yellowoctupus

I just found an old email from when I was thinking of doing a 302, it had a picture of exactly that xmember, and the guy I had emailed said "It uses the rubber mounts from any 65-72 small block Ford." I think there might be more details necessary on which years/models, but it is definitely a Ford mount.

I've still got my stock mustang trans xmember, let me know if you need it.

I think sir, that you have entirely too much time on your hands.

Front exhaust 'y' pipe. Still waiting on my muffler to come in to finish up the rest.... Went to O'Reillys auto parts, they wanted $23 for ONE O2 Bung!!! Obviously that did not happen. If you reuse these bungs, just cut them out square, weld them in square. Easier than holesawing 1" holes on an exhaust corner. Pertaining the clutch slave movement, right now my clutch disengages all the way with 1 1/16" travel, but I know I can get another 5/16" without filing down the back of the clutch release arm.

Often the liquid filled gauges have a rubber nipple on top which you're supposed to snip off to get a more accurate reading. The Bordon tube that's inside will slightly pressurize the gauge itself otherwise, however I would NOT recommend doing that, as they have a nasty habit of leaking out gauge oil all over the place if you do. Ack. Been there done that.

Holy Zcar Batman! What is that crazy adapter you have running from the stock shifter location back 8"?? I've never seen one of those. Also, you may want to rotate your slave, so your bleeder is on top of the cylinder (otherwise you'll trap air in the top of the cylinder, unless you fill your system from the bottom and push the fluid to the master...) And, you can remove that chunk of cast iron on the back of the clutch release arm, I dug around on the Ford forums, lots of people removed it, and didn't notice it gone, although it's original intent was to add mass to the system to reduce NVH (noise, vibration and harshness).

Ok, that makes sense. Do you have to run an adjustable low pressure fuel regulator then? This spells bad news for me too then, as my fuel lines are only 1" away from my right exh. pipe... I was working on welding those up tonight actually. How do you know if your fuel is too hot on an injected engine? I would think the higher flow would make a difference, but if you're running an electric pump and have a return line, that's almost the same thing as I've got going on, just with lower pressure. BTW, Scott, have you had yours out for a test drive yet? Haven't seen any updates. I was in WA the other day and didn't have your phone number, I have to save it in my phone for next time.

You're running carb'd, right? If so, what are you even doing with a return line? (I'm generally a fuel injection guy, so I could be missing something, but all my sbf's are single line from the gas tank to the carb...) By the way, are you only running aluminum spacers on your manifold to carb connection? When your carb gas starts to boil, see if your intake manifold will boil water too. My 65 Econoline would do that, as it has a shared intake/exhaust cast iron manifold. The heat transfer from aluminum to cast iron is pretty high, even with a thick gasket, so you need something else there. On the I6 Mustangs, Ford ran coolant through the side of the aluminum carb to manifold spacer block to draw heat away from the carb. I helped the boiling gas problem go away on my van by using a 1" phenolic spacer I made. It's not perfect, but it definitely helps.

This was my first try, it worked but was in the way of my exhaust. I mounted the stock Z 7/8" slave to the transmission mount. It also flexed the trans rubber mount whenever you pushed the clutch, so you lost some travel. Try two, Wilwood cylinder 260-1333 works pretty well; it looks like it's bolted solid in this picture, but the thick yellow zinc washer is actually conical, allowing it to pivot on the cable stop hole. It's left loose enough to pivot, but not loose enough to see in this picture. I also pulled the cylinder apart to change the stud out on the cable stop end. Another view: The larger 'nut' that is contacting the clutch release lever is actually a drilled out nut which is ground into a conical end to pivot against the clutch arm. The Chrysler M/C was used because I wasn't sure what size cylinder I'd need, and from rough calculations came up with 1 1/8" (somehow). I think 1" would be better, as my pedal travel is limited to keep the slave from over traveling however. I only used the Chrysler, as I didn't want to have to buy two or three M/Cs to get it right. (Already had three of these sitting on my parts shelf...)

Nope, I've got a stock 78 tank. Get all your stuff together at one time, most local welders charge by the hour, 1 hr min. Cash motivates for smaller jobs though. ($60/hr last time I got some aluminum stuff done a few years back). There's not a ton to gain by going dual, besides the aesthetic appeal unless you're really trying to chase down every last HP. I'm running 2.5 off the stock manifolds and down past the transmission bringing them together with a neat 45° to straight 'Y' off a Chevy truck that exits 3". If I find out exactly what it came off I'll let you know, it's got the y, a nice stainless flex and then an output flange all in about 3'. Should be dirt cheap at a wrecking yard. For a single system, 3" is generally good to 300hp based on a couple of the exhaust mfg's sites. (flowmaster, magnaflow etc)

Yeah, Brian's pictures are a great reference. I think on mine (2->1 exhaust, muffler in stock location) there's room to make a battery box that mounts to the moustache bar/ rear diff holder bolts and to the bottom of the spare tire well (also stock gas tank). I'm hoping to finish up my exhaust this week, I'll post pictures if I get my battery mounted up thereabouts.

Have you decided where you're going to put your battery? I'm eying up the battery box myself for my intake, but don't want the battery in the back of the passenger compartment if at all possible. I highly doubt I'll find room, but it would be great to be able to put it back by the gas tank or something....

So..just based off your pictures, is that the entire airbox, in the battery box, then pull in your air from your wheel well?

FYI of course, make sure you get PATS turned off by who ever is doing the tuning. (Rear O2's and EGR are simple on/off settings too, if you want.) I was also worried about the bellhousing and oil pan being lower than the Z crossmember, so I used the mustang crossmember for my motor mounts, hopefully it'll work as a skid plate if I need it.

Wow, I have no idea how you have so much hood room. I have a stock 78 with the 2 cam engine in it, and it's TIGHT up top (.5"-.75"). However, I also had no problems clearing steering, so maybe the heads/intake/exhaust are more different than I originally thought. Glad to see a 4V getting put together. What are you planning on doing about fuel/ignition control? Are you going to use the stock ECU, wiring harness?

Been doing lots of wiring etc lately. ECU's seem to have been tuned right, as the car no longer dies after running for two seconds In the video below (the last picture there is a video), that's about 3/4 throttle, it will lay rubber on command, but my local friendly neighbor cop told me to stop running around the neighborhood with no mufflers (albeit, no comment about no plates/insurance), so no smokeout videos. Enjoy!

PM me if you're interested in a manifold/M62 SC setup.

Trunk mounted? Hmm.. I think the 96 I pulled all the PATS stuff out of had the transponder mounted under the dash. Even with all the stuff wired up it didn't do the trick (matching ECU, PATS module, transponder key, and ignition pickup-halo). I found a guy through the corral forums that does programming dirtydirtyracing.com To turn off PATS, EGR, and the rear O2's on one ECU runs $125, for another $75 he'll put a custom tune on it, I got him to do two ECU's for $200 for the pats, egr, and rear o2's. I'm sending them in this week, so I'll let you know how they turn out.

Just some new 'update' pics. Got the clutch all straightened out. I'll get some pictures of the slave later, the engine is out for brake/ gas line routings and finishing up the engine cradle right now. The last picture is a Noid light, used for seeing if your injectors are firing or not, worked great and I already had the parts on hand for it. Apparently I already had a broken cold start valve (male end plug), the LED and resistors. Beats having to buy a complete kit at like $50 from Harbor Freight. (of course later, it was electrical taped up, so it didn't ground out) The cradle has nuts welded to the top of it now, the frame rails were drilled from the top, then bolts slid up from the bottom and then the nuts were welded in place. They're pretty much unaccessable from the top, so in from the bottom they go.

If you do go to check for vacuum leaks, the tried and true method is to see if the idle changes when a *unlit* propane torch is passed around the base of the carburetor/intake manifold. Starter fluid is sometimes recommended, but DO NOT use this approach, as even the smallest spark will send your engine up in flames if it's covered in ether.

Yeah, even if you don't have the 'electric' part of the chokes hooked up, your choke butterflies will stay closed (and then your high idle screw will still be up on the 'full choke' part of the throttle cam). There is a thermostat coil inside a black housing that will keep the chokes open if the engine is already hot, otherwise it would flood whenever you fired the car up after momentarily shutting it off. If your air cleaner is not already off, take it off and make sure the chokes are actually open. If you want to 'trick' the chokes, you may be able to adjust the thermostat housing the choke theromostat is in (black housing held on with two/three screws. Gently turn it in the direction that makes the chokes open up. I'm guessing you can do this, that's how my 65 econoline is hooked up right now. I just manually hit the chokes, then they snap wide open once I release the throttle from the fast idle cam position.

PS. I earlier posted that I am in the Navy, this is NOT the case, my wife is. Must've been late at night and my fingers were moving faster/slower than my brain.

Hey Scott, Yeah, that's some uncanny timing for you. I picked mine up on Friday, and he's telling me, yeah, a guy you know dropped off a d/s to get basically the same modification done you're getting. I was pretty doubtful of that fact at first, but then it hit me, and sure enough I do know that guy! I basically had all my joints and adapters etc all lined up knowing what I wanted when I went in, but yeah, he seemed like he's been doing it for a while. I had a brand new shaft made up b/c I didn't trust the already modified shaft I had to get shortened. Not the cheapest, but I don't want that to ever pop up and give me problems. How's yours coming? ~Phil (PS, I thought I was going to be out in WA this weekend, but our plans fell through. I'll get out your way eventually...)

Oh bummer, I'm in the Navy, and WE'RE moving this year too, otherwise I'd offer to store it at my place. (which of course is putting on some serious pressure to get my car running so I can drive it wherever Uncle Sam says we're going to next!)

So...spent the last few weeks getting wiring straightened out....sigh.... it's nothing less than a huge mess. I can get it to fire up for 3 seconds at a time. Every time. I think it has something to do with the PATS (ford's anti theft system) but I'm having one hell of a time figuring it out. If anyone has experience with PATS, please let me know. Between banging my head on the wiring, I've also been doing the little pieces here and there. I've got a NEW driveshaft on order, should be finished next week. (ran me $290, I could have gotten it to $220 using the old D/S I had from a C6, but the already sketchy looking mods weren't worth the risk) Here's a pic of the throttle cable (I actually flipped the first ball link connector around, unscrewed the ball end (one end is threaded on, the other is swaged) and drilled and tapped the end of an old 302 throttle cable I had to screw onto the cable. The pull was a little too short, so I just replaced the under pedal stop (in the cabin) with a longer flathead bolt. Works great. Also, mod'ed the shifter to get it in the right position, although the console won't fit now... I'll either forego the console or re-mod the shifter lever to get it to work. Oh yeah, and one more thing I didn't snap a shot of yet, I found a serpentine belt that works great if you remove the AC and PS pump, you just have to get a slightly smaller idler pulley that is ribbed instead of flat.