Engine Bay Completion - Part 2

I jumped the gun with the title of my last post.... To really complete the engine bay, I have some more important tasks to complete such as:

• Welding up a custom fabricated aluminium external dry-sump reservoir.
• Install an oil priming pump.
• Wrap up the starter motor and coil packs in heat shielding.
• Re-install my shock tower bracing.

For the external dry-sump tank, I am using the space previously used by the battery (which is now in the trunk) as its new location. And seeing that this engine-bay panel had the typical rust associated with a battery leak in a previous life, I have cut out the rust to create a large hole in the spot where the battery tray used to bolt up to. This lets me extend the height of my external oil tank (downwards thru this hole) which gives me advantages in building a tank that efficiently removes air from my scavenged dry-sump oil. Here are some "in progress" photos.



I used a cardboard template to get the outside dimensions done and then added baffles from there. One of which I took a photo of.


















Here is a trial fit to make sure the hoses all worked together.

And here you can see how I've cut out the bottom of the battery tray to give the tonk some extra height. Plus include a convenient drain plug.

Never having built one of these things before I did so based on the following thoughts.....

• Ensure the oil tank outlet is at the lower-rear of the tank (so oil naturally moves towards this outlet under acceleration rather than away from it - and then risk sucking air).
• Baffle the tank (horizontally) so that oil can't slosh up the back face of the tank and expose the outlet to air.
• Make the tank itself as high as possible (compared to diameter) so there is a nice column of oil sitting above the outlet.
• For the scavenge inlet, make this (foamy) scavenged oil-air mix flow over a smooth surface and thru a meshed sieve (similar to a funnel with a sieve filter in the bottom) - to promote air bubbles to come to the surface and "pop" (disappear).
• Include an oil-level "sight" column, an oil filler neck, drain hole and tank breather.

This tank holds 8 litres when full, but when the engine is running it will  have about 4 litres in it, while the rest of the dry sum plumbing (oil pump, hoses, oil cooler, filter, etc) holds another 4 litres. These next couple of shots show the results of my first prototype. You will see a couple of  blocked off ports that I had to weld over after finding out the radiator hoses got in the way.....

This next bit may be seen as overkill by some, but I've also included a remote (electric) oil pump that allows me to press a "momentary" switch to pressurise the oil system before I hit the start button. In fact, once complete, i'll wire it all up such that the engine wont fire unless there is some oil pressure. I'm thinking that I can use an oil pressure warning light (warning of low pressure) as the trigger to allow the ignition the fire. A benefit is that if I get low oil pressure for any reason while racing and I'm distracted and don't see the warning light - it will automatically cut ignition to protect the motor. A bit of a fail-safe really. This little electric oil pump is just a diff/transmission remote oil cooler pump and wont need to run for any long duration - just long enough to pressurised things until the dry-sump pump takes over. Too easy I say.

One design flaw I've found (that I should have thought of while building the external tank), is that the oil priming pump sucks air through the joint "T" fitting it has with the oil level sigh column. Bummer. I have a couple of options to fix this: either have dedicated separate fittings for both the priming pump and sight level, or, I can insert a small plastic ball into the clear sight tube. For this second option I need a ball that's light enough to float on oil, but small enough so it can just slide up/down within the clear sight-tube, as well as being too big to fit through the lower AN-6 hose-spike fitting. This way, when the priming pump sucks oil (and oil in the sight level drops), this ball drops down to jam against the open end of the hose spike fitting and blocks this passage off. If I can find a "high viz" ball, then this will aid in reading the oil level too.

Coil Pack Setup, Engine Bay Completion

To finish the engine bay, I I've had to bundle up my "coil on plug" packs, complete the engine wiring loom, run the throttle cable and run the final radiator and heater hoses.

Regarding the heater, I've decided to go with a VintageAir heater/demister unit as they are so compact and come with their own control panel. I still have the heater box I pulled out of a local 90's Falcon that has all the vacuum flaps to control venting to windscreen/console/floor, etc. I may end up using parts of that as well. When my dash and console are complete, I will have hidden as many controls as possible, as I prefer the "stealth" look personally.

Anyway, here are some photos of the coil-packs. I had to hand-fabricate the coil mounts seeing these are indeed "coil-on-plug" coils which are tricky to securely hold in place as they are meant to sit in their own individual recess in the rocker cover of a 3-valve modular V8. They are approximately rounded, but have a series of tabs and protrusions you need to account for. Ideally, I would CNC machine something up to look the best, but as these items will be almost completely hidden (under the shock tower braces that are temporarily removed just now), I've formed their mounts from sheet aluminium.
At least these two coil packs (one pack of 4 coils on each side of the engine bay) remove the awful looking temporary wooden blocks I've sat on top of each rocker cover for about a year now (and this included the engine dyno session - so they did their job ok). For leads, I've gone with Taylor 9mm "Firepower" items. The 45 degree boots are a very neat fit for my custom extractor setup. Something to note is that with the coil packs being mounted on each side of the engine bay (between the shock-towers and firewall), the spark-plug leads themselves are extremely short, just 6 inches or so for the rear 2 cylinders on each bank. Hopefully I don't need to shift these coils at all later - only to find my cut-back leads need to be replaced.....

I have used the AN-16 ORB outlets at the rear of each cylinder head to source hot water for my new heater unit. With only limited room in the valley at the back of the engine (because of the oil pressure sender, engine wiring loom, fuel lines, throttle cable hardware, etc - all passing through this area), I have screwed AN-16 ORB block-off plugs into the rear coolant outlets, but I have tapped these plugs to accept brass 5/8th inch right-angle hose fittings. The ORB plugs in conjunction with Teflon tape on the brass fittings - allows me enough "wiggle room" to be able to spin these fittings such they both (1 on each cylinder head) face the firewall and wont leak. It is then pretty simple to drill holes in the firewall to run heater hose from these fittings to the new heater unit. But what I found when I tried to run the heater hose thru the firewall was that my fuel lines got in the way. So I had the re-design my existing "Tri-Y" setup where my 1/2" stainless hard line first split into two 1/2" lines (one for each fuel rail), and then each of these split into two AN-6 lines that feed each end of each fuel rail. All this "splitting" was done at the rear of the valley next to the oil pressure sender and simply cluttered things up too much. My solution was to run the 1/2" hard line right into the middle of the valley and split things up from there. Much neater! Safer too as the stainless hard line is much more resistant to scuffing as the engine vibrates. This photo should explain it better....

A final complication I need to account for is that I can't take advantage of any natural "flow" in my heater hose as I am sourcing heated coolant from the rear of each head (there is no natural "flow" between them). So I need to incorporate an extra heater "circulation pump" - to force coolant through the heater core. I've not built this setup yet, but I will incorporate a "rising rate" switch (using a solid-state relay) on this extra pump so it's not running 100% flat out when only a small amount of flow is needed. I included this kind of setup on my EFI fuel delivery system as it uses twin electric fuel pumps (and there is no point just churning up and heating fuel when idling away while stopped in traffic) - so it's easy enough to do, but is a luxury that can wait for later.

Something else I had to change is the original setup I built for returning hot engine coolant to the radiator. Initially, I had plumbed coolant lines up against the face of the right head (when looking into the engine bay from the front) to line up with the inlet port on the radiator. But the new power-steering and oil filter setup means I have to divert these coolant lines further forward to clear them. You will notice that I've built a new stainless steel "manifold" to join these two coolant outlets from each cylinder head and I've hidden the 3 temp senders (one each for the ECU, water pumps and temp gauge) I require by threading them in from the underside of this manifold.

This next trick has proved very useful for me. I've installed a "momentary" push-button switch in the engine bay, so I can conveniently crank the engine over when working under the hood, adjusting tappets, etc. Also I've mounted a spare oil-pressure gauge I had off the oil filter housing so I can see the actual oil pressure if I'm working on the motor with the engine running. This gauge provides more peace-of-mind than I expected!
And lastly, I have drilled a 1/2" hole into one of the upper, front engine mounts and welded a I/2" UNF nut on top of it - and into this nut I've threaded a long I/2" UNF bolt. As this bolt faces "for/aft" in the engine bay, when I "tighten up" this bolt and it passes thru the hole, it pushed into the mating lower engine mount and slides the whole engine forward 2 inches or so. This seemed the simplest and easiest way to give me heaps more room to do things like lift the rocker covers, get to spark-plugs, plus access wiring and fuel lines at the rear of the engine. I have to loosen off the front and rear engine mounts for this to occur of course, while the whole exhaust system just rocks forward. Nice.

Engine Support Systems

I've been "guilted" into publishing this post seeing it's been a while.........
So here you go (Jim).

Now that the engine has finally found its home (well, at least I thought it had - read on), I could concentrate on the various support systems required such as coolant, oil lines and oil cooler, running the loom, power-steering pump and lines, alternator and , charging, throttle linkages, clutch lines, etc.

Firstly, I built some templates for mounting the power-steering and alternator "combo" - and you can see the results in the photo below. This is achieved by initially pressing cardboard against the heads to locate the pattern of threaded bolt holes and then tracing this out on a sheet of 2mm aluminium plate. You can see the multi-groove drive pulley on the crank for the serpentine belt system I'm building. There will be a smooth-faced idler pulley between the steering pump and alternator pulleys, that the back of the serpentine belt runs on. The Alternator is the unit that can swing out on its upper mount to provide tension for the belt.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After cutting out the cardboard to the initial estimated shape, I then trace that onto the thin aluminium sheet and cut that out for a "test fit". Using this thin alloy sheet is a balance between being easy to cut, drill and modify as needed, versus being just strong enough to hold its shape to give me a reasonable final result. Once happy (after plenty of tweaks!), this plate is simply placed on a photocopier and scanned into a CAM/CAM package - SolidWorks where all curves, straight-edges and bolt holes can be accurately drawn-up and designed. The results of that are shown below.
 



From the computer designed drawing above, I then had some scrap steel plate laser cut to this design (to be used as a rock-solid dummy template for a final test-fit). This proved successful and allowed me to estimate a serpentine belt length - so I hit the "go" button to produce the final alloy mounting plates.

 

As can be seen below, these plates were completed nicely and look great.

 

 

 

 

 

The sequence with which the plates are mounted is as shown in the "exploded" view earlier. The power steering pump bolts directly to the small plate and this plate is then sandwiched (via spacer dowels) directly up against the back of the front plate. The three larger holes in the front plate are the recesses inside of which the mounting bolts for the pump reside. The rear plate includes a recessed section that engine coolant passes through.
The rear plate is 16mm thick while the others are 12mm thick. This design would be good for any 429/460 engine running TrickFlow A460 heads. And I suspect the mounting holes drilled into these heads mimics stock bolt-hole locations, so the plate design is probably ok for any 429/460 engine.
Belt alignment (for/aft) is achieved by setting the correct length of the spacer dowels between these plates. The best way to measure his of course is to "index" off the crank drive pulley by placing a straight-edge on it and rotating it back and forth to sweep across areas where the other pulleys would be positioned.

Lastly, by having the engine installed and running it occasionally, it has showed that I need to make some more room for the rear of the induction (at the firewall) - if i am to have any chance of fabricating a "cold air box". So..... out came the engine yet again (which takes about 2 hours working solo) and I have scalloped out a 14 inch central section of the custom brace that runs across the firewall - all good.
The other tricky area has been for the pressure lines that enter/exit the power steering rack. The standard fittings point straight out from the rack via AN-6 male fittings and occupy and area that I need for the big-block extractors. The result (as expected) is that the hydraulic lines (braided hose) get too close to the extractors and risks significant heat soak issues. My solution is to replace these original AN fittings with suitable "banjo" fittings - so the lines exit sideways and run along the rack. This has resulted in a nice low-profile solution to give me much more room. The photo below shows the final setup.

The nice thing about banjo fittings is that you can swivel them in any direction (except where they bump into each other). This provides the range of adjustment i need for this engine/chassis combo. 

Engine Installation and Setup

Now that the engine is back from the dyno and the oil (scavenge) problems are sorted, it's been time to do final preparation on the engine bay and sort out all the support systems.
You know - oil, fuel, electrical, exhaust, coolant, etc, etc.

First thing to do was finish the engine bay paint and i did this with POR-15 chassis  paint (rust protector) in satin black.

On top of this I installed some heat reflector/shielding (from Thermo-Tec) rated to 2000 degrees F.
This self-adhesive shielding sticks really well to the engine bay paint so i'm hoping it does the primary job of keeping heat out of the cabin.
I have some tricky areas where the headers come close to the steering joints, the starter, the power steering hoses, and also the dry-sump scavenge lines - so i need to protect all of these items sufficiently to avoid damage from exposed heat soak.

The photo below shows the firewall and transmission tunnel after applying the reflective shielding.



The headers themselves are covered in insulating "wrap", but i also have a starter-motor heat-shield mat (held in place by stainless ties), as well as "Thermo Sleeves" to cover the battery cable enters the engine bay and bolts up to the starter motor, and also to cover the power steering and rear oil scavenge line.
This photo shows the engine in its final home. A huge milestone for me (plus proof a 429/460 with A460 heads will indeed fit in an early 1965 or 66 Mustang).

 

The following photo shows how i've positioned the engine as far back as i dare.
I can still get the rocker covers off, but i also made this easier on myself by welding a 7/16th UNF nut onto one of the engine mounts. This then lets me thread in a 7/16th bolt that i simply "screw in" as if tightening the bolt - and this slowly slides the engine forward on its mounts to give me plenty of work room.

 

 


















This little trick also allows me to fine-tune the final "fore-aft" positioning of the engine as well.

The photo below is included only to show that i am hooking up all the engine ancillaries (for the all-important first test start).
To get to this point i've had to complete all the break & clutch lines, as well as fill with fluid and bleed. Let me just say it took quite some time to bleed everything because of the angles of the clutch slave cylinder (under the dash and in a vertical rather than usual horizontal position), and the location/orientation of the brake biasing valve. Both these units needed to be temporarily "re-oriented" to get the residual air out of their respective systems!
Apart from the hydraulics, i needed the drive-shaft installed, the 3 fuel pumps, regulator, return-line, fuel-rails etc all pressure-tested, and also a temporary accelerator pedal built.... plus more......

After all looked ok, a nervous author hit the start button. I have some video of the first moments that the car moved under its own power, but the dam file is too big to load. Regardless, I drove it all of 10 meters to get it to the back corner of the yard and out of the way for a teenage party coming up. This was my "compelling event" to get it rolling.
The 2 photos below are simply included as i liked the look of them.

The rear valence and bumper are removed only because i was testing for leaks in the custom stainless tank (no issue there thankfully), and you can also see that the engine wiring has been draped up over the dash. The Autronic EFI control module just sat on the passenger seat.

Lastly, here is a picture from the front showing how temporarily some systems have been implemented. The external dry sump tank is the good old trusty plastic bucket held in position with hay-band. The coils are taped onto blocks of 2x4 that sit on the rockers, and a keen eye will see the oil pressure guage is the only "important" guage used. No need for a radiator obviously when it's being driven only a few meters.....

I have since reversed it back into the garage and have it up on stands again. The next set of jobs is to do final brake bleeding, fabricate a custom exhaust (hopefully a full 3" system will fit between the coil-overs and up over the diff'), fabricate a final dry-sump reservior, install the front sway bar, install the final coolant lines and radiator, install the engine "front dress" for alternator and power-steering pump mounts - and maybe even run wiring to the front for lights and blinkers.

Actually - that is a heap of work when listed as such. So future posts will cover them.....

Engine Dyno Session

I'll give you the pictures first (some are blurred - sorry, these are the only ones I have as the day was so busy), then a summary..............

The engine (finally) at the Dyno shop and the drive hub mounted to the crank.



 

 

Above is the actual Dyno unit and the engine all hooked up. I started to get very vervous that this point...... And below is just one of many interim results showing it got 525Hp and 596Ft/Lbs of torque when being mapped at 70% throttle. The two "gauge" displays at lower left keep the last set of results and the photo below that shows the mapping being done at the various load and rev' points.
We had just run it from 1000 to 6000RPM while holding 70% load (throttle position in my case).
This is how the Autronic EFI unit is tuned and you need only 1 or 2 seconds at each tuning site.
So once everything is setup, it all happens pretty fast. Trouble was - it took a long time to setup.








































And finally - the actual dyno sheet. 604Hp and a nice flat torque curve that sits in the mid 500's.
The dyno sheet doesn't lie - and this is my baseline now. However, this is just part of the story and I believe there is plenty of room for improvement.

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Why do I say that? Because this run was the only one I could do as I ran out of time and money.

There was a lot of sorting required to get to the actual final "run".

Major problems were.....

• Harmonics caused my crank sensor to oscillate and hit the trigger wheel. Had to fabricate the whole thing again on the day.
• My initial spark plugs (suggested to me) were the wrong heat range. Found replacements (thanks John) and it was a very (incredibly) different motor.
• Worst issue was some of my glyptal internal engine paint flaked off and blocked the finer stainless mesh filters I had located inside the dry-sump itself. My fault - 100% no doubt.
• This meant oil was pumping in ok (from a large reservoir) , but not escaping at all for the dyno run.

So I only got the one run done and ran out of time to put some ignition advance into it. The above figures came at 25 degree max advance - no danger of pinging at that rate.

Just as importantly, the above figure came with at least 12 litres of oil sitting inside the dry-sump and crank case. I took 12 litres out when I got it home, but heaps had already leaked out. That engine probably thought it was trying to sprint in thigh-deep water......

 

I've sorted out the "paint flake" issue, and I'm hoping that the 596 Ft/Lbs I saw earlier (when tuning) was in a large part lowered on the dyno run because of the oil issue.

 

Also, see how the HP figure flat-lines at about 5750RPM?

Again, I'm hoping that is because of the retarded timing I went in with - because I know the induction, fuel and spark are good to go to about 8000RPM. Not that this engine will ever see those kinds of rev's, 6500 will be my conservative limit I'd say.

 

But - the EFI is now mapped and I can install it in the car and tweak it from there. I'm happy to say I have a reasonable base to work from now (solid engine) and there should be a big "upside" with some more tuning. Putting in some more ignition advance should really make a difference (make it jump) I'd say.

Anyway, now a couple of recent photos. First of the new filter screens I've built - to stop anything dropping down those (large) ports. I'll have a proper cold air box with normal filters in the final configuration. But these make me feel a lot safer for now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



And here is the latest photo showing that I'm just about to slide the Tremec into place.

Had a false start with the original hydraulic slave cylinder (too short), but the new 1400 series McLeod unit has fixed that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thinking ahead, the next post should be of the engine going in. Or maybe the interior - as I've been working on that in parallel to the above engine "project".

 

 







Engine Startup

Finally - I have started the motor for the first time, in preparation for the dyno.

Seeing dyno time is typically charged as an initial minimum set fee, then also for the amount of time you spend there, i want to make sure i don't waste time chasing electrical or leakage issues. Therefore - I want to get the engine initially idling reasonably well, the oil pressure where it should be and the coolant system operating as it should.
The 100% temporary stand you see below is actually a lot studier than it looks. It's made from 3mm wall-thickness box tube and all joins are fully welded. I have included the poly-urethane engine mounts in the construction as well just to give it a bit of movement





















In case anyone is wondering, I have both a hose and a fire-extinguisher close by in case a disaster happened. But the nice thing about EFI is that you can pressure test the whole fuel system first - as the EFI pumps prime things up without having to turn to engine over. Secondly, you can crank the engine to make sure you are getting spark too.

That "dry sump" reservoir you see at lower left is a nice piece of Tupperware that sits in a box so it doesn't topple over. I have various sieves and magnets in it to catch any metal fragments. I caught a few too (nothing un-toward), as well as a few flakes of Glyptal paint. It just goes to show that no matter how clean you go (and i was paranoid about it) some bits just "appear" when a motor first fires.
Another benefit of the dry sump is that you can easily slip the high-torque-drive (HTD) belt off and spin the pump over with an electric drill. I did this a few times of course before the first start with the rocker cover off to watch the oil come up through the pushrods. This pump seems to sit at 70lbs pressure from about 1200 RPM onwards. It sits at 40lbs at an 800rpm idle.

I would have loved to upload the video of the first time the engine fired with coils on the right plugs and zero spark advance (to make sure the crank sensor was in the correct place)...... But the file is just too big and let's just say the video function on my camera does not do the sound justice. This thing is seriously loud.

I expected that of course having those big headers, but the deep sound it has from 520 cubic inches vibrates the whole house. Add to that a few initial timing issues where i had the wrong coil on the wrong plug (my fault) which produced some stunning back-fires (equivalent to a shotgun). The result of all this fiddling and head-scratching of course is that my neighbours really love me just now.......(not!).

Since that first startup, I have put some spark timing into it and it runs very crisply for the few seconds I have it going (very short bursts for now as i have no coolant in it). My next task is to finish the coolant system by plumbing in those remote electric water pumps and controller. Once that's done it's off to the dyno (finally).

Engine Assembly & Header Build

I've been waiting a long time to get to this point.
I finally collected sufficient engine components to justify actual engine assembly. I have run into one last (self-inflicted) hurdle though that I explain at the end of this post, but for now, here is what's been happening for the last few months.
First off, check out the very nice induction setup (below) that was the result of a heap of preparation work by myself and then some great help from Robbie out at Flexicut Engineering. I thought up the original design and had it created in a CAD/CAM program. Robbie then adjusted it to make it more practical to cut on the CNC machines to save a heap of time (= money).
I can't thank you enough Robbie for the "extra mile" you went to in helping out with the coolant exits, the engine valley plate, the throttle linkages, throttle rail mounts, various spacers, etc.
The picture below shows how nice it finished up.



 

I was originally going to anodize parts of it - but it looks good as is (my opinion). So it will remain as a natural finish (natural for T6 alloy).
In case anyone thinks the above was straight-forward or easy to do, there are a heap of design tweaks implemented to get it all to work (fits like a glove actually). And then there are some mod's I would add in hindsight as well - now that it is all bolted up. But regardless, the results are fantastic.
As you can see, i've gone for short & straight runners. Ideally i would include some wedges to position the trumpets more upright (and minimise the potential for cylinders to rob air from each other), but i think this will work ok. The motor will have plenty of natural torque at low rev's to compensate for the short runners at low RPM's.

Now for the engine build.
Firstly, here is the crank and cam being degreed-in, so i can fly-cut another set of pistons.... I sold the last set to a guy that needed them sooner than me. You can see the yellow plasticine being applied again for this task (to measure valve to piston clearance).














And here is the result. I took another 100 thou off the pistons to ensure plenty of clearance for the intake valves. The exhausts had heaps of room by default. What this process doesn't show however - is the time spent making another jig so each piston could be cut exactly the same, as well as the effort that goes into making sure each piston weighs the same to 1/10th of a gram.......














And below you can see the conrods having been prepared and numbered.














This photo just shows my routine for gapping piston rings. I make sure I don't mix them up by leaving them in the bore. And then I..........














....place them back in the box in the position the pistons came out of so I can minimize any chance of putting them in the wrong bore.














Here I finally have the short-block complete.
Things to note are:

• I am running a Canton main-girdle as a stroker engine needs all the bottom-end help it can get. This is a cheap investment, but in this case it needed mod's to give it the minimum 60 thou' clearance (in a few spots).
• Degree-ing the cam showed it was 2 degrees advanced compared to advertised spec's. So I've retarded it by this amount to install it "straight up".
• The mechanical roller-cam has +.700" lift with "reasonable" duration by the way.This should work well with the induction setup i have i believe (but the dyno will prove this one way or the other).

And below you can see I've bolted the heads and valley plate down. I had to build my own "crows foot" socket to allow the torque wrench to reach the nuts (on the head studs) running down the middle of the heads. The big valve springs simply would not allow a standard 11/32" socket to be used.
My "crows foot" socket was made by cutting as standard socket in half so i had the half-inch drive end separated from the socket end.
I then welded them back together, but "offset" by welding a short length of "chopped up old spanner" between them.
I made the center-to-center distance of my new crows-foot exactly 1/10th the length of my torque wrench. This made it easier to calculate the revised torque wrench settings to use as i just needed to take 10% off any recommended settings (as my new torque wrench + crows foot length was 10% longer overall).














Because of the high-lift roller cam and associated heavy-duty valve springs, I went for a stud-girdle as well. I think this is even more important with alloy heads as they do move more than cast iron units. Again, this is just my opinion.














And below you can see the valve covers have been put on and the ports all masked up for yet another trial fit. But this time in order to fabricate the headers. This picture does tell a thousand words (for anyone contemplating this engine/chassis combo.........
You can see that the RRS shock-tower notching kit gives me heaps of room for the first part of the pipes as they exit the heads. This is good news - but I ended up needing absolutely every inch of space I had seeing my header "weld up" kit has 2-1/4" primary pipes combining into a 4" collector.














The photo below shows that there is plenty of room for the pipes as they exit the heads. A keen eye will even see the 4" collector dummied into position all the way at the lower rear. That is fine, but as my car is converted to right-hand-drive - I then had to contend with both the starter motor and the power rack & pinion linkages on the same side of the car (the side shown below).
I think i did 1000 situps in 2 and a half days building these bloody pipes. I knew it was going to be painful but when you are doing this on your own, you seem to endlessly repeat the following tasks: hand cut and fit some pipe, then tack-weld, then remove he header and fully weld, then re-install, then hand cut and fix the next section...... You do this over and over and over.....And you get under the vehicle then get up again for each step














The result was worth it though. Below are the custom pipes almost done.














Once the headers were done and the oxygen sensor ports welded in, I could start to do final assembly. The photo below shows the engine 90% complete and on a temporary engine stand. I'm going to use this stand to initially fire the motor up before going to the dyno - as I want to be sure it starts and runs first.
Dyno time isn't cheap, so getting it started and idling ok first makes sure the wiring is all fine and that there are no obvious leaks or any other myriad problems there may be when first firing an EFI motor.














The shot below shows the motor as it is now.
I am yet to install the coolant system and alternator/power steering pump, but the cooling system is my next task. I am going to fabricate a small tank to combine the two AN-16 outlets if have on the heads - and then this small tank will have a standard radiator "top hose" outlet. You can most easily see the coolant outlet hose fittings for these in the photo above.














I then only need to fabricate the twin electric pump plumbing to circulate coolant into the two inlets (that you see on either side of the belt-driven cam gear).

Now for the frustrating bit..... I seemed to have lost my crankshaft drive pulley for my dry-sump!
This is a show-stopper in regards to strarting the motor. So I need to order another one in before I can start the dam thing. This will take a couple of weeks.
Once back from the dyno, I will update the blog.

Engine - EFI & Induction setup.

I'm running a few tasks in parallel just now. The ongoing engine build (induction) being described here as well as the dash, cabin interior and instrument panel.

For the engine induction, I've been scratching my head trying to work out the best approach in regards to trumpet placement, size and design - considering the space I have to work within, as well as how I'd like the engine to behave.

I dummied up some alloy sheet to build a template for the engine valley-plate and the rails that will link the 4 throttle butterfly levers on each bank. With the ports being equally spaced and the levers all running in a singe plane, I can (relatively) simply design throttle rails to suit. Building the temporary valley-plate was wise as it allowed me to check the height and subsequent angle of the levers that connect the throttle rails on each bank to "bell crank" that sits in the middle of the valley.
These photos give you an idea.....

Seeing the bell crank is what the throttle cable (coming from the accelerator pedal) connects to - to open up the butterflies, it has to be "dead center" along the mid-line of the valley. I tried positioning it towards the rear to free up room at the front, but ended up at the "for/aft" mid-point anyway. Only this position gave me the optimum angle of pull on the throttle rails (as they travel their arc from closed to W.O.T.).
You will see some old trumpets sitting on the throttles just to give me an idea of the room i have (or don't have). I could go for much shorter trumpets right on top of the existing throttles. This means shorter inlet runners that sacrifice low-down torque - but i doubt this engine will suffer from a lack of torque! We will see how we go with this while i help draw it up on the CAD/CAM program.
Those blue-anodised trumpets give a false picture though, as they are for 50mm diameter throttles and mine are 55mm. The bigger throttle diameter makes a much bigger resultant trumpet - so really, i have less room than the photo indicates.....














This custom induction has also means a redesign of the dizzy and water coolant passages - as viewers will plainly see in the photo above.
I've chopped off an old 351C dizzy body right where it exits the block and gets tightened down by the locking tab. That "collar" you see on the chopped off shaft is actually the old bearing from the upper chopped-off section (that i pressed it out) that I had simply slid back onto the shaft. I have already pressed this bearing back into the dizzy housing stub you see here. But I had to open up the passage in the dizzy body to 0.750" (just under this size actually) for it to have an interference fit back in.
This new unit will very soon become my "Cylinder 1 reference signal" for the EFI control box. All "sequential fire" ECU's need to know when each cylinder hits TDC from a crank sensor, but to get the firing order, spark and injector timing right - it also needs to know when No.1 cylinder fires (and the rest flow from there).
You can see the hall-effect sensor sitting there about be positioned. This whole new unit will be a verty low profile and fit nicely under the coolant outlets. And speaking of which, those coolant outlets will both be redirected to the right of the pictures and combine into a single pipe in front of the heads - before flowing forward to the radiator in a conventional manner.

I'll add to this post as the induction gets further advanced.

Below is an "in progress" shot of the dash and gauge cluster. Well - it happens to show parts of this by pure fluke..... But the dash & gauges will be a separate post in itself.

Fuel Tank setup and Manifold Adaptors

Not only is the body coming together, but the fuel supply and engine are coming along too.
Here is a shot of the stainless tank. You will see the battery box at the rear so the battery is recessed into the tank. Not only that but the Bosche EFI pumps are recessed too. Basically, the outer dimensions of the tank will include all fuel elements and the battery (so the EFI pumps, lift pump, surge tank, etc all recessed into or actually inside the tank.
This way, I just bolt up the tank and there is nothing else to make room for in the trunk. I can just install the tank and connect the fuel and electrical lines - and i'm good to go.


Something that may be of interest is that i'm going to use a PWM output from the EFI management system to provide an input signal to a solid state Hella relay. This will allow me to send a signal to EFI pumps to moderate their speed/output. This is a good thing because it stops the pumps running flat out even at idle (and churning up the fuel). The PWN output is variable based on a map of engine load and RPM. More on this when i finally wire it up.

Now here are some shots of the custom manifold adaptors i built up to convert the circular throttle blocks to the oval ports on the A460 heads. This first shot is from above and shows the 65mm thickness that provides me the port transition required and the 14mm diameter injector bosses.

The photo below shows the head face and the bolt holes along with the coolant ports.
These units have come up beautifully. For anyone local in Australia, i got these machined up at Flexicut in Dandenong by Robbie (owner). It took me quite a while to find a place that had the auto background knowledge and the interest in such a one-off project. I can't recommend them any higher.

The following photo shows the circular inlet compared the oval outlet above.
The coolant outlets are AN-16 thread machined for O-rings.

And the 3 photos below show some test fitting of the injectors and throttles.
Notice the throttle shaft comes close to the injector, but there is room for a throttle position sensor (just) on top of one throttle block. I'll just have to include some little extensions on these injectors o raise the fuel rail to clear everything. The number 1 priority was to get the injector position and angle right - and fit everything around that afterwards. I'll trim the top of the shafts later and create some cover plates to make it all look good.

Of course now i need to sort out my trumpets without having one cylinder steal air from another.....

But it's going to look good and flow plenty of air once done i believe.

And there is the small matter of all the linkages, bell-crank, etc. Yet another mini project that will take time.