usdmholden

After I had the design done I printed out some drawings and started cutting on the milling machine. The one picture shows a threaded hole in the stub on the OEM shifter base, that is how I was holding the old shifter handle adapter to the base. A bolt through a square drive attachment threaded into the shifter ball stub. That threaded hole was drilled and bushed for the shifter mechanism shoulder bolt.

usdmholden

I've got it all welded together now and assembled to the T56. It shifts pretty well in my opinion. I haven't had it in the chassis yet, I suspect the Mustang shifter handle is going to be a little high, but with the 4" throws (roughly) handle length may not be an issue. I need to give it a paint job when it gets warmer.

usdmholden

Interestingly enough, a T5 shifter handle has exaclty the same bolt hole centers as a T56 shifter handle. All I did to improve the Mustang shifter handle was to remove the giant rubber bushings and replace them with steel bushings, which are actually 5/16-18 hex nuts, with the holes drilled to accept the OEM Ford shifter bushing sleeve which was originally for a M8x1.25 bolt. I welded in the nut and sleeve and ground a little on the bend grinder to make things smooth.

All said and done, I spent $28 at McMaster Carr for parts to build the shifter, along with some scrap metal I already had.

89interceptor

Thank you for posting your build! I have a 89 notch and will be doing a ls swap with T56 also. Keep up the good work!

usdmholden

Thanks!

usdmholden

I put the engine and trans back in the car so I could finish off the mounts and begin working on headers.

With the new Holley 302-2 oil pan I only had to raise the engine .120" relative to the k member to get it to fit. This is less than I figured I would have to raise it and given this, I believe I can get the Edelbrock ProFlo 7140 under the stock hood without spacing the k member. At least that is what my mock up intake is telling me, I still have not bought a 7140. There is about .125" of clearance between the 302-2 oil pan and the power steering rack. I'm going to file the rack a little and I should get about another 1/16" of clearance there.

I also installed the CE 3610 aluminum transmission cross member bushings installed and put in the trans cross member. The engine sets back at about 3.6 degrees with this setup, I don't think I am going to bother trying to improve it.

usdmholden

While I was working on it I decided to get the radiator out of the way so I modified the aftermarket replacement 2.3L radiator to accept the fbody cooling fans. The 2.3L radiator is basically the same size and dimensions as the 5.0 radiator. I don't think it will have a problem cooling the engine.

I welded some angle aluminum tabs onto the top and bottom of the radiator and drilled and tapped them for 10-32 threads. On the bottom tabs there are 10-32 screws which act as guide pins and hold the bottom of the fan in position relative to the radiator. On the top the tabs are welded in so the top of the tab is inside the fan housing, and 10-32 screws hold the fan to the radiator tabs.

I had to trim the fan shroud with tin snips in a couple places to get the fan to sit nicely against the radiator core, but otherwise, it was nearly a drop in size wise.

usdmholden

I wanted to install the shifter with the engine and trans in the car to see how it actually worked out. I'm pretty happy with it, but I will need to get creative to seal off the inside of the cabin from the road grime.

The location relative to the e-brake handle is an optical illusion from the camera angle. They aren't as close to each other as they appear. I had to trim the plastic console a little. I plan to rivet in some aluminum sheet to reinforce it before final reassembly.

I'm pretty happy with the mechanism, but I may have to make the handle shorter because the shifter boot will be pretty tight given the extra height of the handle.

usdmholden

At this point I'm almost ready to start designing headers. However, since I wanted to get good measurements off the chassis prior to starting the design work, I decided to raise the rear of the car until the engine was level. I dropped plumb bobs to get the engine center line and used it as a datum, and the front of the engine block as a datum, and used the concrete floor relative to the level engine as my last datum. The three datums allow me to measure x, y and z co-ordinates or various chassis points and then plot them in the CAD system.

usdmholden

So I've plotted enough chassis points in Solidworks to get a decent passenger side model and designed a passenger side header.

usdmholden

I have not yet started building the headers. I still need to plot the chassis in CAD and design a drivers side header.

However, I'm a little worried about the passenger side header design. It comes within about 1/2" from the starter in a couple places, and I don't want to burn up starters. I suspect it will be OK and I can make some heat shields, maybe I'm worried about nothing.

The closest in length I could get the primaries were:
primary 2 = 33 inches
primary 4 = 30.5 inches
primary 6 = 31 inches
primary 8 = 27.2 inches

I don't see ay way to make either primary 2 shorter or primary 8 longer, so I'm just going to leave them as is and move on. I doubt they will make a huge difference. the tubing it 1.88" and the closest the header comes to the chassis is about 3/8".

usdmholden

I did a little re-conjiggering last night and I can get primary 2 to 32.8 inches and primary 8 to 27.8 inches. A little better but not a whole lot. I think if I rotate the collector 45 degrees on it's axis I can make them a little longer and shorter but I have to try it later.

Also am considering removing the vband from the design and going with a header clamp to allow me to drop the collector about 3/4". This will help with some primary tubing clearances and maybe also lengths but will not make the lowest point on the header any closer to the ground than it is already.

Any input on whether or not the header is coming too close to the starter? I'd rather change the design now than later after I start cutting tubing. The CAD system is cheap to implement a design change, but once I start fabrication, changes aren't so simple or inexpensive.

Toddoky

Hey usdmholden, don't lose too much sleep over the disparity in your primary lengths as the theoretically peak HP loss you are going to suffer is going to be negligible. You also have to take into account what bends really are, which is to say that they are restrictions, so if you have to incorporate a high number of bends (especially tight radius bends) into your geometry to achieve your equal lengths then you are working against the achievment of maximum mass flow potential. If you have 1/2" clearance between your starter and one or two tubes you won't have issues, especially if you heat wrap your starter or fab a heat shield for it. I complement you on your effort and look forward to seeing your finished headers; are you going to be making them in stainless steel?

usdmholden

Thanks, I appreciate the compliment.

I'm not losing too much sleep over the primary lengths really. I figure I still might make all of them two or three inches longer by just moving the collector back a little and extending the primaries. Welding and/or cutting straight tubing is pretty simple. The two primaries which got shorter and longer did so because it gave me more clearance between the big square tooling pad at the back of the LS block, and more clearance on the bottom of the k member. The primaries just coincidentally went in the correct directions at the same time.

I bought a 1 7/8 x .065" wall header build kit from Cone Engineering over the summer, but I just got to the point where where the engine was in it's "final resting place" now. The tubes are steel rather than stainless. Stainless was an about extra $300, so I went with steel.

I counted the total bend angle for each primary the other night, but I can't remember what it was. Some of the bends which make the lengths more equal are required just to make the headers fit. They would fit much more easily with a 1.88" or 2.5" center bend radius, but frankly, I already have a bunch of 3" center line bends which will flow better than the smaller bend radii versions, and I don't want to spend more money on more bends if I don't have to.

If these work nicely, I'll probably make a second set of motor mounts identical to mine, and sell this set of steel headers and motor mount combo specfic to a Maximum Motorsports k member and relocated engine, and upgrade my own headers to a second build which uses stainless. Most guys running the MM suspension would like the better center of mass and lower yaw inertia from the engine relocation, and there has to be a market of at least two or three people in the world who want an LS Fox Mustang set up to road race or autocross with a T56. If I did some advertising I could probably even double my target market to like four or six people. Luckily for me, Holley's product management dept will probably not be interested in shipping only six units, lifetime, so effectively I have no competition.

I do plan to have these headers ceramic coated when I'm done building them.

Toddoky

You called that right, selling 6 sets of headers won't even keep the bathroom lights on in the production facility down in Mississippi, not to mention the lights for the other 250,000 square feet under roof there.

mOtOrHeAd MiKe

iTrader: (8)

Are you familiar with the Pipemax software?

usdmholden

I've heard of the Pipemax software but I do not have it and have never used it. I based the primary lengths and diameters on other headers that seem to work pretty well.

usdmholden

So I have been working on this project alot longer than I figured I would. I planned to throw it together and drive it but then I started finding good deals on various parts and began fabricating things, which is one of the reasons I like car hobby. Granted, in the time since I started this project in the beginning of 2013 I have had emergency wrist surgery, my wife and I had a baby, I had to redo the foundation in my garage workshop (I can't go without a shop), had to buy a vehicle with four doors since we now have two car seats, had to repair the septic system and leech field so we could all continue to poop, had to find a new job, and spent more than a month in Asia. So I've had lots of things which I let slow me down I guess. Building stuff for the car in the garage is a stress relief.

Anyway I have been finding time and I believe I finished my drivers side header design. I was trying to keep the primaries from having the steering column go through them, but frankly, I can't find the room given the engine relocation, and I just gave up and took the easy way out.

The Guy in MY 99TA

cool stuff!

But a question... why do to an IRS?

usdmholden

I believe my final primary lengths will be below. I may have to dent a couple primaries to make them fit, but I need to finish the design work and start building. I'd like to make #8 longer but there is just no room so I'm just going to leave it be.

primary 1 = 31.9", 97% of max
primary 3 = 29.6", 90% of max
primary 5 = 32.6", 99% of max
primary 7 = 29.9", 91% of max
primary 2 = 32.8", 100% of max
primary 4 = 30.5", 93% of max
primary 6 = 31", 95% of max
primary 8 = 27.8", 85% of max