3
« Last post by fekbmax on September 25, 2023, 10:02:14 PM »
Just a little update, had a few hours sunday so I got the cam drive system mocked up again. There Definitely is 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 (.309) would drop right in and slip around so I ended up useing sb ford pins (.312) 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* moving the markings 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 .270 farther than the cam gear which puts it way out of alignment. Looking at the crank gear you would first think there's easy enough on the back side to turn it down and remove the .270 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 .270 so the gear slips thru the seal and back to where it needs to be so that's what I did.
Once the shoulder was cut back the crank gear lined up perfectly and there was more than enough engagement through the seal.
Problem solved..