I am about to take out my 6 cylinder engine and install a cleveland V8. Just before I started I thought I'd ask the audience if there were any pit falls or words of experience that may benefit me. I will be running an AOD tranny and realise that I will need to make a tranny crossmember. Will I have any bellhousing clearance issues etc. Thanks.
Should not have a bell housing issue. Speedway motors offers basic front and rear crossmember kits for this swap.
Well guys I am into the swap, it has taken me some time as I have installed Elpolacko's Dakota IFS into the frame first up and it is a sweet up grade. However, since have the IFS welded in it now appears that a Cleveland engine swap is not going to work without extra firewall/tunnel mods. Yes the Cleveland does have a bronco oil pan fitted but it is still not pretty as far as being a neat swap. So tomorrow I will try be trying a SBC engine in place and see how much more user friendly it will be since the deep end of the oil pan is all at the rear where it needs to be. More soon.
just say no to SBC's If you have a rear sump cleveland pan then it should work as easy as a sb chity . Notch that cross member if needed .
i just swapped a 360/c6 into a 64 f100 made motor mounts used 71 c6 cross member n modified it other wise it was just lining the drive line with the rear axel pinion was offset to the pass side. and setting clearance between fan and rad, but a electric fan gives u more flexability
with a 351 clevland the only things I have heard is that you need to have strong brakse. My dads boss has one in a 56 f100 with drums all around and you cant stop the damn thing. My uncle had one in a 70's ranger and it had discs in front and drums in back and everything worked out fine.
Where is the point of interference? I assume it is the front sump, which is really the oil pump. What does it want to run into?
With the new IFS the bronco style oil pan is just not cut out enough in the center to bridge the new IFS crossmember and power rack that attaches which is all part of the kit. Basically I can not get the engine down in vertical height low enough to meet the tranny bellhousing. A cut to the fire wall and some work there would fix it, but it was never my plan to start doing that. The firewall work will allow me to lift the tranny upto the engine height. looking at the firewall the top opening is on an angle the high side is close to the accelerator pedal and the lower side opposite. What would need to be done is cuthe lower side out and make that top portion of the firewall level or parallel to the ground. That is about 2 inches gained which would work. The top lip that needs cutting and straightening is made from a formed box section which in my book to do it properly would need a bit of work and say an extra piece of box section made or cut out of a wreck.
I would say, put whatever engine fits best. That suspension setup is trick. Nice truck you are building there!
Greetings Russ! So you have a rear sump oil pan, but the center of the oil pan causes clearance issues? Is it possible to cut/modify the oil pan? If you made the front to center of the pan as shallow as internal clearance allows, will it be enough? Keep us posted!
I can probably call myself a Ford man thru and thru, but I dont want to challenge the Ford Chevy thing. I just want a V8 engine in my old F100 that will run and overdrive tranny and compliment the great IFS set up that I have installed. Hey, just means I find another project for the Cleveland and the effort I have put into that setting up a/c and power steering pumps etc will not be wasted. I got one guy already wanting to buy it if it wont fit. More later with the results of the chevy mock up.
Yeh Buddy, the gap between the two humps is just not wide enough and I dont want to make a major project build out of it and since I have engines all around me I will just go with what works best. I have both and AOD and a T700R tranny to test fit as well so no big deal. Just need to find a Chevy vehicle some time in the future to fit my Ford engine into.
Too bad that Cleveland won't fit, that would be a good lump to run! But, with all your projects, you'll find something to put it in. Run that sbc with the overdrive tranny. It'll make a real nice driver, and you'll have that Cleveland for rod later!
Well guys the Chevy engine fits lower and cleaner with no need to cut any firewall stuff. I just need a corvette style lean cut oil pan and go for the later exhaust manifolds rather than the rams horn style plus do an little extra work on the engine mounts and we will be good to go. I can not believe the F100 engine bay ends up being so Chevy friendly. Even the indent in the firewall looks like it was put there to clear the Chevy distrubutor. More when further progress is achieved after xmas. Who knows what santa may show up with now I needs specific parts. Merry christmas and a happy new year to you all.
Well gentlemen, the test has proven that the SBC engine is a much easier fit than the SBF, mostly influenced by the oil pan versus IFS crosmember match up. The fire wall also is chev friendly with a slight indent which is an advantage. Also fuel line matches the chev pump and bottom radiator hose to radiator location.
Well since I have chosen to use the Chevy engine, I decided to slightly reshape the oil pan to help the engine sit a little lower and a little further forward for obvious reasons. I took 2 old oil pans and made one out of two. I just hope that they will fit up OK and and only leak the regular amount of oil as Chevy's seem to do! I shaved and flattened out the shallow front portion and shortened the deep portion but also added 1 inch in depth to the deep portion. I have since taking these pic's, positioned the drain plug to work around the new IFS crossmember and re-installed the baffle. I also plan to reposition the oil pick up to take advantage of the 1 inch increase in depth.
This is going to be a nice ride! Looks like a win/win- The engine fits, and you have additional oil capacity.
Just be ready to listen to guys that wonder why you would cut up the chevy pan to fit but didn't want to cut up the Ford pan. Distributors are meant to be in the FRONT of the engine. Guess you can tell my blood runs BLUE OVAL.
Dont worry, my blood runs blue also, just had to follow the least line of resistance for what I had hoped would be a hassle free project. Other thing is since I dont need a boat mooring, I had to find another use for my Chevy engine that I inherited, guess the relative hated me.
Well the chev engine is sitting in place and I will make engine mounts and a tranny crossmember tomorrow. That Ford blue oil pan sure fits and looks good. I am using a T700R4 tranny. Looks like I will need to shave the crossmember that runs under the bellhousing if I want to keep it stock. Seems sensible to keep that crossmember for strength, but needs a little work to make it easy in the future to do a engine or tranny removal. I figure better to do it now rather that later when it is a problem. I have sourced a pair of the log type manifolds which appear to be going to work out just fine.