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I'd mentioned the OEM Ford hole in the car's "frame." That hole really does dictate what the transmission height is going to be and consequently the engine angle. With the crossmember bolted up to the red, urethane transmission mount and a bolt going through the OEM hole, there isn't much leeway in the angle at which everything ends up. I believe Toddoky engineered this into the engine swap mounts that bolt to the K member and also the transmission crossmember.
I think you are going to end up with a car that is very enjoyable to drive due to the extra amount of validation work that you are doing that most guys ignore. I am fortunate that Holley management allows me to perform deep-dives into the swap platforms I develop to determine the most optimized mounting position of the drivetrain components possible before I contemplate the design of mounting components.
The process is very much as Michael described, where I mock up the engine and transmission in the design space to achieve desirable U-joint operating angles and then lock the engine in place to permit me to cycle through mock-ups of every transmission that is called out to be accommodated for use within the swap system to ensure they can all be installed without any change being made to the engine height or inclination angle, as that would reflect poor design effort and result in the headers and exhaust systems I develop later in the process to not fit the same regardless of the transmission used.
Once the drivetrain positioning is decided on (I’ve spent up to a month on just this part of the process before testing the proposed mock-up geometry on as many as 7 different vehicles), I design whatever mounting components are needed to mount the engine and all the transmissions in that exact position. If the chosen engine position requires a new oil pan to be designed to permit that fitment, then so be it...I never let existing Holley or OE oil pan design geometry dictate engine placement and again feel fortunate that Holley management does not require me to do so.
Although the design of the headers and exhaust systems is the last thing that I execute, I am heavily considering their fitment requirements during the engine mount and crossmember design phase (i.e. where/how to place arches in the crossmember to allow passing 3” exhaust tubing through with all the transmissions covered), to ensure the overall system design is as cohesive as possible.
Thank you for your vote of confidence, Todd! And thank you for the explanation of the work that you do and how Holley gives you the freedom to do your work the way you do it.
If you look at the last picture that I posted in post #221, you'll see threads in the forward end of the torque arm. A big urethane bushing assembly gets bolted on to the end. I wish I'd taken a picture of it but I didn't. The Maximum Motorsports instructions were confusing on the bolt torque specification. In one part of the instructions, it says the bolt needs to be torqued to 220 lb-ft. In another part of the instructions, it says 154 lb-ft . I ended up talking with MM's engineer, Jack Hidley and he told me that they'd changed things and the correct torque spec was 220 lb-ft.
My torque wrench that I've owned for 20+ years only goes up to 150 lb-ft so I called my local O'Reilly Auto Parts and they have free rental torque wrenches that go up to 250 lb-ft. Problem solved! After that, it was time to position the torque arm crossmember in preparation for welding.
The urethane pivot assembly goes into the round tube in the center of the crossmember.
Squaring the crossmember.
After marking where the crossmember should sit, I marked the SFC so I could grind off the powdercoating for a clean surface to weld. Then the TA crossmember was measured a couple more times to insure it was in the proper postiion for final welding of the mounting tabs.
It's time to fire up the Hobart 210 MVP MIG welder!
Last edited by dannyual777; 03-01-2021 at 07:43 AM.
My older brother had a full MM coilover/torque-arm set up on an 86 Fox body he built. You're gonna enjoy that.
Originally Posted by G Atsma
Now THAT'S a CHASSIS!
Thank you, guys. After owning the donor '91 GT for decades and spending a lot of time on corral.net, I knew that the Fox chassis and suspension was nothing but cheap compromises. Owners having to band aid the lousy OEM 4-link and having to weld up busted torque boxes. I didn't want any of that. So, after spending about 10-12 hours on the Maximum Motorsports website, I felt like I'd stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night ! MM knows Mustang suspensions, that's for sure.
Is this car go be a street/strip car or just a weekend cruiser?
I never had anything other than pure street cars. Nothing that was ever remotely "track." I've told my wife that I expect this car to be pretty capable and that tracking it may be something that I want to do just for the fun of it.
It had been a while since I'd welded in my subframe connectors but it wasn't too bad trying to get back into welding. This time, I was very aware that I was laying on the ground and my body position and welding gun position were going to be less than ideal. Kind of the way golfers take some practice swings before acrually hitting the ball, I did the same thing before I squeezed the welding gun trigger. I think that it all worked out pretty well and I was satisfied with my welds and didn't grind any of them to pretty them up.
Not too bad. I don't really know what I was thinking on grinding away the powder coating. I did have a ground area down to bare metal right where the weld is but I should've ground a little more. Like I said, the weld was done on bare steel. If the welds are weak and they break, I'll just grind the heck out of them and re-weld.
Not beautiful but it'll do.
The welding was easier because the welds were relatively short and both pieces of metal were thick so as long as I used the Hobart charted settings, I was pretty safe from burning holes through the metal.
After all the welding was done, I sprayed some black paint on the welds to prevent rust.
In the end, I was very happy that I went through all of the agony trying to learn how to weld. I spent quite a bit of money, too. However, it wouldn't have been inexpensive getting a professional, mobile welder out to my house twice for this welding work.
I outright own all of my welding equipment and I now feel that I can at least attempt most welding jobs that I may need to do whether it's on a car project or something around the house. I also own a nice assortment of US made carbide cutters to dress up any ugly welding that I may do .
Last edited by dannyual777; 03-02-2021 at 07:40 AM.
Reason: added text
Just remember that if that occurs it's not without consequence. If that torque arm breaks free, deceleration could become an interesting pole-vault event.
Having said that, looks good to me. Is the load transferred by placing those bolts in single shear?
Just remember that if that occurs it's not without consequence. If that torque arm breaks free, deceleration could become an interesting pole-vault event.
Having said that, looks good to me. Is the load transferred by placing those bolts in single shear?
Under acceleration, the front of the torque arm will want to rise. I think that if I broke all of my torque arm mount welds, the TA crossmember would crash into the floorpan of the car. When I let off the gas, it may lower enough to the ground to pole vault me but I don't know. I know that the TA just sitting stationary without the front crossmember, just "floats." You can see this in the last picture in post #221.
Yes. The bolts are in single shear. The Heavy Duty MM TA has a double shear bracket and a single shear. The standard duty that I have uses 4 single shear mounting brackets.
In the above post, I mentioned a picture that I posted back in post #221. Here it is again:
The torque arm wants to just sit there at an angle that's too much nose high. With all of the leverage of the TA, it's pretty easy to pull down on the front of the TA and lower the angle. This rotates the complete rear end.
To set the angle, I first found the inclination of my engine. I have to say that there is a slight slope to my garage floor. However, that slope affects both the pinion angle as well as the engine so it shouldn't be a problem for my "net" measurements. FWIW, I think my garage floor slopes down about 1/2 degree. My car is parked with the nose to the lower part of the garage floor so my real angles could be about a 1/2 degree more if the car were on a perfectly level surface.
Here are two pictures of trying to measure the engine angle:
This was hard to do by myself while trying to take the picture. I wasn't confident in this reading. I think that I determined that the straight edge wasn't sitting properly on the balancer.
This was much easier to do since the angle finder's magnets are holding on to the balancer bolt. I don't know how accurate this measurement is but I decided that this was the more accurate measurement.
Just to be certain of the engine inclination, I probably should measure again with my wife helping. I've got a nice flat piece of 1/4" thick sheetmetal that would fit perfectly right over the entire balancer. It might result in a more accurate measurement.
02-27-2021, 11:19 PM
. I ended up talking with MM's engineer, Jack Hidley and he told me that they'd changed things and the correct torque spec was 220 lb-ft.
! MM knows Mustang suspensions, that's for sure. 
