Ford Boss 302 engine

The Ford Boss 302, formally the 302 H.O., is a high-performance small block V8 engine of 302 cubic inches (4.9 litres) made by Ford Motor Company. The original was used in the 1969 and 1970 Boss 302 Mustangs and Cougar Eliminators and was developed in 1968 for the SCCA Trans-Am road racing series. It was built by attaching heads designed for the planned 351 Cleveland to a Ford small block, which worked because the two engines shared a cylinder head bolt pattern, although the coolant passages of the Boss heads needed slight changes. The engine had its own thin-wall, high nickel nodular iron block, four-bolt main bearings, solid lifters and large canted-valve heads, and it was conservatively rated at 290 hp gross with a redline of 6,150 rpm. The name came from the 1960s slang for excellent, applied by the stylist Larry Shinoda in honour of Ford president Semon Knudson, and it displaced the formal 302 H.O. name in popular use. An entirely new Boss 302 engine, a variant of the Ford Modular engine, was introduced for the 2012 Ford Mustang.