June '14 - Drivetrain installation

Finally got to pick up the motor, so it was time to get the drivetrain assembled and installed. If only it could have gone smoothly. Seemed easy enough, slap the block plate on, torque the flywheel bolts. Then the clutch, and pressure plate, and realize the flywheel is an incorrect piece - the 28oz imbalance flywheen they used to balance the rotating assembly was from an early 289 motor, and had the wrong bolt battern for the newer 10.5 clutch I was using. Oops. I just happened to have a 50-oz imbalance flywheel from a Fox Mustang around, so they re-balanced that flywheel to match.

With a now-28oz flywheel with the newer bolt pattern in place, I could attach the clutch, pressure plate and line it up with the crankshaft...

Then attach the Lakewood bellhousing, TKO-600 transmission and a bracket for the clutch slave cylinder... then I noticed the bellhousing needed to be notched to clear the clutch pushrod, unlike the others on the market like Quicktime. Out came the sawzall.

With that, it was time to lower the whole assembly into place. Had to turn the engine lift around sideways to have enough reach to lower it all the way in...

And here we are, not quite resting where it should have. Had to lift it back up just a bit to swap the motor mounts to the correct side (oops). Then realized the big fat steel bellhousing was not going to clear the 3/4" forward-angled tubes for the tranny tunnel reinforcement.

So, out came the sawzall again, and a few seconds later, the motor dropped all the way down into the mount slots on the frame, precisely where it should....

Midshifter right where it needed to be. Turns out I didn't need to relocate the middle cross tube quite as much as I did, so that will eat into the available beer-holder space. Did I say beer? I mean soda. Or health organic tea or something.

Then attach the accessory brackets and pulley set, distributor cap, etc. Plenty of these billet machined kits available from various Mustang parts outfits, along with cheaper knockoffs on Ebay. Worked great on the 351 in the last build, although I couldn't use the same belt routing with the Breeze lower radiator hose. No prob though.

And I could mock up the exhaust, leaving the wrapper on the gorgeous GasN polished stainless sidepipes to keep them nice and shiney. The ceramic-coated carbon steel headers (by Stainless Headers, Inc.) were very nicely made, and they put the O2 sensor bungs right where I asked. They make a really awesome 4-into-1-into-4 set for those running the Coyote motors as well, and they'll go plain steel, ceramic coated, plain stainless, or polished stainless, depending on how much coin you want to drop. If your heads have the dual bolt patter, opt for them to use the outer set - make bolting the headers on easy as pie, at least on the 302-based motors. 351s, not so much.

Bought a very basic aluminum air cleaner and finned valve-cover set after finding out my Cobra valve-covers would not clear the roller rocker arms. Didn't like the semi-polished look of them, so I had them powdercoated with the same hammered-black finish I used on my previous build. Love the way they came out. Had to use a 4-inch air filter element to provide enough space for the mass air meter...hopefully it will clear the hood. I've only found 2-inch and 4-inch filters in the 12-inch oval size so far.

With all of the fuel line plumbing, cooling system and wiring details figured out I could finally attempt to start it, after mocking up the Mass-flo harness and computer. Got that all done on Monday, tried to turn the key, and just got a rather loud and unceremonious 'thunk.' Battery was low, so I charged that up and tried again. 'Thunk.' Wasn't low on juice, and it sounded to me like a physical blockage - either I screwed something up installing the clutch/bellhousing/transmission, or something was very wrong in the motor. After brainstorming and taking some time away from the project for some Independence Day fun, I removed the driveshaft and tried again. 'Thunk.' Then pulled the transmission out from underneath. and found the shaft of the input bearing retainer cleanly snapped off. Yikes. No other visible damage. Removed the clutch fork and throwout bearing and inspected the bearing shaft closely, and noted some scoring marks along the side. What it looks like was that the bellhousing was not quite aligned, and the side load from torqueing it down was enough to break it. Thought I may have had the wrong length on the input shaft or the bearing shaft itself, but I confirmed those were all correct. When using a steel bellhousing, it is necessary to check runout - to make sure the centerline of the crank and transmission line up. So I either have to do that or just go with a stock aluminum bellhousing - which I will probably do. It will also make setting up my hydraulic clutch much easier. The steel ones are overkill on a street motor that isn't going to ever see clutch-drop drag launches.

So, to wrap up the holiday week, with the obstructions removed I could finally turn the key to see what happens. Way behind schedule, but better late than never...neighbor stopped by to witness a successful start or douse flames with a fire extinguisher, as necessary:

Damn, those GasN's sound good! You'll need a nice subwoofer-equipped sound setup on your computer to get the full effect. Next up, debugging some minor coolant leaks, the fan circuit, and getting it ready to go-cart around the neighborhood.