Definitely some work to be done with some fitment issues. I had heard a few times that there were fitment issues but no one was ever specific about what the problems are so I'll share what I found.
Over all the cover fits good, the cam drive fits good as well although I did have a slight issue with the bullet camshaft. The pin holes were slightly oversized, standard FE cam pins would drop right in and slip around so I ended up useing sb ford pins that are slightly larger and were a good press fit into the cam. This ment I had to enlarge the holes in the cam drive ofcourse because it's drilled for standard FE pins. Wasn't an issue since I have a decent set of machinist bits and was able to get exstreemly close then sneak up on it with a jeweler's roll and get a good snug press fit on both pins. One more thing about the cam drive that's really much to do about nothing but could be a bit of a headache if not addressed is that the advance/retard Mark's are labeled for them to be down at the bottom of the cam gear which would make it really hard to read/adjust because it would be down behind the water pump if you're using a block mounted pump. It's an easy fix though even if you're just useing 1 pin because the cam drive is drilled for 2 and you can just rotate the drive180* to the top. Ofcourse the markings will be upside down but atleast you can see them. Truth of the matter is once you get it dialed in and set it's not something you're gonna be messing with much anyhow.
Anyway on to the issue's.
The issue is with the crank gear. It sticks out .280 farther than the cam gear which is alot. Looking at the crank gear you would first think there's easy enough on the back side to turn it down and remove the .280 but that's not the real issue. The issue is the crank gear seal lip falls right between the crank shoulder and the back side of the crank gear so even cutting the gear back the seal is still gonna be in the same place. In my opinion the best way to "really" fix it is to cut the crank shoulder back the .280 so the gear slips thru the seal and back to where it needs to be.
I supose other options would be to make a spacer for the camshaft drive and push it out .280 to line up with the crank gear, do the same with the tensioner and then make a spacer for the cover to push it out enough for the seal to contact the crank gear sleeve properly, then modify the front pan bolt holes and yeah, sounds like alot of work for a hack job to me.
I do think there is one way to make it work as is just by cutting the gear sleeve back the .280 . I think a forward lip seal would do it, the lip seal at the front instead of at the rear like the standard seal. I'm sure there's gotta be something like that out there, it's just in this day and age I have little faith in any parts counter person being able to understand and then cross and find the right seal.. I believe this would give me about .125 of the gear shoulder protruding through the seal..
Any seal gurus here
??
The standard seal is a LYO 57054
