OK had some family activities this weekend, but I was able to get some garage time in on Sunday evening. I purchased a few lengths of studs from Bolt depot to make sure I had what I needed for the intake manifold. I am thinking that the 427 SOHC manual from form gives one length for intake manifold bolts, but with the more modern re-pops... they will prob. not work as well. I ended up going with a 2" stud. This is quite a bit off what the manual says it the correct stud, but this let me bottom out the stud into the Heli-coil and then I used a flanged 12 point ARP nut. Now I would like to tell you that I torqued them all down, but I didn't. I used a regular ratchet and tightened them until they were tight, and then did a quarter turn. Honestly I didn't want to wreck my weekend as I have not had a chance to check the torque Wrench for accuracy.
Once I had that buttoned up, I went on to the oil pan. I had the first gasket sealed onto the block and the rest bolted on dry just to check clearances. That was last week. This week I purchased some modeling clay from the store, and set to work checking and sealing up the pan. The pan I am using is an 8qt rear sump. This was due to the fact that it has to clear the tubular K member in the Saleen. So given this factoid, the 8 quarts is held almost entirely where the pick up is located. No chance at all of the oil pump ever being starved for oil. To get the pick up tube to fit correctly, there is a small brace that is supposed to bolt under the center main cap stud. Oddly it was too small to fit over the stud, so I drilled out the hole a little larger on the drill press.... cleaned the pick up off, and then mounted it loosely under the stud. Once I had the 2 bolts that hold the pick up onto the oil pump itself, then I re-torqued the main cap stud back to 115 ft lbs. placing the ball of modeling clay on a sheet of plastic wrap (so it wouldn't get smooshed down into the grate of the oil pick up, and slightly oiling it so it wont stick, I lowered the pan down on top just to see what kind of clearance I had.... pan didn't even touch the ball. Now this would worry me on a regular pan, but like I said this is an odd shaped pan with 8 quarts of oil above the pick up tube.... even if I had 3 inches of clearance between the bottom of the pick up and the pan, I would prob still have 6 inches of oil above the pickup. There is a picture on page 2 or 3 of this forum page of the pan to get a visualization.
Anyway, once everything was tightened down, the sandwich of gaskets, windage tray, more gaskets and pan ... all held together with sealer were self locking flange nuts were used with studs (from Moroso and came with the Pan.)
I was also able to swap out the springs in the Distributor to one light grey spring and one light blue spring (in lieu of the 2 heavy grey springs it comes with out of the box.) I also swapped out the bushing to the Black bushing. The only thing I need to do now is swap out the cast Iron gear for the steel gear I purchased. It says I need to press it off and press the new one on, but I cannot seem to get it under my shop press in such a way that is secure. Does anyone have a tip on an easier way to press on and off the gears on the distributor?
Im all ears!
