Big Shout out to Mike Shreve, who sent me a pallet of Ford 351 Cleveland goodies. This includes an XE Cleveland block, which has been what he thinks is furnace brazed sleeves. Here is his story.
"I had a chance to talk to my friend in Milwaukee (Mike Kusch) who I bought a few Cleveland motors from including the XE block I am sending to you. According to Mike he bought 2 brand new XE blocks from Schwister Ford in Milwaukee as Schwister had 4-5 of them they got from Bud Moore for their USAC stock car program. They had the only Ford powered car in the series (Granada) with everyone else running Camaros and Firebirds in the late 70’ and early 80’s. Schwister hired Bobby Allison and local Wisconsin legend, Dick Trickle, to drive the car during that era. The hi-port prostock style heads I am sending you were used on that car.
According to Mike both of his XE blocks were brand new when he purchased them and were never in Schwister’s stock car. He had a local Milwaukee Ford engine builder who was great with small block Windsor based Fords build them for him. Mike said that unfortunately the builder did not know much about building Cleveland’s as the first XE grenaded the crank out the side of the block and the second one (the one I’m sending you) also broke 2 rods and damaged the block. I spent $2300 in 2003 repairing this block. Mike said that he purchased the hi-port heads used off of Schwister’s stock car from them in the early 80’s to use on his XE blocked 377 road race 70 Mustang. He said he will try to send me some of those early photos of the car to give you some further history of that block and the hi-port heads. Mike had to quit racing in 1990 as the diabetes he was born with was affecting his vision and he did not want to put himself or other drivers at risk. That is how I ended up with his stash of 351 parts.
As a side note, I new Dick Trickle in the 70’s as my engine builder (Wally Jahnke) and Trickle were very good friends. Trickle is the winningest short track driver in the U.S.. About half of those wins, from 1970 thru 76, we’re in Cleveland powered Mustangs before he went to GM products. Wally and I were at Trickle’s place in Wisconsin Rapids one afternoon for a few beverages and I got to see a “ mountain” of broken 351-C blocks in his field. There were literally over 100 blocks out there. Trickle raced 6 nights per week for all of his short track career before going to NASCAR in the late 80’s - early 90’s.
Finally, I find it ironic that Schwister Ford had 4-5 of the XE blocks. In my recollection of the XE block, the story goes that Ford had their Geelong Australia plant build roughly 400 of the blocks. Supposedly only 200 of them made the grade as the other half had issues including core shift. It was told that the blocks that did not make the grade went into Aussie daily driver vehicles and trucks. So if NASCAR was getting their share of the good blocks, pro stock guys must have got a share of them and local racers like Schwister Ford received 4-5 of them (thru Bud Moore). My friend Mike obviously had 2 out of the 200 (1%) XE blocks. I’d be interested to find out how the block distribution actually panned out.
Tim, I’ll forward the photos from Mike’s 70 Mustang that the XE block came out of when his wife forwards them to me. While I know most of your focus has been on the preservation of the pro stock (drag racing) history of the 351C, hopefully both myself and others can help you build your “history book” with information and historical parts on how the Cleveland was used in other racing venues like road racing, stock cars, off road,ext…
https://youtu.be/zgLSJAVibOE
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