Allright. All I did this weekend was test fit the motor and trans to see how much room I had in various areas. I want to run a bigger passenger footbox, more for comforts sake. I know I’m building one of the least creature comfort cars out there but hey, the passenger has to be able to stretch their feet.. 
The motor sits pretty low. It’s a good thing cause I’m gonna have to shim the motor mounts a little higher cause the main pulley is a little close to the front main tube for my comfort. Probably be a combo of shims and and underdrive pulley, we’ll see. I’m also going to have to modify the trans crossmember just a little. Anyhow here’s some pictures:
Motor Pictures
Not much went on install wise this weekend. Had to take care of Moms estate sale this weekend so it didn’t leave to much personal time to work on the car. All I really got done was the steering rack, tie rods, and steering shafts that connect it all. Did some drilling on the side panels for the trunk but it started to get late Sun night and I was pretty beat anyhow.
Oh did end up having to go back and move the front LCAs to the other hole. I misread the directions when I installed them. What led up to it was when I got the steering rack installed there wasn’t any room to adjust the tierods. I spent a few hours making sure I installed the rack correctly. This was late Sat night after I got home. Just before I was ready to say f-it for the night backtraced the directions and sure enough. Noticed that they were installed in the wrong holes. Man I slapped myself a few times for that one. Good note though. Don’t work on the car when your tired or pissed. Things are bound to go wrong…
Pictures can be found here: Steering Pics
I’ll be mounting the Unitsteer manual rack this weekend. UPS guy finally dropped it off. That along with getting the radiator temp mounted. Now all I need is to get the rear axle here and installed, put tires on the rims, and I’ll have a rolling chassis. Woohoo…
Didn’t get a chance to drop the motor and trans in this weekend. Still waiting on parts from FFR. So this weekend we decided to start getting the body panels lined up and drilled. Oh got the gastank mounted. Man we did alot of drilling this weekend. My arms and shoulders are hurting. Renee did most of the drawing and rivet hole spacing while I drilled the holes, put the panels onthe frame, and drilled through the holes to the frame. We then used cleco’s to hold the panels in place. I won’t be putting in the rivets until the very final assembly. Reason behind this is I want to be able to work without the panels limiting me. If I want to see how something looks I’ll just drop the panel in place, cleco it, and see how things looks. Makes the job easier. Plus we got the mundane and repetitive part out of the way early..
You can view the paneling pictures HERE.
Misc Pictures HERE.
Gas Tank Install Pictures HERE.
Not much went on this past weekend. Still waiting on parts for the build. I did recieve the front hubs so I got those installed along with finishing the Willwood brake pedal install, picked up the T56 transmission from Nic, and started to put the pedalboxes back together. Next week/weekend I’d like to get ready to test fit the motor and trans so I can see how much room I’m gonna have to work with. I want to do the firewall forward mod and put the bigger footbox on the passenger side but I don’t know if I’m gonna have enough room with the motor. My measurements are pretty close so I wanna actually get it in there and set so I can see.
I’m expecting my clecos and a few other tools to come in next week. I’ll start putting the aluminum back on the car and drilling the holes. Scott from American Iron Rentals gave me a good pointer to do this. That way when I’m putting something in, be it a fuel line, brake line, whatever. I can easily put the panel on, cleco it in, and see how it’s gonna look. Plus it gets the tedious part out of the way for final assemble. I’ll also start on the little things like putting in the glovebox on the back panel between the seats.
Wilwood Pedal Box Pictures: Pic 1, Pic 2, Pic 3.
Footboxes and Firewall Pictures: Pic 1.
Front SN95 Hubs: Pic 1, Pic 2.
Transmission Pictures: Pic 1.
A few Misc Pictures: Pic 1, Pic 2.
Renee and I decided to start on the Wilwood Pedalbox yesterday. It was actually kind of fun despite the instructions, or destructions as I call them sometimes, not exactly being accurate.
Well I started off earlier in the day calling Factory Five and asking them if I had to modify the pedals since I was using a hydraulic clutch, they said yes. So we’re going through the instructions and as we read ahead we notice they have us installing a cable guide and adjuster. Well I wasn’t thinking to good at this point and just thought it was for the gas pedal. Notice I said gas pedal, eh we’re not doing that one yet there Mr. Wizard. So we stop and go wait a damn minute here. We skipped past those steps right to mounting the pedals to the mount then onto the car. At this point I’m starting to notice a shortage of nuts, bolts, and washers. Soooo we start looking through the box trying find a package we missed, no luck. So we get ready to do my favorite part, box hunting. We ended up finding the rest of the parts in box #24 inside the battery holder. Then my wife reads the packing slip and it actually said that the pedal box components were in that box. Ya I got an earful for that one, no big deal, I’m used to it…
Now the pictures in the instructions aren’t exactly clear to the orientation of said parts. That fun part is left up to you.. We have a pretty good idea how to put a pedalbox together so we’re moving the parts around, taking it out, taking it back apart, to see what holes line up where. We keep doing this until a light goes off in your head and you’re like “ohhh so that’s how it goes.” So at this point it’s getting late so I temporarily mount the unit and pack it up for the night. You can take a look at the progress pictures HERE.
Also have to add that over the weekend I got the front F-Panels riveted on, brake calipers temporarily mounted, and the dash mocked up so I can see what it’s gonna look like. I’m still decided to either use this dash, the one came from Factory Five, or get a blank one and cut my own holes. I’ll wait till I get the steering in and see how bad it’s gonna block the RPM and MPH guages.
Also temp mounted the motor mounts to the motor. The mounts the car came with are for a 4.6 Ford modular motor. They’ll work on the LSx motor with a bit of modification to one of the tabs, you’ll see in the pictures. I’m going this route first cause I don’t want to cutoff the mounts on the frame. On the FFcobra forums they say I’ll run into an issue with the driveshaft binding with a live axle. I’ll get the motor and trans mounted and take some measurements and see. If it is indeed an issue I’ll cut the mounts, weld some flat stock, and install some mounts from an 03-06 GTO. I wanna try this route first cause all I’ll have to modify it the motor mounts the bolt onto the block, much easier than the other way.
- Pics of the motor mounts are HERE.
- Pics of the F-Panels are HERE.
- Pics of the dash are HERE.
- Pics of the brakes are HERE.