That information helps quite a bit Shawn, the one thing that is missing though is the vehicle weight.....as I mentioned I would definitely build a 351W in a Pinto a lot differently than one for a Galaxie (and it happens I have built 351s for both LOL)

To start at the basics the first priority will be building the bottom end (short block) of the engine. Regardless of what you do the bottom end is the critical end as far as the engine staying together.

The first step will be actually picking the block you will be using. Personally I think I would look for an 85-95 block as it’s already set up for roller lifters. If you use an earlier block, roller lifter can be retrofitted or a flat tappet cam used. There is nothing wrong with a flat tappet engine, however with the current oils a roller cam would likely last a bit longer and it does free up some power over the flat tappet cams. The block should be completely cleaned and checked by the machine shop. If necessary the deck surface should be milled flat and the main journals line honed. Over boring the engine is done primarily to ensure a good cylinder and for a street motor should only be done to the minimum oversize necessary. Any displacement or power gains even at .060 oversize will be minimal, and large overbores (over .060) run the risk of overheating or cracking cylinders.

For a primarily street motor that will turn no more than 6000 RPM without power adders (supercharging/ NOS etc) the stock crank and rods will do fine. If necessary the crank should be turned the minimum undersize necessary to clean up the journals. The rods should be resized. Balancing is pretty much an optional operation that can also free up some horsepower, but is not really necessary unless a lot of parts have been mixed and matched (rods from one engine, crank from another, and new pistons).

Pistons choice will be dependent on a few factors. First is piston type; Cast, Hypereutectic, and forged. Cast pistons are basically OE style and lowest cost. The Hypereutectic are a bit more pricy but are a stronger piston, however they are also more brittle, and more prone to damage from detonation. Forged is the most expensive and strongest piston, and suitable for power adders like NOS and super/turbo charging. In most street applications with a relatively stock motor and 6000 RPM limit the cast pistons will do fine. JMO but if I felt the need for a stronger piston, personally I’d skip right over the hypers and go to a forged unit. After choosing the type of piston, the next step will be to choose the part number that will provide the desired compression ratio for the heads being used.....basically you need to make the piston/head selection decision at the same time.

Now the heads, cam and intake which must all work together........ and this is where reading dyno charts comes into play.

In general terms the more compression the more power the engine is capable of making.....the limiting factor for compression will be the quality of fuel available. Generally speaking the static compression ratio for an iron head motor with premium pump gas will be limited 9-9.5:1and 10-10.5:1 for aluminum heads. But static compression is only a part of what has to be looked at.....the other part is the dynamic compression ratio. This gets into a long involved discussion involving cam profiles, bleeding off cylinder pressure, volumetric efficiency etc so rather than type it all out here I would strongly suggest you type “dynamic compression ratio” into a search engine and do some reading. It’s your pistons and cylinder heads that will determine the static compression ratio of your engine.

When looking at heads you will also need to look at valve and port size, and depending on your application bigger is not always better. Larger valves and ports will allow more air/fuel mixture into the cylinders, but if the air fuel mixture is moving too slowly the fuel will fall out of suspension, and makes the engine “lazy” at lower RPM. Basically this is where you need to know what RPM you’re targeting your engine for. An engine designed to be efficient at 5500 RPM is not necessarily a lot of fun in a car driven 99% of the time at 2400 RPM.

So now we are really down to HAVING to look at the car (weight) and how it is going to be driven to really start making part selections. As I mentioned earlier I would definitely look at a different combination for a 4000 pound car than I would for a 3000 pound car. To do that I’ll make some assumptions.....the car will be driven primarily on the street and see occasional highway use at 75 MPH. Max RPM will be 5800 RPM. I want to be able to cruise on the highway between 2200 and no more than 3000 RPM (the cruise RPM will be determined by tire size and gear ratio....it is also where an overdrive transmission really helps).

Now on a 4000 pound car I would be looking to make as much torque as possible at the lower RPM range just to get the heavy toad moving. As a general rule of thumb I can get the torque in the lower RPM range, but I’m going to sacrifice power in the upper RPM range. That being the case I’ll be reading dyno charts for a combination that will produce as much torque as possible right off idle. This usually means 1200 RPM and up.......when you start looking at parts combinations with the torque being produced at this lower RPM, they generally run out of steam by 3500-4000 RPM.

In the case of a 3000 pound car, it will not take as much power to get the mass moving, so I can afford to lose a bit of bottom end torque and move the power band higher in the RPM range, basically instead of running out of steam at 4000 RPM it will pull strong to say 5500 RPM (think on ramps and the drag strip).

Of course you also get more flexibility with an overdrive transmission...but that’s a discussion for another time.

As you can see you really need to set the parameters that the engine will operate in before you start making parts selections to get the combination where it needs to be. Once you have that information then it’s simply using the dyno charts to see how different components interact with each other to get the combination where it needs to be in the RPM range.