[jim_howard_pdx]

What were you running on the bottom end? Did you use the splayed 4 bolt main caps, did you run a crank scrapper and windage tray, did you run a girdle on the main caps?

Most of the difficulty with the windsor block is the lack of material around the main bearing webs. Most of us machine the blocks for the splayed 4 bolt main caps, and then use a scrapper, windage tray, and a girdle.

If you don't scrape the oil off the crank, it will "rope" around the crank and flex it enough to cause the cracking you have described. So just bolting up a windage tray and a main cap girdle can still lead to the problem you described.

A precut crank scraper runs about 14.00 from Mustangs Plus. You will need to modify it for exact clearance for your rod and stroke combination.

You may want to go toward a Mexican 302 block, or the Ford Racing Block with higher nickle content and the 4 bolt mains. You still need the scraper and the windage tray and the girdle. YOU NEED ALL 4 of these improvements.

Hope this helps.

By the way, we had to go with a dry sump oil system on the hi rev clevelands and 302 boss engines to prevent those blocks from cracking in half. The main bearing journals were just too weak. The flex in the crank would kill the webs and the engines would detonate. We did this on a Pantera running 185 mph at Bonneville. OUCH.

Next year we went with the dry sump system and had no problems except with the rain. That twin turbo charged 377 Cleveland ran over 200 mph. One pass hit a world record of 214 mph! With the wet oil system we could not exceed 197 mph. This goes to show you just how restriction the oil causes in a racing environment.