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The following sequence of photo's gives a good over view of my thinking and fabricating. While there is nothing reallly special in the photos, there is a lot going on and I put a lot of thinking to the effort. I sure hope it plays out well. If not, that's racing!
Fontal View
This view shows the overall front of the car. As you can see it is complete, including turn signals, even! The old center grill badge is pretty bad but good enough for the salt. I have the 2 bars that go out from it to the edge, but the grill blank of is curved and they were not long enough for a good fit so I left them off. Looks ok, doesn't it? The turn signals are empty shells, although the lens' are new. The headlight, ahhh, the headlight..I removed the guts of the headlights and fabricated a wood filler. This filler backs up a piece of plexiglass and aluminum and carries two anchor bolts for fastening to the body. I also used new rubber gaskets between the eyebrow and fender. On the underside, I used brushable sealer to try and seal the joint between the new headlight and fender to prevent salt water from getting into everything. The center hole in the hood hinge facia is for filling the fuel cell. I refurbed the hinges by first placing them in a lye bath to remove all traces of old paint and rust then repainted them in hammertone gray. The two gold colored fittings protuding through the air dam are the tow bar attachments. I can see that I need to trim the driver's side down pipe a tad to make it match the passenger side. Lots of unfinished work here. Of course the hood must go back on, but also I need to fab some hood hold down pins.
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Disk Brake, Turbo Downpipe and Tie Rod
There is a lot going on in this photo. I used block hugger headers, modified to provide the turbo input. Just behind the disk brake, you can see the curved pipe: this comes from the header collector and goes up to the turbo mounting flange. The downpipe comes directly from the turbo outlet. Just behind the air dam is a fitting which holds the pipe in place via a muffler clamp. The disk brake is a big Wilwood unit. There is some controversy about the use of front brakes as they may cause the car to spin if used too hard. I may disable the fronts for Bonneville and use only for the drags. Also seen in this photo is the steering arm and tie rod end. I used a Flaming River rack and Pinion trimmed to fit. The steering arm came with the front strut assembly. I must have spent an entire day getting bump steer correct. I used a plumb bob through the spindle centerline to mark the center of the tire contact patch and then moved the suspensio through it's full travel. The patch does not move more that 0.1 inches now on either side, through the full range of travel.
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Engine Compartment
The engine compartment is almost as busy and filled as my MK 1 Tiger. Nah...I can drop a wrench in the real Tiger's engine compartment and it may be lost forever. This one just falls straight through. You can see the radiator: it is a BeCool Scirrocco unit and is pretty doggone small. The unit just behind the radiator is the Mass Air Flow sensor manifold. This thing gave me problems to no end and I sought a solution for the longest time. Hanging down from it are 2 stock 835 kg/hour mass air flow meters. Only one is electrically connected though. My thought is that I needed about 1700 kg air flow for the horsepower I needed but I couldn't afford a new MAF. So I use 2. And I will tell the computer I only have half the injector size needed so it will think it is working one normal maf and stock injectors. A bit of tuning and that should work ok. The distributor behind that is a stock Ford EFI unit but with race components in the cap and rotor. The TFI unit on the side of the distributor will be replaced with Holley unit after it all runs with the stock junk. Valve covers are cheap Summitt cast aluminum tall units to clear roller rockers when I get them. The funky red and white hose goes from the MAF manifold to the inlet of the turbo compresor. The hose is a silicone hose with wire to keep it from collapsing. You can see the ends of the fuel rails. I need to finish plumbing these and they are huge! I still need to get about a billion dollars worth of hose ends and other fittings to complete this task. Right behind the distributor is the 1 1/2 qt sauce pan which I used for my throttle body bonnet and turbo connection. As you can see, the turbos are not yet connected as there is a lot of work to do here also. As you can plainly see, one turbo is mounted higher han the other. Why? Well because the passenger side had alternator conflict issues. Plainly visible is the original VIN and SAL number plates and yes they are for this car. Shhhhh, not original rivits though... The thermostat water neck is from a truck and it points straight up. It has a temperature sensor mount built into it which solved a problem for me. I just need to get a 90 degree bend hose now and make that connection. Not seen is the turbo cooling water hoses and connections. Why, cause they ain't done yet...
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Driver's Side Engine Compartment
More serious stuff! The turbo is buried between the head and the suspension frame support. As you can plainly see, the turbo's charge air outlet is sawed off. This is because I have to do a bit of fab work to change the angle and then to mate it with the sauce pan throttle body bonnet. The hego (ford for O2 sensor) comes out of the turbo and is just behind the gold oil filler cap. Speaking of which, this is also the crank case evac system cap. I made a fill pipe and vacuum pipe combined which mates to the old mechanical fuel pump mount. This permits me to put oil in the beast as well as providing a good path for vacuum in the pan. The black hose goes to a plastic hose barbed "T". Each leg of the T then goes to a backfire valve and a nozzle welded into the down pipes. Oh, on top of the turbo chra (center housing rotating assy) you can see the oil fitting. At the bottom there is a -10 AN fitting an hose for oil drainback into the pan. You can see that the air hose needs a bit of work also: it is 1/4 inch in daimeter larger than the metal pipe. So, I need to build a spacer from hose to make it fit. No bigee. Barely visible just above the TFI module is the instrument panel temp sensor. I will need to add a right angle radiator overflow hose barb to the filler cap since it is close to the MAF manifold. The small bundle of wires near the turbo hose is for the MIL and it's trigger signal: I left the wire long so that I would not have to be bending over a screaming turbo while trying to decode check engine codes.
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Engine Compartment, Passenger's Side
Not nearly as much going on on this side as the other. Turbo is identical except for the height in mounting it. I haven't cut the outlet yet for rewelding. You can see the O2 sensor in this view: and the computer uses both of them so this worked out ok. The next incarnation of these turbos will be a hybrid T3 hot side and T4 cold side with an entirely different exhaust scheme. I think this particular set up is too resrictive. Also seen on the turbo is the oil fitting for this turbo and a water cooling fitting. These turbos have engine coolant cooling to keep them from coking up after long hard runs. My cooling works this way: I have a 10 gallon reservoir in the trunk which supplies supplemental water to the motor via the Meziere water pump. The water circulates through the motor then it exits just before the thermostat. It branches off to each turbo and them is collected and sent back to the reservoir. The valve cover is tight to the turbo but it can be removed. Here you can also see the top of the strut suspension. Not seen but to be installed after it gets painted is the hood holder rod: see I have already installed the "original" rubber for it!
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Suspension, Steering and Fuel Cell
Obviously I took this photo before the simulated motor went into place. You can get a good look at the strut suspension with the steering arm. It uses an A frame lover for location and it has about 16 degrees of caster and no camber at this time. I will dial in about 1/32 inch toe when it is back on the ground. Why so little you ask? With the bump steer I figured this should just about be right. The steering shaft from the steering wheel is 3/4 SOLID shaft. The parts sent were hollow DOM tubing and it just did not look like it was stout enough to me. I ground flat spots on the sharf and drilled and tapped the couplers for set screws and lock nuts and washers. I still use the original radiator mounts, well 2 of them anyway. Brake lines are all stainless steel 3/16 inch diameter tubing. Braided lines are used at her caliper to frame connections. The fuel cell is shown in it's current location. I am not really happy with it but for now tis will have to do. Why am I not happy" Well it prevents me from installing my Deraille fan! Turns out I do not have enough room between the radiator and the electric water pump, so it needs to be mounted in front of the radiator as a pusher. The fuel cell has it's own cradle and that is held to the frame by fittings which are welded on. The cradle has four grade 5, 5/16 bolts to hold it in place. I need to fab a ground wire for the fuel cell so that static electricity cannot build up during fueling.
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Fuel Cell Mount and Transmission Cooler
The last photo in this series shows the fuel cell mount with the tranny cooler mounted on the bottom of it. This is going to change. I am going to mount a different kind of cooler betwen the rear frame horns and eliminate this one. I will instead mount the electric EFI fuel pump, its pre filter plumbing under the fuel cell. This will always keep the pump primed and lessen the chance of faulty operation. An Aeromotive A1000 pump and compatible filter and up on the top side and Aeromotive regulator will be used to control the fuel needs. This is also the best shot of the fittings for the tow bar as they are installed in the frame horns in front.
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