To get to the nitty gritty of the process, cut off the support at both the left and right sides of the radiator opening, making sure to cut off the corners remaining so the remainder is flush with the fender bolts.  Once that is done, one must figure out how to attach the hood so it will not flip up upon driving the car for the first time.  This is accomplished a variety of ways, though the way chosen here was simply to install hood pins, as the car has a fiberglass hood and this was the previous method of fastening anyway.  Again, even hood pins can be installed however one chooses, and here the desired method was to weld a threaded rod – a.k.a. Bolt – to the lower frame at the front of the car and extend a hollow rod up through the front sheet metal with female threaded portions on either end.  One of these was then threaded onto the bottom male threads, and the upper end was used to thread the hood pins into.  Making sure these line up correctly with the holes in the hood is really the hard part, and the most important.

Once those are installed, one can fabricate a crossmember/radiator support out of sheet stock – here aluminum was the metal of choice simply for its light weight.  The important thing to remember is the 90 degree bend on the back side to mount the radiator, and a slight bend on the front just for strength.  Also of note is the correct location of the holes for the hood pins (as they are used to hold the crossmember in place) and for the holes for the fender bolts on either end, as these are used to mount it as well.  Once the angles are bent and the holes are drilled, it’s ready to install and there you go.  Fasten radiator and drive away, knowing that the next time the engine has to come out, the job will be oh-so-much-easier.

Once the aforementioned tools are obtained, one needs only to set the car on the grease plates, assuring that it is sitting in the stance it would normally take – i.e. all weight on the tires and settled – push down on the bumper a couple times to be positive.  Being settled in, it is fairly basic to set the straight-edge with attached laser on a set of jackstands, placing the edge on both the front and rear sidewalls of the rear tire.  This will give a straight line to the front of the car, passing by the front tires.  Measuring the distance from the front and rear of the front rim to the laser will give you an idea of where your car is.  Turn the wheels 20 degrees both directions and check it again to be sure it is correct, and cross-reference with your manual as to how many degrees of toe your particular car needs. That’s it. you are done.  As I said, simple.

First allow the comparison of pros and cons among the differing systems.  To go with a race bred bearing is pricey, with kits costing close to $500.  The bearing itself is close to 200 for a cheap one.  Also, it involves specific master cylinder applications and is mostly difficult for parts procurement short of ordering them and waiting for their arrival.

In reference to the Ford stock parts, it involves the use of a plastic mounting surface for the slave cylinder, and would involve the replacement of the input shaft bearing on the trans.  This could prove detrimental to the overall reliability of the transmission, and was not an option of choice as a result.

The third option, though frowned upon by purists, is one with sound reasoning.  The GM system used on ‘88 vintage full size trucks involved the use of an external slave cylinder, and a common master cylinder.  What this means is that with a simple bracket, fabricated and bolted to the bellhousing, and a slight extension of the clutch fork, one can install this system on any vehicle.  A couple bubble flare fittings and two flare fittings along with some brake line with a built in flex point allows the connection between slave and master cylinders, and a simple bleeding of the line produces a dramatic reduction in pedal pressure, as well as increased clearance in the engine compartment for the headers to be routed.  Thus, the primary objective is achieved, and for a grand total of roughly $120.

Back to the point though, is the fact that this Mach was originally a 351 car, and so the shock towers were cut down at some point to accommodate the big block.  Unfortunately, this was done some time ago and was not done specifically for the 385 series engine, which causes problems procuring headers.  It is to this end that a rack and pinion was desired, to allow for more room in the engine compartment to design headers with better flow.

First off was the removal of the old steering components, including the gearbox, the center link, ad all the tie rods.  Next on the agenda was the fabrication of brackets to install the rack and pinion itself, making sure that it was low enough to clear the oil pan, an issue with tis larger engine.  Also of note is the retention of the rear steering, rather than a full on conversion to front steering components.  once the brackets were fabricated out of steel, with solid aluminum bushings for the rack to eliminate any movement, thee measurements had  to be taken for the overall length of the rack.  This turned out to be a bit long, and short of ordering a custom (and more expensive) rack, we simply machined the threads farther up the rod ends and cut off teh ends to shorten it up a bit, roughly 1.5 inches.  Once this was done, the daunting task of assembling a linkage to the steering column was tackled.  This involved lengthening the stock shaft by about 9 inches, cutting off the end of the steering column that protrudes into the engine bay for added angular clearance, and assembling the knuckles.  All told, this is fairly simple, just a matter of measuring the distances and drilling a few retention holes in the DD bar.  Of note is the fact that we used a short pinion rack to allow for the most clearance.

A summary of parts is simply this – rack and pinion, two knuckles, a length of DD rod – 3/4 inch, and a couple Mustang II outer tie rod ends.  That’s really all it takes.  Of course, this still needs to be road tested, and a bearing may need to be installed at the base of the steering column to maintain alignment, but that remains to be seen.  Currently there appears to be very little slop in the system and so it will be left as is for now.  Parts total was just upward of $500.

MB

Now that we have the prerequisite conditional assumptions out of the way, we can get on with the theory behind the maximum power output of an engine.  Common engine build involve the finding of an adequate producion block and modifying it through a stroker kit and a bore job, coupled with a set of aftermarket heads to produce the desired combuston ratio and a power adder as desired – a.k.a. a blower, supercharger, nitrous oxide injection, alcohol injection, and the like.  This produces some problems however.  One of these problems is that there are only so many combinations that one can obtain with parts off the shelf, the other is that there is a serious detriment to the power output possible of being attained.  Most high end engine builders then machine a longer block with a larger bore that keeps the crankshaft throw to a minimum; reference pro stock cars.  If one were to take a stock 426 Hemi and put it alongside a pro stock Hemi, you would notice that there are a few differences, mostly with the heads, but also the block is longer by a fair amount.

The real difference here is the maximum power output, as there is only so much that an engine can be bored.  If one were to start machining on a block and bore the cylinders to whatever desired size to obtain a higher power output, one would run into a thinning of the cylinder walls, causing a distinctive weakness in the engine design, as the cylinder will not be able to maintain the pressures required, resulting in a blown out wall, possibly more damage.  To rectify this problem we need to elongate the block.  This is highly expensive and specialized due to the machining and casting involved.  It would also require the forging/machining of a set of heads to match the block.  In short, this is not the everyday engine build but it is necessary for the pursuit of power.  If one were to combine an engine with the firing order previously discussed (http://bricrods.com/2009/06/engine-efficiency/) in this particular lengthened design, and a set of high flow custom Hemi heads with a pair of plugs per cylinder and a well designed intake (which we will get into in another post) one would have the makings of a serious contender on any front.

Just as an aside, there would be massive potentials for torque in this engine as well.

That brings us to the firing order. Now all things being equal, the most efficient firing order is that of F1 cars more or less – which is 1-5-3-7-4-8-2-6, with some slight variations on that.  The important thing is that no two adjacent cylinders fire sequentially; i.e. no, 1-2. 7-8. 6-7. or so forth as with most major automakers. (Note: all firing order references are to one bank numbered 1-4 and the other 5-8.)  Now, the theory behind this is that when one cylinder fires, it will heat up the cylinder wall, and expand the cylinder; albeit a minuscule amount, but it expands nonetheless.  This produces a problem in reference to the cylinder next to it when it fires.  First is the fact that now it has to squeeze through a smaller bore due to the expansion caused by the other cylinder.  Secondly, it will be dealing with a heated charge of air due to the rise in overall temperature due to the common wall/combustion chamber areas.  Thirdly there is the matter of undue stress on the cylinder wall as it is rapidly forced one way and then must change direction to push 180 degrees opposite.   This is why the firing order of an engine is important in the makings of a race motor, and some things that were taken into consideration by the high rpm crowd of F1 guys.  It is also something that is of interest when trying to understand just what a motor does.  There is also a lot of involvement with intake runners and fuel charges when dealing with firing orders, though a lot of that is only a carburetor discussion; mass quantities of it can be ommitted for the Sequential Port Fuel Injection crowd.

This is why in some performance operations people opt for a cam that “swaps” a couple of cylinders on the firing order, such as a 4-7 swap on some Chevy’s.  It has to do with the increase in power garnered from the correct usage of the available fuel charge and the increased efficiency of the engine overall.