Ford 302 tunnel port cylinder head

[1972ho]

https://youtu.be/WhnXqdxoKqY. Just Incase anyone is interested in this engine from 1968 the small block 302 tunnel port

[1972ho]

https://youtu.be/oH5lqSiWJPY The disassemble of a tunnel port 302 engine

[mag2555]

Interesting stuff, but it looks like Ford took the intake port from the 4 bbl C motors and stuffed it into the Windsor heads.
Also in true Ford misdirected form it looks like the exh port flow numbers are not much better then a everyday grocery getter 289 head.

[BCjohnny]

No, the '302 Tunnel Port' was fashioned after the earlier 427 FE TP engine .... the clue is in the name, the pushrod tubes 'tunnel' through the intake port

After that proved unsuccessful, the 302 adopted Cleveland style 4bbl heads and became the 'Boss 302'

[Curtis Mc]

Brent "blykins" is on here, maybe he will chime in. I appreciate his videos, especially this odd ball.

[n2omike]

Ford always wanted to reinvent the wheel... instead of refining and improving what they already had.

They would come out with things like the Tunnel Port, SOHC, Boss 429, etc... while all their regular engines wheezed with asthma. Their boutique engines would generally need plenty of tweaks to survive racing, as they weren't always fully developed and tested under harsh conditions before going into production.

For their garden variety engines, the 221 grew to 260, 289 and finally 302ci... but were still fitted with heads more suited to 221ci... with the vast majority coming with a 2bbl carb. Even when the Windsor grew to 351ci, the heads were still too small, even for a 302. The SBC had it all over the Windsor Fords when it came to stock cylinder heads.

The Boss 302 suffered from bad pistons with skirts that cracked. The 351C had a lot of potential.... IF you wanted to set it up for an adjustable valve train, screw in studs, guide plates... replaced all the valves/keepers, and did a partial fill on the block if big rpm and/or greater than 600hp was expected. Oiling also wasn't the best. TONS of potential, though. The BOSS 351 addressed the cylinder heads with the proper setup right from the factory. But, want to put a decent cam in a regular 351C back in the day? Hope you don't mind pulling cylinder heads and spending a ton of money on all new parts. lol

The 429/460 is one of the most under-utilized platforms ever produced. TONS of potential there. Early examples were drilled for screw in studs, so the 'positive stop' screw in studs could easily be swapped out if an aftermarket cam was to be used. Of course, later engines were like the 351C... a PITA to work with unless you picked up some earlier heads and wanted to swap them out.

Was always annoyed that Ford put all its effort into a few fancy 'boutique' engines... but spent ZERO effort on the other 99% that came in their cars.

[1972ho]

Some you forget most engines you talking about were passenger car engines that were mass produced for the general public to ride around town and take vacation in,not blasting down the 1/4 mile in like some did with them and then complained about it blowing up are cracking.So keep that in mind when putting down what ford built back then.

[nhrastocker]

Ford always wanted to reinvent the wheel... instead of refining and improving what they already had.

They would come out with things like the Tunnel Port, SOHC, Boss 429, etc... while all their regular engines wheezed with asthma. Their boutique engines would generally need plenty of tweaks to survive racing, as they weren't always fully developed and tested under harsh conditions before going into production.

For their garden variety engines, the 221 grew to 260, 289 and finally 302ci... but were still fitted with heads more suited to 221ci... with the vast majority coming with a 2bbl carb. Even when the Windsor grew to 351ci, the heads were still too small, even for a 302. The SBC had it all over the Windsor Fords when it came to stock cylinder heads.

The Boss 302 suffered from bad pistons with skirts that cracked. The 351C had a lot of potential.... IF you wanted to set it up for an adjustable valve train, screw in studs, guide plates... replaced all the valves/keepers, and did a partial fill on the block if big rpm and/or greater than 600hp was expected. Oiling also wasn't the best. TONS of potential, though. The BOSS 351 addressed the cylinder heads with the proper setup right from the factory. But, want to put a decent cam in a regular 351C back in the day? Hope you don't mind pulling cylinder heads and spending a ton of money on all new parts. lol

The 429/460 is one of the most under-utilized platforms ever produced. TONS of potential there. Early examples were drilled for screw in studs, so the 'positive stop' screw in studs could easily be swapped out if an aftermarket cam was to be used. Of course, later engines were like the 351C... a PITA to work with unless you picked up some earlier heads and wanted to swap them out.

Was always annoyed that Ford put all its effort into a few fancy 'boutique' engines... but spent ZERO effort on the other 99% that came in their cars.

I grew up in the muscle car era and I see you forgot to talk about the FE-powered Galaxies, Torinos, and Mustangs that brought fear to many.
By the way, Bob Glidden and others forgot to read the memos about their Cleveland-based Pro Stocks. Let's not forget that Clevelands dominated Modified Production Super Modified class and Glidden forgot to read the memo when he ran his Shotgun, 429-460 based Pro-Stock.

[Chris_Hamilton]

The SBC had it all over the Windsor Fords when it came to stock cylinder heads.

Maybe so but no IROC or Z28 Camaro could keep up with a 5.0 Mustang in the late 80's early 90's. 5.0s ruled the street back then. Especially with all the fat chicks driving IROC's.

[n2omike]

I'm a FORD guy... who turned bought his first car, a half rotted 1966 Mustang for $1,300 at age 15 in 1983... and head headers on it before getting a driver's license. It took a LOT more work to get 'garden variety' Fords to run as good as garden variety Chevys back in the days before readily available FORD aftermarket heads and stroker kits. Remember, a Victor Jr. intake for a 302 Ford wasn't even available until 1991. Good heads came AFTER THAT... The Victor Jr. 351W came well after the 302 unit as well. Aftermarket heads are what unlocked the potential of the SBF. Before that, you basically had to race a SBC. Either that, or spend the big bucks completely re-doing the heads of a 351C in order to run a decent camshaft. SBC was FAR easier to deal with, had better heads and MUCH greater parts availability. Demand after the FOX mustang came out is what opened up the Ford market.

I stand by my original statement. If you were a FORD hot rodder, you had very little to work with unless you could afford the boutique engines and/or very limited over the counter Ford Racing stuff. The 302 and especially the 351W is a superior platform compared to the SBC. If Ford would have thrown a bone at the general level hotrodders out there and gave their regular engines some heads that would breath, we would have seen a LOT more Fords at local tracks back in the day. The 429/460 platform is also superior to the BBC. It has a LOT more potential with it's better head architecture and room for displacement. 557ci with the stock block and 351C style heads? Getcha' some of that! Too bad these weren't pushed in the market as well. FE's were cool back in the day, but don't hold a candle to the potential of the 429/460 platform.

My point, was back before the FOX mustang opened up the Ford aftermarket, it was rare to see a truly good running Ford that could compete with the equivalent Chevy. Chevys had good potential with factory heads compared to the Fords, were easy to work on, things swapped around between engines easily, was easy to to engine swaps, etc. They chose to refine the base design instead of producing all the 'botique' stuff most Ford guys just had to fantasize about. Therefore, much more aftermarket for the SBC and BBC, more Chevys at the local drag strips, etc. So, yea... Cammers and tunnel ports are cool, but don't do much for the average guy.

[blykins]

I had never seen a set of 302TP heads in person until a couple of months ago and now I have two builds going on with them. I'm doing 2 engines for the same customer.

One is a "street" 302TP using a lot of factory 302TP parts, aiming for just something interesting and nostalgic for my customer to drive around.

The other is going to be a road race engine, using an aftermarket block, Bryant crank, Dyers rods, and a set of the "race" 302TP heads.

The Tunnel Port FE heads run very well, once the head ports are closed up. Putting about 3/16" of epoxy on the port floors and doing a little reshaping will give you a 370-380cfm port. Some of my best running FE's have been Tunnel Ports. The pushrod tube seems to thwart the performance a little bit though, as the new TFS heads will almost hang right in there with a fully worked TP head.

We will employ some of the same techniques on the small block TP stuff that we use on the FE stuff. Hopefully, in combination with some cubic inches, we will have a pretty stout little engine. Only time will tell. Like everything else in the shop, things are going slowly due to parts availabilities.

[blykins]

Ford always wanted to reinvent the wheel... instead of refining and improving what they already had.

They would come out with things like the Tunnel Port, SOHC, Boss 429, etc... while all their regular engines wheezed with asthma. Their boutique engines would generally need plenty of tweaks to survive racing, as they weren't always fully developed and tested under harsh conditions before going into production.

For their garden variety engines, the 221 grew to 260, 289 and finally 302ci... but were still fitted with heads more suited to 221ci... with the vast majority coming with a 2bbl carb. Even when the Windsor grew to 351ci, the heads were still too small, even for a 302. The SBC had it all over the Windsor Fords when it came to stock cylinder heads.

The Boss 302 suffered from bad pistons with skirts that cracked. The 351C had a lot of potential.... IF you wanted to set it up for an adjustable valve train, screw in studs, guide plates... replaced all the valves/keepers, and did a partial fill on the block if big rpm and/or greater than 600hp was expected. Oiling also wasn't the best. TONS of potential, though. The BOSS 351 addressed the cylinder heads with the proper setup right from the factory. But, want to put a decent cam in a regular 351C back in the day? Hope you don't mind pulling cylinder heads and spending a ton of money on all new parts. lol

The 429/460 is one of the most under-utilized platforms ever produced. TONS of potential there. Early examples were drilled for screw in studs, so the 'positive stop' screw in studs could easily be swapped out if an aftermarket cam was to be used. Of course, later engines were like the 351C... a PITA to work with unless you picked up some earlier heads and wanted to swap them out.

Was always annoyed that Ford put all its effort into a few fancy 'boutique' engines... but spent ZERO effort on the other 99% that came in their cars.

I grew up in the muscle car era and I see you forgot to talk about the FE-powered Galaxies, Torinos, and Mustangs that brought fear to many.
By the way, Bob Glidden and others forgot to read the memos about their Cleveland-based Pro Stocks. Let's not forget that Clevelands dominated Modified Production Super Modified class and Glidden forgot to read the memo when he ran his Shotgun, 429-460 based Pro-Stock.

I agree. I wouldn't be too quick to knock the feet out from under some of the stock Ford stuff. A stock 4V Cleveland head without port work will support well over 600 hp. Not too many other manufacturers from the 60's can tout something like that.

In addition, with just some port work and some good part selection, I was able to make about 465 hp from a *352* FE, using a ported factory Police Interceptor intake and ported factory C6AE-R cylinder heads. That's from a 352, not a 390, not a 428, not a 427.....with only 10.3:1 compression. With the addition of a tunnel ram and some trial-and-error with some carbs and spacers, I ended up with 531 hp.

A few errors in this article (along with a few tongue-in-cheek quips that were misquoted), but most of it is correct and accurate:

https://www.enginelabs.com/engine-tech/ ... fe-engine/

[n2omike]

I agree. I wouldn't be too quick to knock the feet out from under some of the stock Ford stuff. A stock 4V Cleveland head without port work will support well over 600 hp. Not too many other manufacturers from the 60's can tout something like that.

In addition, with just some port work and some good part selection, I was able to make about 465 hp from a *352* FE, using a ported factory Police Interceptor intake and ported factory C6AE-R cylinder heads. That's from a 352, not a 390, not a 428, not a 427.....with only 10.3:1 compression. With the addition of a tunnel ram and some trial-and-error with some carbs and spacers, I ended up with 531 hp.

A few errors in this article (along with a few tongue-in-cheek quips that were misquoted), but most of it is correct and accurate:

https://www.enginelabs.com/engine-tech/ ... fe-engine/

Good job on the FE stuff! The regularly available heads work fairly well for limited cubic inch stuff... and your talent with the grinder definitely helps unlock that potential. The 351C head has the most potential... by far... of any small block factory head ever made. It just requires removing the head, having it set up for screw in studs and guide plates at a machine shop, and changing out all the valves and multi groove keepers to help unlock that potential.

I'm referencing my responses to 'back in the day' when the cars were fairly new... and people were modifying the cars as they came from the factory. Right now, if you're replacing everything anyway... it's not that big of a deal. Back then, the above information about the adjustable valvetrain and crappy valves/retainers was not widely known... and lots of people destroyed lots of good engines doing cam swaps, etc... and learned the hard way.

Looking very forward to seeing what you can do with the TP 302!

Good Luck!

[frnkeore]

I'm from the FE era, I was 23 when the 427 TP came out, in '67. In '68, when the 302 TP came out, they were nearly unavailable, except to race teams, mostly Trans Am and are one of the rarest Ford heads out there, only being a 1 year head, replaced by the Boss 302, the next year ('69).

As has been addressed, Ford's were VERY expensive to build, in those days. It cost about 3 times as much to built a Ford, as a Chev But, when you can't be seen driving a Chev or a Chev engined car, you have no choice! So, that cuts way into the build money, for the everyday racer!!! I know, I built a 427 LR, with a roller cam, in '69. Between purchasing the engine, cam and pop up TRW pistons, along with the associated rebuild parts, it was all I could afford

As we all know, the heads set the basic potential of a engines HP and Ford only went 1/2 way, in that department. It seemed to me, that Ford's standard was "bigger is better", regarding heads, w/o regard to actually fully developing them, on a flow bench and engine, before releasing them. The same holds true for for the TP. But, by '69, they had moved on from all the inline valve engines.

But, in the private sector, you could still make competitive/winning HP, IF you went to a good, head porter, with any of your Ford heads, with but, a few exceptions. There was a guy named Ted Wells that built a bored 352 (.050 over), in '70, that put out, almost as much as Brent's bored 352 (.040) with ported heads. Ted had smaller, heavier valves,, home made TR with smaller carbs, old cam tech and old piston/ring tech. It ran 11.18 @ 121.5, in a 3500 lb car. The key here, is that he was the foreman of Valley Head Service, one of the best head porters of that time. Shelby used them.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ is all it takes!

[BILL-C]

My employees and i have built a few TP 302's for vintage Trans AM race cars. When done correctly they run very well against the competing brands. Same can be said about the T/A Boss 302's, GT 40 TP 427's, SOHC 427's, Boss 429's, GURNEY WESTLAKE 302's, and garden variety 289's and 302's we build for vintage racing. We also build Chevy, Porsche,Datsun, and BMW engines that race against our Ford customers in the same classes.Sometimes our Ford guys win and sometimes our other guys beat them. With equal budget and effort applied, we can get a Ford to run just as strong as it's chevy counterpart or even slightly better is some cubic inch ranges. Using factory castings, i can make more power with a 289 Ford than a 283 chevy, more power with 302W than 307 or 305 chevy, more power with Boss 302 than Z-28 302. Our ZL-1 427 Chevies have an advantage over "regular" 427 Fords, and similar power between ZL-1's and TP 427's , SOHC 427's, and BOSS 429's. There were many very smart engineers bouncing around between the competing brands and sharing ideas.