WHO MAKEs THE WORLD'S BEST SMALL BLOCK? FORD, CHEVY OR DODGE? (351 VS 350 VS 360) 

America makes the best small block. We all win.

I think its a fair test on the 351w. I love 80s fords, had several 351w fuel injected. Always ran like champions but they cant breathe. Cam and head porting wakes them up immensely

I'm a chevy guy but we all win here with this American engines I love them all

I have used all 3 engines in fleet vehicles (vans) and the Ford proved the most reliable. We sold our Dodge and Chevys at 6 years. We kept the Ford 351 powered service vans for 10 years. Power was really not a consideration in these work horse engines, although all the vehicles made enough of power as service vehicle. It is all about reliability

340 Chrysler with it's factory forged internals made it street and track reliable. 351 4-V quench head Cleveland's were "King of The Small Block Hill". Chevy small block (pick your flavor) is the go to for a budget build.

I've owned all 3 over the years in different things and these are the best small blocks from all 3 American makers. They were good.

Great comparison of what someone on a "worker's budget" can expect to put together from a small block motor you can pick up from a local parts yard truck. Which was the point. Thanks Richard!!

Back in the 90s i think it was HotRod magazine did a shoot out with 3 crate engines a 360 , 350 , 351 Duster, Mustang, Camaro all three cars had 4.10 gears weight about the same. The Duster smoked the field with a 12.10 quarter mile

The Ford 351-W engine was made from 1969-1997. The 1969 engine being the preferred engine as it had larger heads . It could also be found in the cougar xr7 . I swapped this engine into my 1972 bronco 1/2 cab , with an RV cam , 650 Holley and headers . With a rear gear set of 3.50 ... At 2600 rpm , the front tires would alternate coming of the ground under hard acceleration . I am a fan of each of these engines , but primarily a Ford guy . The dodge 360 is a terrific engine which I've had in two vans and one pick up . I have yet to own and run the 350 Chevy engine , but I have been very close to a number of them to know there worth . At 60 yrs of age ... Pretty sure I have time enough yet to build at least one Chevy . Wouldn't be right not to . We are lucky to have all of these engines available tous !

Edelbrock intakes, in general, are industry standards regardless of application... Made in America. Great quality. Look great, work great.

None of the above. 351 Cleveland

Although I am a GM guy generally, I think the best small block if you don't include the current stuff is the Cleveland based Ford SB also called the 335 series. The current stuff such as GM SB Gen III, Gen IV, and Gen V, Ford Coyote, Godzilla 7.3L, and Boss 6.2L, and current Hemi's would be tough to pick a better version between them. In the older engines I think Fords 335 which was a sb built like a big block is the best choice. I'm even a very big fan of the 400 (actually a 402) which in stock form was simply ok. As a platform to modify though they are one impressive engine. The Cleveland cylinder heads are very impressive and the deck height so big you can get some cubes out of them. My favorite muscle car small block is the Boss 351.

Now you need to find a Buick 350, an Olds 350, a Pontiac 350 and an AMC 360 so we can have a total comparison.

The 351 w / 5.8 liter heads with their small ports and valves along with the anemic stock cam significantly limits their performance. They are very reliable in stock form though. I have 371,848 original miles on my 94 F150 4x4 extra cab with the 5.8 and auto . Never been opened and just passed Calif Emissions testing with no needed repair or replacement of parts . Power is really good with very little performance lost from the day I bought it with only 12 miles on it new. Its surprised the heck out of me

Mopar power!! Love all 3 though and it’s almost impossible to beat the value of the Chevy.

First, I'm a MOPAR guy, but I have lived with or worked on all 3 of these platforms for years and several 100(s)K miles. The Magnum and the VORTEC are a pretty even match as you have shown. No surprise there. The Windsor was at a real disadvantage here because of the heads. If it would have been put up against the 360 LA engine it would have probably won. I think my 1990 360LA was rated at 180HP and was really not all that impressive until the cam was advanced 3-4 degrees; then it acted like a small RB engine. One trick to get the 360 to go 4-500K is to replace the rod bearings every 200K, they are the weak point in the bottom end. All three are great platforms and with a little PM they will last a long time. Great video Sir!

The marketing, performance world told that answer for the last 50 years. The 350 SBC is used in 95% of Inboard/outboards boats, and swapped into more cars & trucks than all others combined by far.

It would be interesting to see the compression ratios. The Fords of that era are pretty low ratio. I agree with the comments on the Ford heads also. I am rebuilding my 351 and putting on Aluminum heads along with getting the compression up to 9.5-10.

The Mopar 360 is quite impressive. The 351W suffers from extremely small runners and valves. The 350 suffered from a shorter stroke than the 360, which is why it had the advantage in the lower rpm range.

Chevy is always WAY cheaper to build and WAY more aftermarket parts available.

A buddy of mine had an old Dodge Magnum (the car) with a 360 2bbl. We put a 2bbl to 4bbl adapter on it along with a 4bbl carb which really helped the higher RPM power but he went back to the 2bbl for the better low end grunt and response. Probably could have adjusted the secondaries but he was having none of it even though the car was faster overall.

I've currently own 1 351w, 3 350 sbc's, and one amc 360. The Ford has always given me trouble, especially the Windsor timing chain cover, the Chevy's have been golden reliable even one that seems to be on it's last legs, I'd still trust it, and the amc is by far my wildest build that doesn't disappoint, I have it in a 83 cj.

The Ford was at the disadvantage because it was the oldest of the lot. The cylinder heads were made at a time where they purposely killed power to improve fuel economy with better emissions at the time it was made.

I really like this! What I do want to add is that reliability really comes into play as well. I once worked several years for a company that used the Dodge 2500 vans(mid 90's) as high mileage fleet vehicles. And there were never complaints regarding engine power or reliability. Vehicle reliability on the other hand was atrocious! Mainly fuel pumps. I don't know if that issue was ever sorted or not but the engines were fantastic and had excellent power characteristics. Transmissions were also a huge problem. Same goes for the Chevy, there were many of those in the fleet as well, but I don't really remember any big reliability issues. Also excellent power and better mileage. The Ford I have far less experience with but have driven quite a few over the years and they certainly never made much of an impression. But in terms of power potential for stock head modified engines I think this plays out differently. I think (especially) if done on the same budget....the order is Vortex 350, 351 Windsor, 360 magnum. I'd love to see a video on that!!!!

So put a 408 magnum a air gap m1, long tube headers, the comp. Cam 480 lift(with 1.6 rockers .533) Small stall. Performance computer. Decent heads.. and the results a fun daily driver! Hooked up to a pre 96 trans... 3.90 gears...

A more apt question would be, who makes the best heads.

For availability, reliability and aftermarket nothing beats the SBC.

Bowtie for the win. Parts are and will always be half the cost of any others. Great video!

I’m a Mopar man… but if you included the 351c everything would lose in stock trim

I like all the engines, but since i have a dodge 360 magnum in my Durango, I found this pretty informative, its a 2002, with 250k on it. I love the low end torque.

It was the factory heads that did the 351W in. With aftermarket heads of similar characteristics, the SBF and SBC are very close.

More to it than just power output. My 93' 7.4L Suburban K2500 has 301,000 miles and still runs great.

Great comparison but should have included the Ford 351 Cleveland, the Windsor heads are much smaller

My 86 351ho out of my f150 got a rebuild because of a head gasket problem. We cleaned it up and honed out the cylinders, replaced cam with the ford cam specs that the truck came with. Did a valve job and changed to a demon 750 carb with a Holley dual plane intake and equal length headers and an msd distributor. It came out at 333hp and 391tq. So it didn't take much to bring it up to the rest of the pack. After the original head gasket had blown we were worried that it might ruin the bearings and crank. It was good to find it all in spec. The engine only had 71k miles on it when the gasket blew. The guy that bought it from me put a mild stroker kit in it and it really made a new truck out of it. I dont know his power output but I can say it breaks the back tires loose too easily. He said in the rain it has to go into 4x4 or it dances all over.

Cool comparison as all 3 engines have no shortage of uses. But I would contend the Chevy Vortec 6.0 liter V8 (364 cu. inches) is the best small block V8 I have 2 friends (1 a Yukon, the other standard work van) with the 6.0 liter engine and both have over 300,000 miles and still running strong. Even after my buddy with the Yukon's wife drove it to work and home recently with no engine oil. Yes it still runs! Amazing.

Richard I would love to see the Hughes/Edelbrock EFI Air gap intake swap on stock EFI 360 magnum just to see what it does compared to a stock Keg intake

I have significant miles on an '01 360 Magnum (328,000 miles currently) and a '98 350 vortec (310,000 miles). The Dodge is 800 pounds heavier, and a foot taller than the Blunder Motors truck, and the 360 Magnum will out pull the 350 hands down. The Magnum is also still all factory original wih the exception of one water pump, and the 350 drank antifreeze: intake gaskets, of course, no surprise to anyone who has owned one. Had to do them TWICE. The biggest handicap of the Magnums was the power-sucking, 727-based overdrive transmission. A 318 with a 5 speed manual will beat a 360 auto. As for the 351, I've heard more than enough times they are absolute gas hogs. My 360 Magnum gets comparable fuel mileage, if not better, than the 350.

I REALLY MISS my old 86 Ramcharger.. I should have never sold it.. It was a police car package, I am certain of it. 360 quadrajet /727 transmission with a shift kit. Double belts on every engine accessory. Big alternator. 9.25 limited slip, 35 gallon gas tank. It even had a spotlight on the left. I inherited from my Dad, and fell on hard times. It belonged to a small town utility dept where my Dad worked in the 80's. That 360 would make that heavy truck go up on plane like a boat, and had this scary high pitched moan under full throttle. If I could get the Ramcharger back now, I still would.

Best channel on this app

Look at Richard Holdener, hitting the bee hive with a huge bat🤣🤣🤣🤣I kind of like Oldsmobile!

IMO the ford is so dead because of the cylinder heads. If it had a set of iron Gt40’s or gt40p’s which would be more comparable to the other brands cylinder heads, especially with the Chevy being vortec’s, it would’ve been a lot closer.

Ford saved money by standardizing the 302/351 heads. This meant the intake valves for the 351 at 1.84" got dropped and the 302 size 1.78" intake valves became standard. For a 302 not great but acceptable. Those valves choke the 351 breathing. Put Chev LM7 valves at 1.9"/1.55" in those heads with minor pocket porting and port match and I believe you would see a closer comparison. For the 351W installing the older 351W valves (GT40) 1.84"/1.54" would probably bring that Windsor close to the others. Best? Depends on what brand anyone prefers. They are generally all pretty reliable engines.

Bingo. Like I said before the magnums were great in the lower RPMs where most daily drivers live. They were capable of some pretty impressive fuel mileage too by taking advantage of the low rpm torque via tall final gearing. It made a great all around power plant. Lots of torque to haul and tow, and it would sip fuel highway cruising.

I love em all. Shit I like 1Js, 2Js. Barras, all sorts. V8s are where my heart is. Simple and uncomplicated, relatively, just like me.

Ol tree 60 pretty serious.... I honestly thought the vortec would be up 10-20 on it. The air gap is definitely worth 10 on the magnum

Another great video, can you do a battle of the engineers between a Ford 327 stroker to a Chevy 327. Same bore, stroke, cam specs, & carb with comparable heads and intake!

If we all put our personal bias aside, just go to your local drag strip, or sportsman circle track, hot rod car show, its obvious which small block is the most used, wins the most and easiest to tune.

Just to clarify the 5.2/318 Magnum came out in 1992 and 5.9/360 Magnum wasn't available until 1993. If you ordered a 360 in 92 you could only get an LA. Great video - thanks for showing the Magnum some love. Can't wait to put a junkyard 5.9 in my Dart Sport!

I had a strong 302 in my truck as a kid. It always outran my friends 351 and 350 trucks. And it would do longer burnouts 👍

Great Video and info. Seems like the air gap will be a nice step up for the dodge.

Good information..

Looks like you should have turned the vortec a little more. My all stock vortec pulls to 6 pretty well. And the curve isn't falling off on your graphs at 5k

Nice comparison here. Useful info but it shows that stock specs vary from manufacturers a lot from brand to brand. My 351w really woke up with a mild cam and a small bump in compression over stock. With heads/cam and intake, I think parity between brands will become better.

Also, I think it is pretty cool that all three have VERY similar curves just up or down.

Interesting comparison. The dodge magnum and chevy vortech were the highest evolution of their lines. This ford was not however the highest evolution of the small block ford. That would have been the 351 W from a lightning pickup, also a truck motor and availible from ford as a crate. The gt 40 cylinder heads would have been more comparable to the vortech and magnum. Even a gt40 headed 302 from a explorer would be a contender, and they are everywhere

Good comparison of what the 90s had to offer for a v8, not surprised the Ford was lacking, outside the gt40 heads, they did basically nothing for the sbf once the mods were on the table... A “what if” comparison would be the gen1 lightning engine. Since it was just updated with decent heads but could still be used in a truck application, it might have been that missing evolution that the Vortec and Magnum received. Also wondering what the mid 70s 400m vs 400sbc vs 400b block would look like.. Same cubes, three very different approaches...

Cool video. Maybe do a 305/302/318 comparison as well?

I’m sure it’s not feasible but maybe a great comparison would be to see gas consumption between the three to show efficiency and making power 🤷🏼‍♂️ lov your work, thanks

The vortex heads was a major upgrade they landed up being better than all but the best performance Chevrolet heads maybe you could do a comparison on vortec heads and some of Chevrolets older performance heads it would be very interesting thanks Richard

Staying true to the title in a literal sense should have seen 4V Cleveland heads being used IMO. This would have been a completely different test if that were the case.

This is the first fair review I've seen. Everyone else always compares the 350chev to a 302 ford, which is not a fair comparison at all. Thank you! (Although I would have liked to see a Roller 351 with Gt40P heads instead, to compare with the vortec heads, we always used to snag those heads when pulling a 351 at the JY)

This vid is great for people like me, who have odd brand vehicles and lookin for a more modern possibly efi v8

I've got a beat up Windsor in my 68 100 ranger and I've just purchased a 78 f250 with the modified. As soon as it gets here I will have to drop the 2 tanks of 12 year old gas but when I fired it up with very little effort it ran and idled fine. Both engines should be a blast to play with.

Have you ever ran one of the v10's out of the second gen rams? I think that would also be cool to see as they were offered at the same time

Would be cool to see all of them get an upgraded cam swap as well. Like a 224-230 duration at .050 camshaft.

built a 360 with X heads and got 470s in TQ 380s in HP i love the pull of the torque in the 360. puts u in mind of a big block. kinda.. lol

At my local pik and pull, you can mix and match... if pulling a 351w for a junkyard build, I would totally grab some GT40Ps off of an explorer or mountainer and toss them on the 351w for the same price as if it had the E7s. I think you did a test of the GT40Ps on a stock 302 and it picked up around 30 HP and TQ, I would expect similar 25-35 HP/TQ gains on the 351w truck engine. Most people are going to buy aftermarket parts, but if you're a Ford guy ballin' on a junkyard budget...

The magnum and vortec cylinder heads are lightyears ahead of Ford's pre gt heads

No replacement for displacement. Comparing small blocks I look at the real one. The 318, 327 and 289. All three little power houses with mega demands. But yep the mopar wins, once again.

Really enjoy watching these . I wonder what’s the difference with a 350 gold series olds vs a 350 sbc

Not sure if it was mentioned yet, but the Mopar runs a larger base circle lifter, so the cam is utilized more in duration.

The 351W has the worst heads of the three tested. This is known, the GT40 heads on a 351W will help it a lot. Saying that, if you're looking for the absolute best small block, get a 351C and run it against all of these, and let's see who the big boy is!

Made the same power with 10 less cubes!!! Vortec heads flow great though for a factory small block head

I’m a Chevy guy and Chevy small blocks are legendary but those 360 Magnums were really great engines for that time period. My buddy had a Cherokee 5.9 AWD and that thing was fun to drive, great power and AWD. You really can’t go wrong with any of the 3, just personal preference and what you do to them. Chevy has better aftermarket but Ford and Dodge still have a lot of aftermarket choices. Easier to find a 350SB and probably cheaper because there’s so many, 30 years to go through many cars and trucks. I had a 78 Cherokee with Chrysler 360 Carter 4barrel, 260 hp I think, which was a lot for 1978, that thing was an indestructible tank, Quadra-Trac, heavy as a tank and that 360 torque, man I miss it. Also had a 91 Z28 5.7 TPI L98, what a beast, especially after bolt ons a chip and cam and 3.73 gears, I gave that engine hell all the time and it just kept pulling. Man I miss it.

had all 3 brands, ford and chevy have given me nothing but grief, dodge has been most reliable for me and hasn't left me stranded along the highway like ford and chevy have done.

I would like to add that the development time on the Magnum isn't very relevant and/or much of a factor vs the 351 since the main magnum advancements were in the keg intake, yes the heads were a factor as well but the main thing was the Induction system, however the 318 magnum came out in 1992 and actually had better heads than the 360 due to a smaller chamber. 360 Magnums actually got worse as the years went on and were stagnant for development it was pretty much the same engine from 92 to 03, they did not get physically worse, but the software starting in 1998 was updated to cure a ping issue caused by a leaking lower plenum gasket (thus killed a lot of power), which is why 93 to 97 360s feel like a rocket compared to the 98 and above. It was a bandaid fix on a poor choice to use a steel plenum plate on an aluminum intake...seals always blew. Now as for the development part, Hotrod magazine did a test of a 1984 360 that made 280hp and 370 ft lbs of torque for one of their old junkyard motor pull articles back in the day, if those numbers are to be believed it just shows that the fords were always a little behind in the small block area vs chevy and Dodge/chrysler. Also the 1989 360s had roller lifters and fast burn heads, which were supposed to be the best LA heads further showing the lack of motivation on fords part in those days. My point in all of this is that the development time really didn't matter. The 210 horsepower early 90s tbi chevy 350s pre vortec would have really gotten smoked in this head to head, it is more akin to the era of the Ford 351 and Dodge 360. But nice to know that the late model holy grail small block chevy can barely beat a Dodge in one small part of the rpm range while using a better intake lol.

I know you've probably ran it and shown it on the channel but I'd like to see the 5.4 ford compared to the magnum and the vortec since they were also market competitors

Believe it or not the most dependable was the Chevy 283, 327, late 350, Ford 260, 302, 351, 460 for racing! Dodge 340, 383, 440 blows up too easy when maxed.

I had a v6 Chevy full size Silverado regular cab long bed that's spanked the 360 Dodge regular cab long bed in a race and the Dodge was a newer truck. I could hear his valves hanging as I blew by him! I'll take my rubber cookie now LOL

The 350 Chevy has parts galore all over the place, especially for performance which might influence a person's choice.

Very good comparison I think. Also I'd say the ring package on the 351W is suspect. The low tension rings that was used from the factory give up with high mileage. Leading me to suspect the 351W was well worn versus the newer L31 and Magnum. Still, a very good boneyard engine comparison.

The curve on all 4 (350/350/351/360) are freakishly close! Move them up/down to overlap and they would almost all disappear behind each other.

I just remembered, 1994 to 1996 351w had the roller cam. Needed to test a 351w lightning spec engine. Very curious.

If that 351W was a roller cam motor, thats surprising. The factory heads on that era Ford (E7s) are horrendous in any case.

I'd like to see the same exact test, with only GT40 heads added to the 351W being the only change..

Ever since my ride in a 1972 Pantera I've always loved the 351 Cleveland

The LA Chrysler's are beefier (larger main and rod bearings, larger lifters, greater bore spacing...good for head porting) and has its cam mounted higher in the block (shorter pushrods, better harmonics hence, stronger, more accurate valve timing), larger cranks, bigger rods. The drawback is greater reciprocating mass (mostly a concern in all out race applications). The high mounted cam allows for easier stroker crank applications. The stock oiling circuit was excellent. Horse power and torque figures were as good or better than any other in its class (due to Chryslers outstanding 1.80:1 bore to stroke ratio). This family of engines was widely used in industrial/marine applications and were outstanding, the most rugged of all small blocks IMHO.

Be interesting to see which one has the best hp for fuel used.

Laughs in 351 cleveland

Can you do videos on the amc v8 found in Jeeps? I’ve got a 77 Cherokee and I have no idea which direction to go due to minimal videos

Still need to see the stock long blocks with a maximum cam and sturdy valvetrain to see what they can do. Both max hp/tq and highest avg hp/tq results

I don't even have to watch and I know Chevy is the most dependable longest lasting, I've lived 40 years on this Earth and nobody can tell me any different, been in the trade for 20

The 351C whips them all

Would like to see the ford run with factory e7te heads and comp 35-255-5 speed density cam then upgrade with a set of gt40 iron heads.

A neat set of graphs to compare for each engine would be 1. Airflow into the carb cfm/rpm (one thing that makes me chuckle is when someone puts a 1000cfm throttle body onto a naturally aspirated engine that even at 10,000 rpm at 100% volumetric efficiency wouldn't draw in more than 500cfm. All they managed to do is make their throttle really touchy while in traffic) 2. Fuel consumption- how much fuel was actually be consumed at various rpm One thing i don't hear Richard Holdner talking about is volumetric efficiency. It's something i'd like to learn more about and learn just how close some of these n/a engines are actually getting to 100% at what rpm.

I would say if they all had equal head flow and intake with the headers and carb, I’d say the all around winner would be the 351. The blocks can handle a lot more displacement, power and torque. Magnum is a close second and I’d say the 350 would trail behind in all comparisons.

I knew the 351w was gonna lose in stock trim because of the E7 heads VS the vortec heads in the sbc and the better heads on the dodge. GT40 heads would have helped but that’s not how you normally find a 351 even if that’s how the lightning and cobra R came. What surprised me was the mopar making the same power as a sbc, even if the sbc had the better Intake, the torque in the other hand was no surprise

outside of a first generation lightning or vintage Windsor engines you did great for what they are. the factory heads flowed well enough for factory power levels. as you have seen they become the choke point when ever you try to make modern power.

I've several examples (or more ) of all of them. No winner, they're all effing great motors when built properly.

Great comparison, though I feel you should’ve used a Triton of the same year as the other two. Just makes sense. Otherwise use three from 95. I love the 3 equally but they should be set up for the same model year to be fair. 3-5 years especially during late 90’s early 2000’s was a huge jump in technology. Why not a 351 Cleveland from 71 versus a 350 SBC from 72 versus a 360 Magnum from 92?