18/10/2026
Four inch bore, three and a half inch stroke. Both of them.
That is where the similarity ends.
The Windsor came out of the Windsor plant in Ontario and grew out of the 289 and 302 family, with the valves standing in a row in the head the way Ford small-blocks always had them.
The Cleveland came out of Cleveland, Ohio, and borrowed its thinking from the big-block world. The valves sit at an angle to each other, which lets Ford fit far larger ones and run much straighter ports. On paper it breathes better than anything else Ford built in that size.
On the street, the 4V version breathed so well it was wrong. The ports were sized for racing, so at low revs the air slowed down and the engine felt flat until it finally woke up.
The quickest way to tell them apart is the front of the engine. A Windsor has a separate timing cover bolted on with the water pump sitting on it. A Cleveland has a flat block face with the water pump bolted straight to the casting, and the thermostat buried in the block rather than in the intake.
Ford killed the Cleveland in America after 1974. Australia carried on building it until 1982.
