Cables, Timing Woes, and Exhaust Fumes

   Posted by: kdavis

Another good build weekend, but not without it’s complications.

Throttle Cable

The kit came with an efi-based throttle cable, which wasn’t really designed for my application. In doing my research on how to solve this, lots of very expensive and detailed solutions exist, including turning the carb around, adding a high end Holley bracket (like the one shown below), and mechanical linkages. One of the issues is that the cable has to make a bit of an S in order to exit the footbox at a point in front of the carb, and then make it’s way up and back to meet up with the carb linkage. All things considered, this wasn’t a huge deal for me, so I went with it, and left the curve in there. I still had to make myself a way to secure the cable though on both ends, which meant fabricating some brackets as well as cable attachment points.

I’m using the Russ Thompson throttle pedal that I got from Breeze and it included the ball joint linkage on the carb end. The linkage there is adjustable, so all you have to do it snip the end off of the FFR supplied cable, insert the cable and tightening it down. Makes for a nice install on that side.

On the pedal side, though, I had to get a little more creative. The connections to the pedal had a hole that was way to big for the linkage insert so I had to remove it and fabricate one. I’ve found that L brackets can be used in so many different ways, and this was no exception. I took one that I had, which had the perfect size holes in it already, cut both ends off to length to match the pedal one, and cut a slot in it so I could run the cable through. Easy peasy, and it works great.

To secure the cable on the manifold, I used a peice of an old bracket I had, cut it to size, bent it, drilled the right hole and painted it, and it works perfectly. I secured it to the manufacturer supplied bracket support and attached my return spring. It works really well.

A note about throttle position. I had seen several threads showing how the pedals lined up, and it was different than the OEM setup on most cars. I discovered thanks to the forum guys that you want to set your throttle pedal position at the bottom of the brake stroke so you can heel-toe them if you need to either for racing or for on-hill starts. This meant mine sits forward by about 2″ or so in front, and when I’m at WOT, it just hits the backstop, which is perfect.

Bracket:

Pics:

SDC13283.JPG SDC13290.JPG SDC13288.JPG

Clutch Cable

I ordered my clutch cable with an aluminum quadrant and an adjustable quadrant from Mike Forte. It’s great stuff, but because it was originally designed to fit in a Mustang, the angle that it sits on the front of the footbox is wrong, which causes it to sit in a downward position slightly and thus, the cable rubs on the upper edge. This will eventually cause the cable to fray and brake, leaving me stranded. Not good. So, the best solution I found was to simple bend the footbox front upwards so it eliminated it. The bend required is pretty slight, only about 1/4″ probably. I accomplished this by taking a large socket in my breaker bar and bending UP from the footbox side and DOWN from the engine bay side (the pic is faked, I just included it so it shows what it looked like). A couple of tries and test fits and problem solved. I currently have the clutch cable adjusted so that I get about an inch of free play before it engages, which should be good.

The cable routing is something you need to consider as the cable needs to be routed in a fairly straight path and away from the heat of the headers. For my setup, this path came out of the footbox, down between the mechanical fuel pump and the oil filter, through the motor mount, and straight back to the clutch fork. This took care of the routing, but then I had to figure out how to secure it in order to keep it from rubbing on anything, and making sure I could get the oil filter out. The cable comes with it’s own bracket, but I modified it by cutting part of it off, drilling a hole in it and bending it to fit. I used a bolt to attach it to the inside head accessory bolt location (probably used for AC in the mustang). That got me pretty close, but I still didn’t like how it was rubbing on my brake fluid reservoirs, so I took another bracket I had and bent and drilled it so I could use the other accessory hole right next to it. This didn’t really move it much, but just enough to get it where I want. The bracket was pretty sharp, so to keep it from cutting over time, I took a large-diameter shrink tube I had and put it over the bracket, then heated to to shrink. That should keep it from messing up the outer skin of the cable.

Pics:

SDC13291.JPG SDC13285.JPG SDC13286.JPG

Timing with the E-Curve 8503 Distributor by MSD

If I had never done any timing work at all with a distributor, perhaps it would have been easier to wrap my brain around the way this e-curve works. The reason for this is that the setup of this dizzy is pretty much the exact opposite that you would normally use. Typically, you decide what you want your advance to look like, set up the dizzy with the appropriate weights, figure out the vacuum, and set the initial timing. With this distributor, though, it’s pretty much the opposite. You decide what you want the total advance to be, then you set your timing (with a timing light) to that first, lock the thing down, and use the electronics to retard the timing to get your curve.

The e-curve was recommended by Mike Forte, and I think it’ll be good because we’re at 4500′ altitude, and we’ll likely run the car at different places around the US. So, instead of resetting the timing every time to make sure it runs right, I can pop the distributor off and switch the curve instead as conditions change. Thanks to the guys over on the ffcars.com forum, I was able to figure this out. Here’s the link to the thread over there if you’re interested.

For the Ford 302/5.0L, most guys recommend an initial timing of about 12-14 degrees, with a total advance of about 34-36 degrees at 3000 RPM. I am still tweaking my setup, but after much frustration and trial and error, finally got it setup. I’m not happy with my curve yet, or the idle speed, so I need to work on it a bit more. It was suggested that I pull and plug the vacuum hose for now to pull out the vac advance, so I’ll give that a shot next.

Here are the steps for setting the E-Curve 8503. The manual is a little crappy, so this might help (you’ll need the manual still.)

1) Figure out how much vacuum advance you have, which will give you what part of the table to use.
2) Decide which curve you want overall, such as 25 degrees, and when you want it to come in (based on RPM’s).
3) Find top dead center TDC on your engine. I’m running GT40p’s on mine, and found that you can actually shine a light into the #1 plug (passenger front) hole and see the stroke. For me, this matched perfectly to the original harmonic balancer marks. If you can’t do the light trick, you can also put your finger over the hole (cool engine) and feel the pressure increase as you move the engine with a pry bar (I found it easier to do this from the alternator bolt than on the crank). TDC will come when the pressure builds and pops your finger out/off of the hole.
4) At TDC, figure out which post on the dizzy that the rotor is pointing to. This is your #1 spark plug wire post. Use the appropriate firing order to put the plug wires on.
5) Set the dials inside the e-curve to 1-0 and 1-0 (both at 0).
6) Set your timing with a timing light and the degree tape to your desired TOTAL advance. In my case, I set it to 35.
7) Kill the engine and set the dials to the right settings for the curves you decided on with 1 and 2 above. In my case, I started with 1-4 and 1-5. I think that this is too much advance, or possibly too much initial retard. I’m currently seeing an initial timing of about 13 degrees and full advance at 3000 rpm of about 42 degrees. The reason I think it’s too much initial is that it runs very rough at the recommended 800-900 rpm, and seems to ease up a bit at about 1025. I’d like to run it a little slower, so I think I’ll change the curve and see what happens.

I’m running the 302, with E303 cam, GT40P heads, and a Holley Street Avenger 570cfm carb. I’m running the msd blaster 2 coil. A separate ignition like the 6AL isn’t required. If you look at pricing on some of the aftermarket setups, because the e-curve is self contained, it’s not that much more than a full setup.

NOTE!! – If you are running headers and you like the way they look, make sure that you set your carb so that it’s not lean when setting timing, AND make sure you let your headers cool off periodically. A lean and badly timed engine will run way hot, and will fry your headers. At $500+ a pair, this would suck. I noticed even running for a few minutes, I got some smoke off of mine, so I didn’t mess around and made sure my primaries were set right and the float levels were too.

Curve Chart from the MSD Manual:

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Links:

More Talk about Color

I manged to waste a good bit of my buddy Mike’s Friday talking about paint colors. As I get closer to finishing the initial build steps, my thoughts are turning towards actually pulling the body off the ceiling and getting the many many hours of body work started, which will then include shooting some test paint. My paint color saga has been an ever dynamic one, and I have found it quite difficult to settle on a color. I originally wanted orange, but since Mike’s car is orange, I don’t want really to copy him since it’ll spend a lot of time with his car. Then I was looking at silver, which I think is just really cool. But then I was looking at more super-car type colors like yellow and green. I couldn’t find any green ones I liked so I did a mockup. I actually really like the green and I was pretty sure I wanted to go that direction, but the more I looked at it, the more I realized that it’s such an obnoxious color, I’m not sure my ego can deal with the mocking and snears from spectators.

So, I think at this point, I’m leaning back towards silver. This will really look good with my 2 tone black and gray/silver interior. I’m still not settled on the shade yet or the strip color. I’m leaning either towards a darker charcoal type gray with black strips or the titanium silver with white stripes. The contrast of the black stripes seems to be a little nicer. I’d love to hear comments on it if you have any.

Pics:

Response code is 404

Misc

I managed to get my transmission refilled (I drained it to keep it from leaking all over the floor when I installed the engine) this weekend as well. My upper drain plug is totally locked in, so I discovered that the mustang guys simply use the shifter hole to refill theirs. All you have to do is take the 4 bolts off and pour the fluid down there. I used mercon/dexron III, and it holds 3 quarts.

I also got started on cleaning up the wiring, and did the over-the-footbox area with zip ties, paying close attention to keeping things out of the way of the pedal movement and just cleaning things up. I’m glad I have plenty of zip ties. I also cleaned up the engine bay a bit so that things will look cleaner and stay in place and away from the headers.

So, my next steps here are to clean up the rest of the wiring behind the dash, get the dash installed fully with the holy crap bar in place and ducting for the heater, plus get my choke cable routed (I did manual choke as the electrics seem to be problematic), and I might even start the seams on the body, we’ll see.

First Start – Part II – A Year Later

   Posted by: kdavis

This was an awesome weekend, and made some pretty monumental progress, all things considered. Not that I really accomplished that much, but the actual things that did get done were pretty huge in the life of the project.

The weekend was spent preparing for, and executing the first start of the engine…the second time around. I actually did a test fire in the frame about a year ago, with temporary wiring and setup, etc. This time around, though, the engine is in and should stay in now. I managed to get the whole drive train in, engine, transmission, drive shaft (with safety loop), and all of the wiring connected from the chassis to the engine.

First “Real” Start

Most of the weekend work went towards the first start of the engine from it’s permanently installed position. I managed to get the engine dropped in, by myself with the help of my engine hoist, lift, ratcheting tie downs, and a lot of patience.

The length of the engine with transmission on it, combined with the relatively small engine bay made dropping the engine in by myself a bit of a challenge, but after a few hours, I managed to get it in place and mounted down. I was also able to get the transmission mount secured. After it was in place, then came hooking up the miscellaneous wiring (tach, coil, alternator, starter, etc.), and then getting all of the various tubing and lines hooked up (heater hoses, vacuum lines, etc.)

I was so excited to get the headers installed again and then the newly coated side pipes mated up to them. I was amazed at how well the ceramic from NitroPlate matched up, it looks like they were coated at the same time, and they look awesome! I elected to not get all of the high temp rtv on the header to side pipes for now, just in case I need to take things back apart to get everything aligned.

A bit of a surprise to me actually, not only did the motor fire on the first try after the fuel got pulled in, but the tach works, gauges all work right, and it worked pretty nicely.

Still a bit of work to be done with the engine, including the throttle cable, cleaning up the wire and hose routing, and then getting the timing set and carb adjusted to maximize power and throttle response.

Video:

Dropping in the Engine – as you can see in the video, I had forgotten that you can’t get the engine in from the front, it’s better on the side. I also needed to take the right front tire off so I could get closer to the chassis. The one issue I had was that I never adjusted my engine hoist so that I could maximize the angle of insertion. I ended up needing to use some ratcheting tie downs to get things where they needed to be. It worked out just fine, a couple of paint nicks in the firewall aluminum, but nothing a little touch up paint can’t handle. This is about 45 minutes worth of video condensed to 3 minutes. As you can see, lots and lots of fine tuning. I love the parts where I’m standing on the lift and using my foot to lower it. ;->

First Start Video:

Throttle isn’t hooked up, so I’m doing that by hand, and the clutch safety switch as well.

Pics:

Response code is 404

Forte’s Drive Shaft Safety Loop:

This doesn’t seem to be a hugely popular option for these cars, but given that you’re right arm is resting directly above the drive shaft, and having seen pictures of the drive shaft coming up through that area, probably not a bad idea.

I had planned on drilling and tapping the holes for mounting the loop, but as I was looking a bit at my hardware drawers, I remembered that I had some self-drilling metal screws. I figured with 8 of them, considering that the loop is fairly light, these should be great.

I ended up drilling out 1/8″ holes on both sides (4 holes each side), then used the screw gun to get the screws drilled and screwed all the way in. I was impressed with how secure it all feels, and the process took about a 10th of the time drilling, tapping, and bolting them down would have.

The screws are normally aluminum colored, as you see in the pics, but I shot them with some black spray paint so they are less obvious.

This is the type of screw I used, but I’m not sure where they came from, probably Lowes.

Pics:

Response code is 404

Clutch Pedal and Cable:

The routing and securing of the clutch cable is a bit of a challenge on these cars. I still haven’t addressed all of the issues (the cable is rubbing the adjustable quadrant), but I did manage to get the cable installed and also fabbed up some brackets.

One of the issues with the cable is keeping it away from the headers, and making it work smoothly. There are lots of options on where to mount the bracket in the engine bay. Many people simply mount it to the driver’s side F panel, which seems to work. Because where I mounted my brake fluid reservoirs, this wasn’t an option. I decided to use one of the accessory mounting holes in the driver’s side head instead. This worked well, and allowed for a nice and straight cable, between the fuel pump and oil filter, then straight under the motor mounts to the clutch fork. A little massaging was necessary to get it all lined out and not rubbing, as well as keeping it off of the oil filter itself. I’m still not 100% satisfied with how it’s riding against the fuel line, so I’ll probably fabricate an additional bracket to use the 2nd accessory hole in that head.

Another issue with the clutch cable is getting the clutch pedal aligned correctly when the clutch cable is in it’s “rest” position. With most adjustable quadrants, the clutch pedal will sit 3-4″ in front of the brake pedal (towards the driver), which would not only look funny, but would be annoying and potentially dangerous as you switch between the pedals.

The solution for this issue is to fabricate a “stop” so that when the clutch cable is adjusted, the pedal won’t go all the way forward. On the fox body pedal box, there are 2 holes (at least in mine) that sit under part of the pedal assembly near where the quadrant goes. I took a fairly low-tech approach, and made a “stop” out of 1/2 of an L bracket I had. I drilled 2 holes to attach the bracket, positioned the pedal where I wanted it to stop, and measured and cut the bracket to length to hold it in that position. My clutch pedal cover and the brake pedal cover aren’t quite aligned, so need to still fix that angle, but that’s pretty easy.

Pics:

Response code is 404

Next steps in getting the car moving under it’s own power is getting the transmission filled back with fluid. Unfortunately, the upper fill “bolt” is frozen, and rather than risk breaking it off, I found out you can fill the transmission through the shifter hole, so I’ll give that a shot.

Attaching the throttle cable from the pedal to the carb is a bit of a challenge on these cars as well, so I’ll need to come up with a solution for that. I’m trying to avoid dropping $100 on a Holley throttle cable bracket. It’s possible to turn the carb around backwards as well, but I’m also trying to avoid that.

I’d love to get the wiring all buttoned up, zip tied, and taped, but I need to shake the car down a little bit first, just in case something shows up with the wiring. That way I can access everything without having to cut zip ties.

Moving right along!

Times they ARE achanging…

   Posted by: kdavis

I’m actually kind of irritated that I missed this entirely, I could have saved myself some time and money.

There is a partially completed (barely started actually) base kit out of WI that a guy is trying to sell so he can put the funds towards their Korean child adoption. The kit is almost exactly what I would have ordered, plus a bunch of options and even an engine stand and hoist (which I’ve been looking for.)

The only downside/decision point for me is that it includes a pretty hard not to use 5.0L SBF and T5 transmission.

The kit itself stands to save me some substantial money and even some time gathering donor parts, and he’s got lots of upgrades with it (new brakes.) It’s not all there that I want, but it’ll get me close, and save me a ton of money.

It’s pretty hard for me to justify not using the Ford just out of principle, although I’d like to. I figure I can drop some money into the Ford (not a lot) and get 300hp out of it (plenty), and then once I get tired of it, I can build up an SBC 350 like I planned originally. This also eliminates some issues with the motor mounts and headers too.

I just got off the phone with Bryan, and it’s a done deal, or will be I guess. I’m buying his kit. I’ll be canceling my order with FFR, which will cost me $250, but to save more than $5000, I think it’s worth it.

Now, I get to start shopping for 302 Ford Parts. ;->

Inspiration and Ideas

   Posted by: kdavis

As I’ve gotten started, I’ve been learning a lot, and having spent more than a year just researching the kit and the build process, I’ve gathered a ton of valuable information. I’ve also been researching colors, interiors, engine options, etc.

I thought it would make sense to put this information here on the build site to not only give others a chance to use the information, but to give me a place to archive it as well.

Engine/Drivetrain:

This may not be the best way to start off my build site, but hey, it’s MY build, so I can do whatever I want, right? All you die hard blue-oval fans might want to just skip this section all together, and move on to less controversial topics.

I’ve grown up on Chevy’s. I was really into Chevy heavy metal in my earlier years, and I’ve owned 2 different 1967 Chevelle Malibu’s. I loved the both, and have always really liked the Chevy power plants.

I’m really not one of those all Chevy’s are awesome and all Ford’s suck kind of guys. I pretty much love all well-made cars, from every manufacturer and every part of the globe.

That being said, since I know what I’m getting into with a Chevy engine, I’ve decide to drop one into my FFR kit. I feel fine about it since it’s a kit car and since it’s mine to choose what goes into it. In the old days of the kits, you’d have to do some frame modification and fabrication to make this work since the FFR Roadster is built around Ford options, but thanks to guys like Mike Forte, it’s become a little easier since he makes custom adapters for the motor mounts. I’ll still have to make my own headers to fit the 5.0L j-pipes, but there are lots of options and guides out there.

To discuss non-ford power in the FFR, visit this forum: Non-Ford FFCobra.com Forum.

I’ve decide it still would be right for me to drop an Auto tranny in here, so I’m going 4-speed. If I can find a decent deal on a Muncie M21 or M22, I’ll be going that direction since they are bullet-proof. If not, I’ll probably be looking at the Saginaw 4-speed instead. I’m not dragging this car, and those are a pretty good proven tranny and should do the job to handle what will be a sub-400hp and torque car.

I’m hoping to find a nice SBC 327 I can drop in here, it’s a nice high rev motor that should make the Roadster an absolute joy to drive. Second option is a SBC 350. Either of these would get me into the 300-375hp and torque range without a ton of money and parts.

Suspension Options:

This was where I was pretty confused with ordering. There are several options when placing the order for the FFR base kit. It was a little unclear to me what you get with each kit, what you still need, and what it all means and costs.

Here’s a summary of what I found out:

1) IRS – Independent Rear Suspension is all the rage nowadays, and is supposed to offer the best balance of handling and ride comfort. Most modern sports cars come with IRS from the factory. This is an option for FFR kits, and not a cheap one at $2000+. I was excited to learn that you could find a full IRS rear end from an SC Ford Thunderbird (1989) that would fit into the FFR for under $500 usually. That excitement quickly faded, however when I realized that this only got you so far, and you still needed the IRS option added to the base kit to make it work. Still a cheaper option than others out there, but not important enough for me to go that way.
2) 3/4/5 Link Options – These are the other options out there. Talking to the FFR factory guys, the 3-link gives you the best bang for your buck and seems to be a good option to order from FFR. 4 Link is the standard solid axle choice for the Mustang and OEM applications. 5 Link is a new setup, and is supposed to be a great alternative to IRS. Gordon Levy has them for about $1600, and I’m still looking at it for an option.

Since I’m trying to keep my initial cash outlay down, I just went with the basic 4-link OEM setup, and I can use the rear end out of the 87-04 Mustangs to get it done. As I see it, I won’t be track racing this thing, and the ride quality isn’t all that big of an issue (they stink, their load, and bumpy anyway.) If that doesn’t work long-term, I can go looking at the 5-link instead.


Interior:

I’m really into custom interior stuff, to the type of fabrics chosen to the Audio system and little features that make things cool and unique.

Some ideas I’m tossing around:

1) Using a double-din Nav-type stereo with the full screen display, hidden behind a panel of some sort to make it look nicer.
2) Integrating a rear-view/backup camera and feeding it into the display. I have this on my suburban and love it, and it should help to add some better rear visibility, which these cars suffer a little from.
3) Bass Shakers in the seats – the interior of the car is pretty limited, so fitting a 12″ sub will be impossible. I use the LFE’s in my home theater chairs, and they work great, so this will be a relatively simple way to handle the system’s bass.
4) Behind-the-Seat shelf – I saw this on ffcobra.com and it looked great (J Persons), plus it gives a place to mount some speakers (in each rear corner firing across,) and possibly the system amplifiers.
5) Tan Interior – I really like the Orange on Tan look, and will likely be replacing the supplied black interior with a tan one, and hope to recover the black vinyl seats with some nice tan leather ones, and hoping I can pull off doing my own upholstery. We’ll see how that turns out.

Still lots of planning to do, and I’ll keep updating the blog. In the meantime, here are some inspirational pics.

FFR Car I really like the Orange Color of (House of Kolor Tangelo Pearl sprayed over white base coat):

This is Mike M’s Car.

Interior Pics: (This is a 67 Chevelle Vert, I really like the integrated center column and painted dash, plus the tan leather):