Disease please, I'll take two.

[turbohunter]

Thanks guys.
Since I’m at a stand still until UPS gets here, I’m getting used to the MS3Pro software. Getting registered and all that gobbledegook.

[turbohunter]

Better picture of the casting.

[turbohunter]

It’s raining and I’m bored so I’m looking at this piece of casting.
Question for you metallurgists out there.
Is this shiny spot a void?

[Thumperbird]

Hard to tell from pictures, sure looks like it could be a void but I have seen quite a few different metal fractures over the years and I don't recall what they call it but the last portion of a joint to fail can do so in a different way and leave a shiny surface behind.  Brittle fracture or something like that preceded by fatigue or ductile.

[turbohunter]

Got Jays “ugly duckling” valve cover today and wuddya know it fit even with the studs I have installed.
He sent it to me to check the feasibility of of fitting pentroofs next to the brake mc.
It fits fine so it will actually look like an FE in the engine room.
.028 clearance so he’ll have to help me a little more but only in one area.

[turbohunter]

Since the steering rack disaster I got another and installed. It actually fit better than the original. Those old Ford units are pretty bulky.
So now I’m in the middle of plumbing. Waiting for a couple fittings I had to order for the fuel rails..
Underneath is getting close to done. Got the exhaust ceramic chrome coated (not cheap).
Gotta remember to order a drive shaft Monday.
As soon as Jay is ready I’ll send him some dough for the new valve covers. Oops Jays ready.
Then when plumbing is done I’ll jump into finish wiring.
Here’s a pic of where I’m at today.

[turbohunter]

I’m getting into wiring again. In order to finish wire the console and engine management system I had to finish the top of the console as there are parts stuck through it.
So here’s how it came out. At the bottom you can see some edge finish I’m thinking about. The sides will be covered in some type of cow.
I’m going to carry the look through the dash, glove box and whatever.

[Bolted to Floor]

It looks great Marc.

[jayb]

Marc, is that top surface carbon fiber?

[turbohunter]

It’s a vinyl carbon fiber look alike wrap.

[turbohunter]

Came in to get out of the heat.
I’ll let you guys in on a little problem that my choices have led to. I really did want the pentroof look on this engine. I have a set of Jays coil racks and I thought if we mounted the coil racks on the inside of the vc’s it would look great and be functional. So, as you remember Jay told me he thought he could get the pentroofs to fit next to my mc. He has a VC that he has reshaped in order to get clearance. He sent that to me and I did measurements and pics and sent the lot back to Jay to have him carve up a new set of vc’s. It worked great. Here’s a pic of the new vc with no gasket.



Jay sunk some holes in it in order to mount the coil racks to. In order to clear the bolt housings on the VC exterior he also made some spacers.



Cool right? One problem, when I set them on there they wouldn’t go into place because they ran into that sweet manifold adaptor. Crap. Yes you could do some easy mill work and get rid of the upper edge but that would require taking the adapter off and this engine ain’t coming back apart again until after it runs.



So, I designed some adapters that would let me slide the racks up the VC a little, and since the hood is up there I put an angle in them that will hopefully keep everything underneath.



Had to add another 1/4 inch worth of spacing to make everything play together.
Still have some tweaking to do but here they are installed. Nothin’s easy when you’re building custom but we’re getting there.



As you can see I’ve adapted GT FE as the theme for this deal. Shady has made me up a set of rocker stickers to replace the GT 350 deals.
Never liked sportin’ something it ain’t.

[mbrunson427]

It's cool to see you stretching the limits of how an FE is typically utilized. I'd really like to do a project like this in the future, use an FE engine but not worry about "stock" or "concourse" or anything like that.

[WConley]

Looks very nice Marc!   

[turbohunter]

It’s stretching MY limits, but that’s exactly why I’m doing it.
If it was a carb engine it would be running. I’m just trying to learn. I just hope Jay doesn’t get tired of my stupid questions.
I sent him an email today titled “Wiring hell”.
Thank you very much for the kind words.

[turbohunter]

Had a fun day today.
I’m building and laying out the ECU and gauge/alt/ac harnesses. I thought I was going to have to extend the coil wires but thank you, thank you MS3 powers that be. All the wires are long enough to get to the firewall where I will have a bulkhead connector. These are 5 wire coils. Smart coils. But the cool thing is I’ll be able to cut eight wires down to one in some cases (for instance there is a engine or head ground wire that eight wires can join to as one) so the amount of wires will get cleaned up. So today I ran all wires to their termination and got hem all tied together in order to keep the lengths right. Tomorrow I’ll take everything apart and put it on a bench and start to gang together the wires that can be, install the injector trigger wires and start to make it a real harness. Have some woven wire covering coming in from McMaster Carr. 
Now that I have an idea of how everything is physically going to play together it is all dawning on me. Couple of light bulbs switched on today.
One more thing I may change is the throttle body from the Holley which is perfectly fine to a new Wilson throttle body. Kind of a funny story. Last year (or was it two years ago) when we ran the manifold and throttle body on Jays mule, I had called Wilson to purchase a tb since I had my manifold modified there. At the time they did not manufacture a 4150 style tb for the street. The gentleman at Wilson suggested I buy the Holley as it was a great/well outfitted/inexpensive tb since they didn’t have one yet. He went on to say that they would be coming out with a model soon but that didn’t help my immediate need. So back to today. They have a really nice new model with all the features of the Holley unit but much shorter. Putting 2 and 2 together they had the Holley there and liked it and wanted to make their new model as good or better. I’ve checked it out and it’s nice and (again big plus) much shorter. I may need that hood room. Also it is black and will fit with my engine look better than the Holley.