DeTomaso Mailing List: March 2001, Message #34

Jack,

What are you talking about?  Ford didn't know what they were 
doing???  Yeah, sure.

JB


At 10:04 PM 02/28/2001 -0500, JDeRyke@aol.com wrote:
>snip....
><What problem was Ford trying to  solve with 4-bolt main caps?>
>
>I'm not sure they even knew. 4-bolt mains were traditional with performance
>engines at that time. The 351C was a scaled-up 289 block design, which was
>itself stroked to 302 for Trans-Am racing and later, for the street. At the
>time (late '69-early '70), no one knew that Ford had sculpted too much cast
>iron out for safe running of big power. In fact, Ford may not have known
>initially why 351C blocks were failing in NASCAR. By the spring of '72 when
>100% of the race-prepped Holman-Moody & Jr Johnson-prepped engines for LeMans
>blew up, they must have had an idea someone in Design screwed up big-time.
>The one Pantera that finished the '72 LeMans race in 16th place reportedly
>ran a stock hydraulic-cam street engine.... Everything published on racing
>during that period leads to the conclusion that 500 horses, continuously
>applied over 2 or 3 hours, will fail most 351C blocks regardless of the cap
>style. The LeMans engines by Jr Johnson's shop ran enormous "girdle-caps"
>where all the caps were integrated into a single steel-plate structure that
>bolted down the pan rails plus used the main cap bolts. They still lost the
>engines. Personally, I'd run a 351W or an SVO block if I could get away with
>it. Good luck; bring grease-sweep to the track if you run long-distance
>events (LeMans was 2900 miles; Daytona was 500). J DeRyke

John Bentley
Wireless Systems
Cisco Systems, Inc.
408.525.9336