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DUKE OF WINDSOR
A commoner small-block Ford would not do for our princely project, so we commissioned Jack Roush to fit our steed...
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Pity the poor 4-speed in our Mustang II, for it shall inherit 400 foot/pounds of torque at 4800 rpm, 400 + horsepower at 6500 rpm and all the other pressures that are associated with playing behind one, very special, Windsor Ford. As you may have guessed, that stocker 302-inch V8 had to go. It was too much a by-product of today's limited expectations. It, by gad, had to be decidedly different, befitting those performance enthusiasts who are not feint of heart. Feint of heart? Well, like ol' "Cactus" Jack Roush slyly said, "You've got to think about all those parts whizzing around in there at seven grand." What parts? Ah, it's like shades of yesteryear. Our once-docile 302 has been replaced by the hot rodder's answer, a full-boogie poke 'n' stroke number with just enough off-the-shelf parts to make the "now" 363-inch, thin-wall Hank a relatively reasonable answer to those who would like to do the same and turn their own mounts into the torque of the town.
Tackling the block and reciprocating assembly
As we all know, the cylinder block is the foundation of any internal combustion engine, and to ensure that the engine will live up to expectations, it is "blueprinted," a name for making all its vertical and horizontal planes conform to a set of predetermined specifications. The 'Stang's block was no exception. Roush gave it a thorough align honing, milled the decks, bored and honed the cylinder walls, and notched the bottom of the bores. Notched the bottom of the bores? Well, that's what you need to do when you're running a stroker crank and long rods. All right! That's right. To pick up a quick 30 inches, Jack slipped a cast nodular iron 351 Cleveland crank - which had had its overall length reduced, its cam sprocket changed, the rod journals cut down .080-inch, .125-inch taken off the mains, rear seal resurfaced, oil holes enlarged, additional balancing weight added to both the counterwieghts, flywheel and front dampener and a full Tuffride treatment - into the 302's main webs. To the Moldex-modified cranks, eight Boss 302 Trans Am forged steel rods sporting polished and peened beams, rebuilt big and little ends and full-floating pins were attached. The rods were then fitted with a special set of .060-inch-over, flat-top BRC forged aluminum pistons encompassing a G&R-designed skirt and relocated pin bores to move the pin closer to the bottom ring land. Last, one of the specialities of the house was to take the 1/16-inch doctile chrome moly top ring, the 1/16-inch cast-iron scraper and the three-piece oil ring an calibrate their tension to ensure full oil control.
Camming it up
After a thorough search, Jack decided to rely on one of Ford's old musclecar cams, a relatively mild hydraulic whose specs are a .470-inch lift (both intakes and exhausts), 290-dgree duration and 62 degrees of overlap. Cam is run either straight up or advanced one degree, and relies on a combination of a stock Ford timing chain, Cloyes iron top sprocket and a G&R full adjustable crank sprocket. According to the man from Livonia, this cam should come in like gangbusters at three grand and leave at around five.
Oil in the family.
As you recall, Jack reworked the crank's oil holes, but other than a couple of other mods, he left the Windsor's lubrication alone. The first exception was the installation of one of his high-pressure, high-volume pumps and heavy-duty pump drives. The second was the reshaping and deepening of the sump in the oil pan so it would clear the crossmember. And by adding a couple of inches ot the bottom of the sump, he was able to pick up and additional two quarts of oil capacity.
Heading up the valvetrain
The valvetrain is strictly off-the-shelf, G&R good stuff. Lifters are their anti-pump-up units, plus G&R's 5/16-inch chrome moly pushrods, G&R titanim retainers and a set of G&R valve springs. These "wounderful" items possess both inner and outer springs, plus a dampener, and provide 120 pounds of seat pressure. As for the valves, they're TRW Chevy types with a head diameter of 1.940 inches on the intakes, 1.620 inches on the exhausts. Naturally, the 351 Windsor cylinder heads have been fully ported, polished, cc'd (62.4cc), and had the valve seats remachined to compensate for the oversized valves.
Induction center
As you might have guessed, ol' Cactus is still toying around with intake manifolding. He has boiled it down to either a single four-barrel, dual-plane Shelby Cobra or a fully flogged (to compensate for the increased air flow) 289 Edelbrock Torker. As would be expected, the runners were matched to the intake ports and the 750-cfm Holley double-pumper will retain its choke but will have its fuel curve reworked.
Tune it on
Yes, a set of tube headers will be found inside the engine compartment, as will a high-capacity water pump and some kind of crossflow-type radiator. But because of today's rather anemic gasoline, the reworked stocker ignition will reach a total of 38 degrees at 3600 and fire through a set of Autolite BF 32s or 42s gapped at .030-inch.
As you can see, our horsepower of a different concept should make our project Mustang II more than just another pretty face. There should be enough oats ther to long-leg us over to Indy in style and enough docility to get us back - that is, if the 4-speed doesn't give up the shift.
Continued from the Horse of a Different Color article and the Get Down articles.
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