I can tell you the DEFECTS in the engine design and try this one on for size.....THE BOSS-302 NEVER WON A TRANS-AM CHAMPIONSHIP RUNNING AGANIST A PROPERLY PREPPED Z/28....you do remember that in 1969 Penske/Donahue won with a Z/28 and in 1970 they raced AMC's and still almost won? Until I installed the 5.4 rods and all the other stuff a stock BOSS-302 would not....on the satreet where it counted...keep-up with a stock Z/28. Z/28's could rev to 8000 with NO problems and BOSS 302 had those 6250 rev limiters to keep yo from breaking 1st the blocks until mid year 69 when they began using the T-A racing blocks and then they broke pistons when we would disconnect them and rev the motors.
Remember when SS and Drag Illustrated built the Super-Mod BOSS 318 Maverick?
They kept scoring cyclinder walls reving the motor to 8500 and could not figure out why...they were required to run stock rods and heads. A Mr. Lingenfelter beat hell out of them with a two bolt 400 cid hydraulic cam Chevy. REMEMBER?
And while YOU MAY have memorized more data than I...YOU have NEVER owned the real thing...kind of like all those Honda 'Shadow' riders who REALLY want to ride a Harley SPORTSTER....why didn't they call it the Honda 'psuedo'. Was there not a song years ago that said:

"I';ve got the picture....he's got you"? You may have ALL the pictures of other peoples BOSS-302 and have memorized ALL the data...that does not change the fact that I had the real thing.

Please, take soltice in your vicarious projects.

 

[mikethebike]

Okay son, here we go...
I am a veteran of this arguement!

The Cleveland began development around 67-68.
During that time, there was an unrelated engeering development going on that would become the Boss 302. At the time, it was dubbed "tunnelport 302". This engine was in the works for limited production homologation for the TransAm racing circuit.
Around 68, the TP302 was determined to be a big useless dud of an engine.
They found that the engineers on that project relied way too much on outdated FE TP427 technology and just tried to adapt it directy to a 302.
This project was now set several years back, however Ford was chomping at the bit to win some TA races.
When they realized their heads were going to roll if they didn't do something fast, they looked over at the Cleveland engineers, with their 4v heads. The first thing that was obvious was that the heads used the same bolt pattern and bore spacing as a 302.
The Cleveland development saved their a$$es and the TP302, now dubbed "Boss" won some TA races and eventually championships.

That is how the B302 came out with Cleveland heads one year before the official release of the Cleveland.

I can't stand folks that push 'owning' a Boss in your face to make you think they are experts on the subject.
I have never owned one and I know more about them than you do.

Open your mouth on the subject again if you want to keep going.
I got pics and all. It just ain't worth my PC time to produce them all for you when you can just open your mouth and show how much you don't know.

Btw:
Casting numbers will be different.
Anyone would realize that... the water passages are moved slightly to send the water through the intake of a Boss. Therefore the casting will be different.
Put the two heads side by side from any angle, the biggest difference is the water passage. Everything else is cast the same. A child could determine that without having to match numbers.

WAIT...I just noticed...your avatar is a CAMARO???

 

[D.Hearne]

How do you use stock front discs on the rear? 3.55's? Not in a 9". Roller rocker conversion ? What's there to convert? For someone who claims to have had the "real thing" and a flawless memory, you sure do post a lot of bloopers in your info. Once again you seem to live by that old saying: "If you can't dazzle em with brilliance, baffle em with bull****". You also seem to prefer Chevy's over Ford's, making me question why you're even here, other than to be a "troll". And your statement "The Boss 302 never one a Championship against a properly prepped Z-28" What kind of(blanket) statement is that? Sure, the Boss didn't win the "Championship", but it DID win races that year, and if it hadn't been for the pileup that destroyed the two Shelby cars and Gorge Folmer's car in the 7th race, Chevy may not have won that year at all. Ford was leading in points up until that wreck. Who can guess what would have happend with these three cars still competing ? And the "Z" lost to a lowly AMC the next year as you've already pointed out. That sure speaks well for the 302 Chevy.

 

[mikethebike]

How do you use stock front discs on the rear? 3.55's? Not in a 9". Roller rocker conversion ? What's there to convert? For someone who claims to have had the "real thing" and a flawless memory, you sure do post a lot of bloopers in your info. Once again you seem to live by that old saying: "If you can't dazzle em with brilliance, baffle em with bull****". You also seem to prefer Chevy's over Ford's, making me question why you're even here, other than to be a "troll". And your statement "The Boss 302 never one a Championship against a properly prepped Z-28" What kind of(blanket) statement is that? Sure, the Boss didn't win the "Championship", but it DID win races that year, and if it hadn't been for the pileup that destroyed the two Shelby cars and Gorge Folmer's car in the 7th race, Chevy may not have won that year at all. Ford was leading in points up until that wreck. Who can guess what would have happend with these three cars still competing ? And the "Z" lost to a lowly AMC the next year as you've already pointed out. That sure speaks well for the 302 Chevy.

Ford had a kit to move the front discs to the rear.
I meant to type 3.50...you know...35 &10
Ford also had a caged roller bearing kit that replaced the trunion pivot on the rocker.
That ****ing statement is the ****ing truth.Period
The Z/28 was not raced by a competitive team in 1970...Penske raced AMC that year.
As far as my perfering Chevy to Ford...I only speak the truth about either one of them. And the truth is the Fords were the 1st on the trailer back in the 60's. Hell, my 66 SS Chevelle was paid for by Ford guys with 390's, 351's and 428's who thought they could beat that ratty looking old blue Chevy. THEY were wrong. Now, if you want to talk about what was wrong with the BB Chevy motor, I can tell you all about the 3/8" rod bolts that stretched, the rocker arms that broke at 2000 rpm. But I can also tell you about the 5.15 rod in a BOSS that created such an acute rod angle that you were limited to 6250 rpm. I will die believing the 302 Z/28 motor which was nothing more than a 283 crank in a fuelie 327 motor (before they went to the 4 bolt block and forged crank in 68) was the best small block, push-rod street motor ever offered
for sale to the public. Period. There was none better.

 

[bnickel]

D., you actually can put the stock front discs from a 69/70 on the rear of same, you simply remove the rotor from the hub and you'd use a special bracket sold by ford that would allow the caliper to bolt to the rearend housing, you also had to have a special axle, again available from ford. this was of course after you swapped the front brakes over to the big lincoln 4-pot calipers and LTD 12" discs.

Mike the boss 302 is no more a pent roof chamber than a standard 302, it is a canted valve wedge exactly like the cleveland with the only difference being the addittion of the coolant passages for the boss so the cleveland head would mate up with the 302 block, otherwise they are exactly the same, they even use the same rocker arms, valve covers and can use the same valves as well. i'm sorry but just because you owned one doesn't mean you know what the hell you're talking about. unless you had some one off engineering piece that came straight from ford your boss 302 was just like any other boss 302

 

[ultrastang]

The Clevor intake for this swap was designed in the late '70s/early '80s by a guy from Fort Smith, Arkansas, named Gary Roughly. --Actually there were two different intakes for this swap; the "Street Boss" (dual-plane) version, and the "Track Boss" (single-plane) version. The company was B&A Ford Performance, Inc.

Before the advent of the 5.0L engines gaining rapid popularity in the late '80s-early '90s, there weren't really any peformance head offerings for the small-block Fords at that time. The Clevor was the "hot ticket" prior to the release of the EFI 5.0L H.O. engines. After the 5.0Ls gained in popularity, manufacturers finally began producing performance heads for the small-block Ford crowd. After this happened, the Clevor was no longer the hot setup it once was. The last known address I have for them (1992) is; B&A Ford Performance, Inc. Box 6553 Fort Smith, Arkansas 72906-6553. Evidently, the swap parts/designs were sold to Bush Performance, or B&A Ford, Inc. became Bush Peformance (??)


The swap was designed to bolt 351C 2V, 351M or 400 heads to a 289, 302, or 351-W block.

The Boss/Cleveland 4V heads have very large ports/valves that would not work as well as the 351C 2-bbl heads for street use. An even better 2V head to use would be the Australian-built 351C heads. Their ports are ~10% larger than the U.S.-made 2V heads. (uh-oh. there's some of those foreign-made parts).

I have several articles on the swap. I had also talked with Gary Roughly, by phone in December '92, back when I was thinking about doing this swap. Gary sent me a brochure outlining what parts were needed to make the conversion.

If you live near Tulsa, Oklahoma, or if you have ever been to Hallett Raceway, you may have seen Gary racing there. His car is a black '69 sportsroof with gold Boss 302-style stripes on the side that say, "Track Boss 351W".

 

[bnickel]

oh yeah D, they did also offer the roller rocker conversion, it wasn't really a true roller rocker though since only the pivot ball was replaced with the roller bearings the tip of the rocker was the same since it the rocker arm itself was still the stock piece. in actuality it was just a roller trunion conversion. you can actually still buy these from crane for pretty much any later model ford motor with the bolt down style rockers albeit a slightly different style because they don't offer it for the stud mounted rockers.

 

[mikethebike]

D., you actually can put the stock front discs from a 69/70 on the rear of same, you simply remove the rotor from the hub and you'd use a special bracket sold by ford that would allow the caliper to bolt to the rearend housing, you also had to have a special axle, again available from ford. this was of course after you swapped the front brakes over to the big lincoln 4-pot calipers and LTD 12" discs.

Mike the boss 302 is no more a pent roof chamber than a standard 302, it is a canted valve wedge exactly like the cleveland with the only difference being the addittion of the coolant passages for the boss so the cleveland head would mate up with the 302 block, otherwise they are exactly the same, they even use the same rocker arms, valve covers and can use the same valves as well. i'm sorry but just because you owned one doesn't mean you know what the hell you're talking about. unless you had some one off engineering piece that came straight from ford your boss 302 was just like any other boss 302

Well, the intake valve was angled in one direction with the exhaust in the other and when you looked at the piston the top of said piston was shaped like an inverted 'V'. Admittedly a VERY shollow 'V'. It was not shaped in a rounded wedge like a Windsor or SBC. Now if you are saying that a pent roof chamber had to be in line like a Cosworth or a 4-valve inline 4 motorcycle engine, then no, it was not a pent roof chamber. But if you look at the relationship of the valves and basic shape of the chamber it does resemble a pent roof. It was NOT a wedge and it definitely was NOT a HEMI.

 

[ratio411]

It's a poly-angle wedge, based on the BBC.
Ford carried the BBC to the next step by removing the unequal length runners causing the BBC some tuning issues.

 

[D.Hearne]

oh yeah D, they did also offer the roller rocker conversion, it wasn't really a true roller rocker though since only the pivot ball was replaced with the roller bearings the tip of the rocker was the same since it the rocker arm itself was still the stock piece. in actuality it was just a roller trunion conversion. you can actually still buy these from crane for pretty much any later model ford motor with the bolt down style rockers albeit a slightly different style because they don't offer it for the stud mounted rockers.

Now that you mention it, I recall it now. I assumed he was doing some sort of conversion to full roller rockers of which there is no conversion, merely a switch in rockers.

 

[D.Hearne]

The Z/28 was not raced by a competitive team in 1970...Penske raced AMC that year.
But I can also tell you about the 5.15 rod in a BOSS that created such an acute rod angle that you were limited to 6250 rpm. I will die believing the 302 Z/28 motor which was nothing more than a 283 crank in a fuelie 327 motor (before they went to the 4 bolt block and forged crank in 68) was the best small block, push-rod street motor ever offered
for sale to the public. Period. There was none better.

So, Penske was the only competitive team ? OK. And as for the 302's rod angle, aint it funny it causes no problems today ? AND with a shorter rod? And this with a better rod/stroke ratio than both the small and big block Chevy's?

 

[ratio411]

Boss 302 had a pretty good rod ratio... 1.72
The 302 only had a 1.69, and it is considered at the bottom of 'good ratios'.

I think he may have been refering to the piston issue that Ford had with Boss 302s. The stock design had fatally weak skirts. B302s had a terrible rep for breaking pistons, cracking skirts, and scuffing cyl. walls.
It was all in the piston design.
TRW made the service pistons and still use their design for off the shelf replacements today. TRW cast some ribs into the skirt for reinforcement.
Problem gone.
I honestly don't know if the TRW repair made it into 70 production, or if it was just incorporated into the 71 dated service parts.

 

[D.Hearne]

Boss 302 had a pretty good rod ratio... 1.72
The 302 only had a 1.69, and it is considered at the bottom of 'good ratios'.

I think he may have been refering to the piston issue that Ford had with Boss 302s. The stock design had fatally weak skirts. B302s had a terrible rep for breaking pistons, cracking skirts, and scuffing cyl. walls.

As did all the non Boss 302 pistons of that era. Seen so many, I was starting to think that was what they were supposed to do.......

 

[mikethebike]

So, Penske was the only competitive team ? OK. And as for the 302's rod angle, aint it funny it causes no problems today ? AND with a shorter rod? And this with a better rod/stroke ratio than both the small and big block Chevy's?

the 350 cid Chevy with a 5.7 rod has a 1.63 rod to stroke ratio and my 95 Z/28 re limits at 5800. The Ford 302 has a 1.7 ratio and cannot be safely reved beyond about
5900. The REAL Z/28 had the same 5.7" rod length and rod ratio of 1.9..which btw is what Dan Perrin and a whole bunch of engine builders say is the optimum ratio.
Ford contends that any ratio about 1.6 is good....but they then limit those engines rpms with electronics.

And answer this...if a 5.15 beefed hi-pi 289 rod was good enough why did Ford go to a 5.4 rod for Trans-Am? When I broke the motor in my car in 1974 none of the Ford mechanics could tell me why that God awful knock was called "BOSS-302 broken piston noise" other than most all of them did it. I called Gapp/Roush in Livonia,Mi. and got to take to Jack about BOSS-302 motors. That was when I learned that the 1969 motors had double cross drilled cranks and weak blocks that were replaced with T-A block mid year and then in 1970 thay used a single angle drilled crank and reduced the intake valve size by something like .04". When I told him about breaking the pistons his reply was: 'you disconnected the rev limiter and let that little motor go, didn't you.' Why, yes I did.
You can believe what you want. But I'll go with what I learned from people who have actually done it. You know, guys like Jake King (do you know who he was?..he was the man who built 8500 rpm 409's for Ronnie Sox back in Burlington, NC in 1962), Dan Perrin and Pete Hill.
So go ahead and rev your short for 302 to 8000, or 7000 rpm and see how long your cylinder walls and pistons last. It is your motor afterall.

 

[mikethebike]

So, Penske was the only competitive team ? OK. And as for the 302's rod angle, aint it funny it causes no problems today ? AND with a shorter rod? And this with a better rod/stroke ratio than both the small and big block Chevy's?

Penske WAS the only competitive Z/28 Trans-Am team...not even Smokey Yunick couldn't keep-up with what Donahue and Penske were doing in the chassis department. The No. 6 SUNOCO Camaro was king of Trans-Am in 68/69. If AMC had not made such a huge money offer I believe they would have won in 1970 with the same 302 Traco built engines.

I know you guys don't want to hear this but the 302 Z/28 WAS a better motor, especially on the street where Ford guys couldn't afford to buy the special parts to make it keep-up. I was there, I saw it live and in person from Piedmont drag strip in Burlington to Woodward Ave. in Detroit. Chevy RULED the street race scene. Period.

 

[ratio411]

In my experience 289 and 302 Fords are high revvin little SOBs.
I haven't had a Boss 302, but I have built regular 302s that thrived on 7k revs.
Never had an issue.
I've actually tried to blow one up on purpose and couldn't do it.

Rod bolts are the only weak link I know of for 302s, until the blocks got thin and started splitting down the middle in the 5.0 era.

A little O/T:
The only 351w I have ever heard of splitting was a member here that was loading 800 hp at his for a season.
351Cs used to be the fodder for Prostock and Nascar.
They weren't known for breaking cranks or blocks either (when set up properly)
They used to run HTC prepped stock cranks to 10k rpm.
I don't think there is a widespread problem with Ford engines revving.
The B302 pistons are a unique situation overall.
Regular 302s had a similar problem like D mentioned, but I have never built a performance engine using stock pistons.

The big thing folks don't remember to swap is the rod bolts.
That is the big weak point for Fords in my mind, as pistons get changed.

 

[mikethebike]

Boss 302 had a pretty good rod ratio... 1.72
The 302 only had a 1.69, and it is considered at the bottom of 'good ratios'.

I think he may have been refering to the piston issue that Ford had with Boss 302s. The stock design had fatally weak skirts. B302s had a terrible rep for breaking pistons, cracking skirts, and scuffing cyl. walls.
It was all in the piston design.
TRW made the service pistons and still use their design for off the shelf replacements today. TRW cast some ribs into the skirt for reinforcement.
Problem gone.
I honestly don't know if the TRW repair made it into 70 production, or if it was just incorporated into the 71 dated service parts.

Why then did the early 69 motors break cylinder walls? Then, after the T-A block was being used they broke pistons? And a short rod is the cause of scruffing cylinder walls. not weak pistons.

 

[D.Hearne]

That's strange, I've safely rev'd $350 reman 5.0 shortblocks topped with Canfield heads to 7500 with Hypereutectic pistons and no other prep work done, other than replacing the puny 5/16" rod bolts with ARP's (and installed one at a time in the assembled engine) And that was done daily for 4 months and the only problem that appeared was a 1/2" long crack in the #4 cylinder wall. Pistons looked like new even though they'd been subjected to 6500 rpm runs, daily for over a year before the switch in heads and intake. I chalked that up to the .040" overbore and the previous week's overheating episode, not the rod angle or excessive (in your mind) rpms.There are hundreds of others out there, who've done more than I have and what you say is impossible to accomplish with a 302. I guess they're all misguided too, huh? Once again, you've been proven to be posting nothing other than blather about your ficticious engines and racing career.

 

[ratio411]

I will die believing the 302 Z/28 motor which was nothing more than a 283 crank in a fuelie 327 motor (before they went to the 4 bolt block and forged crank in 68) was the best small block, push-rod street motor ever offered
for sale to the public. Period. There was none better.

I might cheez alot of folks off here, but I will counter that with the LSx series of engines introduced in 97.
As pushrod engines go, the LSx is king. Period.

 

[mikethebike]

In my experience 289 and 302 Fords are high revvin little SOBs.
I haven't had a Boss 302, but I have built regular 302s that thrived on 7k revs.
Never had an issue.
I've actually tried to blow one up on purpose and couldn't do it.

Rod bolts are the only weak link I know of for 302s, until the blocks got thin and started splitting down the middle in the 5.0 era.

A little O/T:
The only 351w I have ever heard of splitting was a member here that was loading 800 hp at his for a season.
351Cs used to be the fodder for Prostock and Nascar.
They weren't known for breaking cranks or blocks either (when set up properly)
They used to run HTC prepped stock cranks to 10k rpm.
I don't think there is a widespread problem with Ford engines revving.
The B302 pistons are a unique situation overall.
Regular 302s had a similar problem like D mentioned, but I have never built a performance engine using stock pistons.

The big thing folks don't remember to swap is the rod bolts.
That is the big weak point for Fords in my mind, as pistons get changed.

What would bolts have to do with breaking the tang ONLY on the non-thurst side? This would happen as all that mass of the crank assembly would load the non-thurst side and the tang that protruded past the cylinder at bdc. The acute rod angle would over load the piston and if you were lucky you would break a piece about the size of a 1/2 dollar and it would fall to the pan and not total the crank.
And I used SPS bolts back then. Remember them? And in drag motors we changed them every 3 builds. Which for a ported top ring motor was about 30 passes....@ better than 10,000 rpm. Dan Perrin would not tell us what he did.