The Cleveland is technically a small block. What makes it unique is that it is the only small block that I am aware of with canted valves. There is definitely a history of the Cleveland having oiling problems, however just like the ancient issues of the port being too big for any bottom end grunt, the oiling problem along with the port problem has
long ago been solved. The Cleveland is an awesome engine, and given the choice today I have no doubt that Shelby, had he continued with the Cobra, would have gone to Cleveland power. It's a big block head on a small block. Anyone who tells you that the Cleveland has no bottom end power, or has an oiling problem is living in the 1970's. It once was true, it is not anymore. Starting from scratch with a bare Cleveland block and a bare Windsor block and spending the same money, the Cleveland, dollar for dollar, will always make more power (assuming of course that you know what you're doing), and the upper limit on power is much higher.
The only reason Windsor's are more commonly used here is that Ford had two small blocks here at one time, and they pared down to one for financial reasons. The smaller Windsor fit more easily into more cars, and was as reliable then as it is now, so they canceled the Cleveland project strictly for financial reasons and proceeded with the Windsor. There are simply many more Windsors out there, hence many more parts available. The opposite happened down under in Australia, where the Cleveland was THE Ford small block. There has been ongoing very high quality development on the Cleveland's coming out of Australia for years, and the stuff they have produced, especially the heads, is simply awesome. If you are going to build up a Cleveland, the best thing you can do is stick with Australian heads, either CHI's or AFD's. The Edelbrock Cleveland heads are a joke.
You won't see many Windsor engines in the Engine Masters competition, but you'll see many Cleveland's. I'm not a big NASCAR fan, but my understanding is that the Fords all run a derivative of a Cleveland head. It's not a true Cleveland head but a close derivative. I can't imagine the power that can be made from a Cleveland if you spent as much on one as some spend on a Roush engine. At one time World / Mitchell engines was selling a "special edition" Cleveland headed engine for drag use that made crazy power. It is VERY easy to assemble a 700+ HP Cleveland headed engine, either with a C or W block, for $15K or so. Now, one of the guys who was in the development of the Genesis FE engine block program has come out with a redesigned Cleveland block in Aluminum or Iron, and the oiling system has been redesigned and upgraded to the point where it is now a far superior oiling system to that of the almost equally troubled Windsor engine. It can also be bored and stroked to very large sizes. Using this block, I believe that you can develop Cleveland's in excess of 460+ cu. in. with power levels approaching 1000 HP, normally aspirated, for less than $18K.
Try that with a Windsor. Certainly you can build a very powerful Windsor engine, there is no denying that. However, for the same money you can make significantly more power with a Cleveland, and in a sky's the limit scenario you can make power with a Cleveland that a Windsor simply can't reach. All the info is over on the Cleveland forum.
And oh, by the way, it IS a beautiful looking engine as well, for what that's worth.....
