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gene_w

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Posts posted by gene_w

  1. 351 = big engine should run like a rocket.

    Can you tell me if the front of your oil pan is above or behind the steering rack and pinion. The front of my oil pan sits just over the steering rack and pinion which I dont like. I am curious is other hybridz's set engine far enough back to clear the rack.

    Ferd

     

    The front sump on my oil pan is behind the steering rack. Unfortunately, though, the sump was hitting the crossmember and would have either required the crossmember or the sump to be modified. Modifying the mount instead allowed me to slide the engine back a little bit more to where I think the sump will just clear behind the crossmember. I may have to cut a notch out of the back of the factory crossmember to gain a little clearance, but I'm not sure at this point. All I do know is that the engine's not going to go any further back. There's only about 1/8" between the head and the firewall!

     

    Gene

  2. Gene' date='

    When you say you modified alsil's mount a little..what do you mean? I have one of his mounts and have heard that the manifold sits quite high.

     

    Matt[/quote']

     

    I cut the end-plates off of the mount, lowered the entire crossmember by one inch, and welded it all back together. I had to extend the end-plates (angle-iron) down an inch so that it would still be strong. Ideally, I would have bought new angle-iron and welded those on.

     

    Lowering the engine allowed me to slide it on back a little more since the upper part of the transmission bellhousing was hitting the tunnel. Lowering it also got me a little closer to being able to fit my intake under the hood. I'm still lacking 3/4", though. I've been considering fabbing my own intake manifold to see if I can get it a little bit lower, but no definite decisions there, yet. Currently, I've got a GT-40 lower intake and explorer upper. Maybe there's another manifold that's a little lower, but I don't know of any, at least not from the factory. It's hard to find a low-profile EFI intake for a 351W!

     

    Gene

  3. We talked a little bit the other day via AIM, so you probably already know my answer, but I'll post it here for the record. I've got alsil's motor mount on my Z with the 351W(not running yet). It is not a direct bolt-in fit. The front sump of the oil-pan will hit the Z's crossmember. Either the oil pan or the crossmember needs to be modified. I've modified my motor mount to lower the engine 1", which allowed me to slide the engine a little further back, and looks like it will allow the front sump to just clear.

     

    Gene

  4. You might try checking some of the local J yards for some pans out of a 4x4 truck or Bronko. I know they had to change the pan configuration for the front axles.

     

    Actually, I already had one of those. It wouldn't help matters any. The front part of the pan came down almost as far as the fox-body pan that I have now. The problem is that the oil pump is up there, so the sump can only be shaved down so far. That pan also wouldn't work with Alsil's motor mount setup. The pan was hitting the crossmember part of the mount.

  5. I'm not exactly sure what would cause the roller bearings to fail in the lifters. That is very strange. Hopefully any shrapnul caused by the bearings ended up in the oil filter. If I were you, I'd drop a couple new lifters in (maybe even the whole set just in case) and a cheap cam. I hear these are excellent cams, and cheap too!

    http://store.summitracing.com/product.asp?p=3789&searchtype=ecat

    You can get a set of used lifters for real cheap from swap meets or through ebay.

     

    Gene

  6. P.S I laid a straight edge on the flat section on the bottom of the front crossmember, and extended it back to the pan. The bottom of the pan is ~1/2" below the bottom of the crossmember. To get the motor this low and still get clearance, the motor has to be mounted at a 2.5 degree angle like mine. Also remember that my crossmember has been spaced downward by 3/16".

     

    Does spacing down the crossmember have any adverse effects on the handling of the car? I know that most people are moving the inner pivot point for the lower control arms up to counteract the effects of lowering the car. Spacing down the crossmember might be just the ticket for getting my oil pan to clear.

     

    When you say that your engine is mounted at a 2.5" angle, is that in relation to the ground or the frame rails?

     

    Thanks,

    Gene

  7. I made my own mounts and the front crossmember is notched a little. The engine is a little tough to get in without it modifying the fire wall itself.

    I can send pics to whoever wants them and you can tell if I am crazy to do it this way.

    If you want pics let me know what and large or small pic' date=' I have a cable modem so it's not a issue for me.

     

    Don[/quote']

     

    I would very much love to see some pics. Please send them to gene@wheelbarger.com.

     

    Thanks!

    Gene

  8. You should be able to swap you current oil pan with a standard Fox body 5L oil pan and it should clear...if the pan is truly different on your current engine.

     

    Unfortunately, a 5L oil pan won't fit a 351W. The 351W has bigger mains than the 5L and so the rear of the pan has a bigger cutout in it. I assumed the front of the pan was the same, but apparently I was wrong! I see that my pan is very different from yours...wonder why in the world they would have designed the two pans different. Mine is a standard Ford pan from a Crown Vic. or something like that. Hmm...I wonder if a 5L oil pan front sump could be grafted in...

     

    I used Alsil's engine mount for my 5L EFI install and I had to put a blister in the hood to clear the throttle body on the stock intake manifold. Alsil's mount sits the engine up a little higher than some other installs. With this mount the oil pan is NOT the lowest part on the car. I felt the blister was a small trade off to keep the oil pan from being the first part of the car to meet a speed bump.

     

    I could have sworn that some other folks around here didn't have any trouble getting the 5.0 under the hood without any hood modifications. Do you have any pictures of how your modified hood looks?

     

    Thanks,

    Gene

  9. I have not fitted the 351 yet but the 302 is sitting behind the crossmember with the balancer about 1'' above it. I can't remove my tranny (AOD) with out removing the engine also but it is a price I'll pay.

     

    How did you manage to get the engine far enough back to drop behind the crossmember? Mine is already back to where the bellhousing bolts hit the firewall. The only way to go back any more is to lower it down. Are you using Alsil's mount or a custom one? Do you happen to know if the front-sump oil pan you mentioned is that different from the dual-sump pans as far as clearance in front of the sump? I'd love to see pictures if you have them.

  10. I am not familiar with the engine, but I would look at the possibility of fabbing a hood with a slightly higher cowl.... 1 inch more there wouldnt be noticed by anyone other than a Z nut.... and many would miss it the first time around.... unless you had just embarrassed them on the street.... :P

     

    I'm thinking that's going to be my best option for hood clearance. This still won't solve my oil pan problem, but would fix my problem with the hood. I'm sure it will look noticeable to me, but hopefully you're right and nobody else will know the difference.

     

    Next, I would look into a custom sump...., but my ignorance of the engine comes into play here, as I dont know how much of that sump is used for hardware, vs oil....

     

    I'm not sure how much I can modify the front sump, because that is where the oil pump is. It is driven off of the distributor, so that's why it's up there. When Ford came out with the Fox-body cars, they needed a rear sump, so they just made a dual sump pan. Only the rear sump is actually a sump. The front one is strictly for oil pump clearance. As far as I know, the oil pump isn't any different than the 5.0 unit, except for the bigger input shaft, so maybe I can cut/bend the front sump to clear. Anybody done this?

  11. Shifter location shouldn't be too big an issue. If you get a bellhousing from a SN95 mustang ('94-'95), that sets the tranny back another inch or two. Be sure to get the transmission or at least the input shaft for the same year car because it is longer as well, to meet up with the clutch.

     

    Gene

  12. I am having some minor, shall we say, issues cramming a 351W into my '75 280Z and was curious if any of you might have had the same problems and how you solved them. If you haven't done the same thing but were considering it, keep these issues in mind. First, some background information. As already mentioned, I'm putting a 351W into my 280Z. For mounting, I have one of Alsil's crossmembers. I plan to run EFI and would really like to fit everything under the hood without having to use a cowl/scoop. The plan is for the car to be one hell of a sleeper, and anything too obvious from the outside is a major problem.

     

    Actually fitting the engine in the car wasn't that much of a problem, since these ol' cars have pretty big engine bays:

    Engine-Side.jpg

     

    One problem that I did have, which apparently isn't an issue with a 5.0, was that the front oil pan sump hits the original crossmember. I guess the 351W has a deeper sump! (keep in mind that the front crossmember has been unbolted and lowered in this picture)

    Engine-Front.jpg

     

    As an attempted solution, I tried moving the engine back until the bellhousing bolts hit the firewall:

    FirewallClearance.jpg

     

    Even with the engine back that far, the front sump still hits the front crossmember. Has anybody else had this problem? If so, how did you solve it? All suggestions are welcome.

     

    The other problem I'm having is trying to make sure the engine will fit under the stock hood. As mentioned earlier, I plan to run EFI. The upper intake manifold measures 5.75" at its tallest point. Unfortunately, I don't have quite that much space to spare:

    HoodClearance.jpg

     

    As you can see, there's only about 4" of clearance at this point. Shaving down the intake is not an option because it comes within less than 1/4" from the valve covers as it is. Smaller valve covers aren't much of an option because of the large roller rockers. I think that there may be a possibility of lowering the engine a bit more, but am not sure how low is safe. Here's what I see from under the car as it sits now:

    GroundClearance.jpg

     

    My question here is, how low can the engine go? I think that if I can lower the engine some more, the bellhousing bolts will clear the firewall and the engine can be moved far enough back to clear the front crossmember, but I'm not positive about that. Removing the engine or bellhousing in the future could be a real pain in the @ss if I went that route, though!

     

    Any thoughts/comments/suggestions are more than welcome.

     

    Thanks,

    Gene

  13. The biggest problem that I can think of off-hand is finding a clutch that will work. A bellhousing off of a Mustang should work to bolt it up to the new engine, but the input shaft is different between the Z and Mustang transmissions. Unfortunately, to change the input shaft, the entire transmission guts need to be swapped. There is a possibility that you might be able to find a clutch disk that will work with the Ford pressure plate, but I don't know off-hand what might work or if the input shaft is even the right length. I seem to recall reading some information on the problems with the swap somewhere on the net...can't find it offhand, though.

     

    Another issue to consider is that the old BW trannies aren't anywhere near as strong as the later ones found in the later Mustangs. The one in the old 280zx's is not a World-Class unit, and is rated at a much lower torque spec. If any real modifications have been made to the 5.0 engine, you risk blowing up the tranny in no time!

     

    Gene

  14. As far as the firewall being 3" further forward, I can't see that as being much of an issue. I just dropped a 351W into my '75 and have roughly 1 foot(not measured, just eyeballed) between the very tip of the water pump pulley and the radiator. Even with 3" less, there would be plenty of room.

     

    I think the age, as you mentioned, is probably the biggest factor. One of the biggest issues for me is that my ol' '75 is old enough that I no longer need to have the sniffer test to pass inspection. (I live in Texas) That means basically no inspection of any emissions equipment, and the hood rarely even gets opened during an inspection. Another aspect of the age is that there simply aren't as many of the ZX's laying around otherwise dead. Many of them are stillin good, running condition and most people have a hard time tearing apart something that works.....fortunately, I'm not one of them!

     

    Gene

  15. I can't speak for anyone else, but I haven't done it because I don't have a ZX. If someone's willing to donate one to a worthy cause, I'd definitely be sure to investigate! Matter of fact, I've got access to a car that would be more than willing to donate an organ or two...

     

    Good luck!

    Gene

  16. Hey, Terry, you don't have any spare T5 parts laying around, do you? I recently got a hell of a deal on a couple T5s. Unfortunately it turned out to not be quite such a hell of a deal. One of the trannies is pretty much trash, but the other one seemed pretty decent. That is, until you look at it in good light. The roller bearings between the main and input shafts were toast and the heat from those ruined the input shaft, main shaft, 2nd gear, 3rd gear, and cluster gear. Pretty much the whole thing! I've got a good main shaft from the other tranny, but need the rest of the parts.

     

    Where can I get ahold of one of those hydraulic throwout bearings? A few people around here say that one doesn't exist for the T5 trannies, but obviously that isn't true!

     

    Thanks,

    Gene

  17. I'm not sure where you're located or if you'd be willing to ship, but I"ve got a driver's side door glass from a '75 280z here in D/FW, Texas. Let me know if you're interested.

     

    Gene

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