wanted everybody's input on the comparison on the 302 ford and chevy seems like there would be no comparison seems 2 be two equal motors but im sure that there is a lot of chevy or ford fans that dont think so please respond thanks!!!  

Ahh, likely an endless debate.  Nonetheless, I'll throw in my 2 cents... 

Today, with the abundance of aftermarket goodies for the Ford 302 (or 5.0 for you younger guys), one could easily build a Ford 302 to pee all over the Chevy 302.  Not to mention that many folks would be pressed to afford building a legitimate Chevy 302.

Now, bring into the picture a Ford Boss 302... there's no comparing it to a Chevy 302.  The Boss would chew up and spit out the Bowtie.

* IMO, the Boss 302 (cid for cid) was the nastiest Detroit ever mass produced and offered to the public.

well thanks 4 tha response but let me ask u this or anybody realy whats the difference between the 2 ford 302's and why do u feel that the ford 302 would be the better motor than the chevy 302 being that they are so much alike?  

Do some research (e.g. Google) on the 1969 and 1970 Ford Boss 302 - you'll learn there was a bunch of difference versus the Windsor style 302.  Namely in the cylinder heads (the Boss had Cleveland style cylinder heads).  It's a similar comparison between the 351 Cleveland and 351 Windsor.

The difference between the Ford 302 (Windsor) and Chevy 302, is primarlily driven by the aftermarket.  You could likely build a wild oats Ford for 1/2 the cost of the Chevy.  The Chevy 302 was an awesome mill - but, is rather rare today as is the Boss 302.  Parts (e.g.; cranks, pistons) are quite expensive.

Edit:  Also, for grins, research Ford's Tunnel Port 302.  Ford tried it's hand at Trans Am racing with this engine in 1968.  Could never get it quite right, and later replaced it with the infamous Boss 302.

I dont want to start an argument although I will..if the boss was superior...than why did it lose in the trans-am races to the bowtie?

A ford 302 is a great engine...although the distributor is in the front...garrrrr. But I think chevrolets head design and port location is much better for making power than the blue ovals.

But yes you are right about one thing...itll cost you a mint to try and build a chevy 302 these days...Ive tried twice and gave up twice.

Thanks
-Shred

Ford won in 1970, their second year (and last) attempt with the Boss 302.  I'd bet a stock pair of Boss 302 heads would outflow Chevy's best offering from the same era.  Monster ports and large canted valves on the Boss.  

I'll eventually deliver an epistle on this subject. Let me say this, the Boss had a lot going for it, but Chevy was gunning for it with hemi small block when the gas crisis, emission laws, and fuel economy standards hit.

Bogie

I've seen and read articles about the Chevy small-block hemi head prototype.  Wasn't that yet another gizmo Yunick had his hands into?  

Yeah, actually this whole Hemi or Semi Hemi as Chevy's mystery engine that reveled itself as the 396/427/454, and the Ford Cammer were all reactions to NASCAR allowing Chrysler to race the 426 with Hemi Heads back in the 1964 time frame. At first NASCAR banned hemi heads after Chrysler had pretty much cleaned up in the 1950's.

A step 10 years further back has the famous Chrysler team put together by Carl Keikhaefer using the original hemi pretty much cleaned up on the wedge engines. Then Chrysler discontinued the hemi and the Max Wedges debued in 1958. NASCAR competition then got a lot closer. Buy 1962-63 Chrysler was itching to bring the hemi back as a competitive measure. The Chevy 348-409-427 had pretty much hit the wall with what could be done with a combustion chamber in the piston design. Ford's 427 was fighting oiling problems over 6500 RPM. At this point NASCAR had banned hemi heads, but suddenly changed their mind and allowed the new 426 Hemi in 64, but later banned it again for a season as the body/engine combination being raced was not available to the public. Chrysler fixed that in 1965.

At this time Chevy had come out with the mystery engine which was the semi hemi big block we have today. This engine was designed when the NASCAR prohibition on hemi heads was still in place, so it was designed to improve flows without full out resorting to a hemi chamber. Smokey of course was neck deep in this and other GM developments and was a power behind the scenes for many years pushing for and advocating various designs and making his own when the factory wouldn't which usually caused hom problems with sanctioning organizations when he showed up with stuff the factory didn't make.

Frankly, I'd be happier with a class that really stood behind the mantra of "Run-What-You-Brung". These are big boys, some have money, some are more creative, it makes for intresting racing when this all gets mixed together. But today's rules keep anybody but the rich and powerful prttey much out of the game. The only way a guy with a better Mouse Trap can play is to sell his idea to the big money boys. Ford's adventure with the 427 is a classic case in point. Where the factory thought the engine was so good in origianl form, in 1964 they wouldn't even let the factory sponsered teams open the engine up. Run'em straight out of the crate, it didn't work. They had a bad habit of sticking rods out the crankcase when run up and over 6500 for any time. The "good-ole boys" figured, correctly I might add, that the surface speed on the rod bearing was too fast, Ford using a narrow width large diameter bearing on the rod, resulting the journal and bearing overrunning the oil wedge. Their solution was to regrind the shaft to accept a modified Chrysler rod which widened the rod bearing and reduced the journal diameter. Essentially Ford incorporated this notion and introduced end to end crank oiling and other improvements with the LeMans crank. 

Ford's 427 fell behind the power output of the hemi and semi hemi engines and after toying with low riser, medium riser and high riser heads, released the cammer to run against and do one better than Chrysler. NASCAR said no to the Cammer. Ford fell back with the Tunnel Port, which proved to be very effective on the high bank oval but less so as a drag engine.  Still as a wedge chambered engine goes, it did mighty respectfully, especailly after the LeMans crank and rods were combined with the side oiler block. But the longer term writting was on the wall for a pure wedge engine to remain competitive so taking a line from Chevrolet's big block and the Chrysler hemi, they went to work on  what became the 429 and 460. The 429 Super Cobra Jet being the high point in development of this engine but given the political and ecomonic events of the early 1970's it proved to be too late to be effective and before all the teething problems could be addressed the factories withdrew from racing.

Bogie

wow that is a good bit of history, thank you for the good info but as the ford 302 and chevy 302 bone stock in a factory crate they would be closley matched untill 3500 rpm where the chevy pull more the chevy hade bigger exhust ports it breathed easyer

Having an old friend that used to own a cam manufacturing company in SoCal, and me building most any engine I could lay my hands on, many of which went into serious race machines and therefore saw the dyno as part of their development, the one thing I can say without reservation is that the Chevy 302 out of the box, would out power the Boss 302 by a solid 60 horses or more.

It took a lot of work on the Boss to make up that deficit. However, you could bing the Ford up quite a way against the Chevy where,as the same/similar effort on the Chevy didn't bring as much result. This basically tells you that the Chevy came closer to its ultimate design possibilities.

A big advantage the Chevy had out on the race course was that it had a much flatter power curve, the Boss being quite peaky. This gave the Camaro driver a great amount of leeway when getting on the power coming out of corners as the engine would grunt up the power band even if the gear selection resulted in the too few RPMs. The Boss had to be in it's power range, too few revs and it wouldn't pick up unless you down shifted. Down shifting often put it over its power peak where it also died. The Mustang driver had be really good at reading the engine's power curve a pulling the best gear choice at any moment. It needed more than a close ratio 4 speed to be a competitive car against a comparable 302 Camaro.

I'm a great beliver in keeping control of the air flows in the manifolds/headers and ports. The Boss' super large ports did not provide sufficient flow control and at least a couple problems eminate from that. First, as RPMs fall so does flow till you loose the ability to feed intake flow during cam overlap and a late closing of the intake. This costs torque and makes the top end horsepower peaky. The second thing is that you get flow seperation from the port walls, this turbulance can actually reduce the area and volume available to the flow, thus choking the passages and reducing and or changing combustion chamber swirl and wet flow by RPM. So randomly choosing big will usually result in problems that a better shaped but smaller port doesn't have.  

Swirl versus tumble porting. A wedge engine where the intake and exhaust sit side by side in the same plane and this would include the Rat motors semi hemi, which is far more wedge than hemi, really responds to swirl flow. If you have a true hemi or pent head where the intake(s) and exhaust(s) sit across form each other, you will get good result from tumble flow. Although Ford got good result with the tunnel port 427 having tumble flow, I think they would have done better with an arraingment that provided more swirl, and I modified tunnel port heads to do that with great result The TP didn't work with the 302. So one can presume that the good result on the 427 was a fluke that can't simply be applied to everything. Looking at the Chevy NASCAR Mirror Port head you see a couple of things, first it has a radically shaped Ricardo combustion chamber, rather along the size and proportion of the old Gurney/Westlake SBF 302 head. The other, taking a page from the good book Oldsmobile, the intake ports are arrainged such that with a center mounted 4 barrel carb the mixture flow always and naturally moves to the cylinder wall side of the port. This greatly influences and improves swirl without introducing additional drag by reshaping the port to force the flow to that side which is another characteristic of all Ford FE heads except the tunnel port. Everytime you do something to the flow to force it somewhere other that where it would naturally go, you introduce a drag force that reduces the energy of the flow.

Bogie   

oh boy I still new to engine dynamics and that is a read thank you for the insite Bogie

Craig

Bog:

As always, interesting information.  What you say about the Boss being very 'peaky' is true.  I owned a couple of them (one bone stock, the other fairly modified), and they only lived a healthy life way up in the rpm band - primarily because of their massive ports and valves.

The easiest modifications were to simply upgrade the factory cam/springs and improve the exhaust for high rpm use.  The balance of the motor (in factory trim) would support 7,500 rpm's.

They were a heck of a car!

Imagine a Boss 302 with a T56 behind it!

Bogie

Well to you for guys I do remmember  9sec 302 chevy nova 66? 67? back in the 90s with no forced induction It was in these magazines it won a big race back then beating all the big blocks and ford 302s well all the fords I will find it for you ford lovers who dont belive me *** Its not hard to build a 302 you just need a forged 3inch stroke crank and a 350 or 327 block 202 heads came on them also I built a mild one for a reagal with 3.73 and a th350 I gave the 5slows a car lenght on the streets so I could bark second as I passed their window laughing while they gave me the deer in the headlight look of amazment.
HORSPOWER MEANS NOTHING expecially on a ford  take the shelby mustang for example have you ever seen its et over 600HP a 13sec pass what a joke a slightly tweeked ls1 camaro or firebird would kick its ass what about the light high horse all aliuminum shelby cobra oh yeah the chevelle ls6 beat it! so im sure a hemi or that quick 455 back then would also beat it oh wait lets always compare the mustang fords top of the line performancs production to the camaro why not chevys the CORVETTE oh I forgot there is no comparison it has never stood a chance still doesnt dont give me that light myth a vette is not that light just built right hey why dont we compare a shelby mustang to a stock camaro with 2.42 gears like always so we feel better because we know it cant beat a yenko,nickey,motion, zl1 and probably not even a z-11 big ass impala