Taking another page from Ray’s book, I’ve decided to do some seam welding. I’m doing 1″ welds, a couple inches apart, along some of the frame rails, where they meet the body panels. I guess the stock spot-welds aren’t that great as far as torsional rigidity. anyway it’s an easy enough way to add some stiffness into the body. I’m also going to weld the shock towers. There is bracing where the control arm fasteners come through the shock towers. It’s spot-welded in place and since I’m going to be asking a lot more of those joints with the larger tires and the higher speed corners on the track, I’ll go ahead and weld around those seams as well. I might not worry about it with the frame rails that I already welded to the new floor pans, because I know I welded those really strong.
chris Exterior chassis, welding
I have FINALLY finished welding in the rear suspension mounts. Most of it went well. On the driver’s side I blew through the frame rail and had to build it up. The result is ugly as sin, but will hold the thing in place.
Now it’s getting cold out in the garage! Harder to get motivated to go out and work on the car. Actually this project is feeling like such a long one that sometimes I have difficulty working up the motivation to go out and work on it. I know it’s on the down-hill side of it now though.
Dad and I will be working on the motor at Ray’s over the weekend of the 19th. I can’t wait to get that together and get this thing running!
chris Suspension and Brakes
I’m going to have to replace my headers, but I thought I would go ahead and measure my current Doug Thorley Tri-Y style headers so that Scott can see if my current ones will do in a pinch. Here are the current dims:
I first measured the primary tubes. I measured them from the top, so it’s longer than from the side or bottom, but it was the most accessible, and it’s at least consistent. I’ll list the primary tube length, which is from the non-gasket side of the flange, to the first weld joint where they go into the secondary tubes. I’ll also list the overall length, which includes the length from header gasket to collector gasket. Besides the primary tubes, I measured the other tubing on the side of the bend so that’s more neutral.
1: Primary: 11.75, OAL: 39.3
2: Primary: 9.5, OAL: 37
3: Primary: 11, OAL: 33
4: Primary: 11, OAL: 33
5: Primary: 14.25, OAL: 39
6: Primary: 14.25, OAL: 34
7: Primary: 9.25, OAL: 36.55
8: Primary: 9, OAL: 31.3
Collector Length: 5.25
Collector ID: 2.35-2.4
Primary OD: 1.5
Secondary OD: 1.75
Primary tube openings at header gasket: 1.15-1.25 W x 1.6 H
1,2 share a secondary. 2,4 also
5,7 share a secondary. 6,8 also
chris Engine exhaust, header dimensions, headers
I paid a visit to Ray this past weekend, and he told me the adjustments to make on the Koni Classic shocks. Initially, I’d just put them in the middle of their range. He’d spent some development time on his car though, and determined that the appropriate adjustment for our cars would be:
Rear: 1 turn in from softest
Front: 2 turns in from softest
So what you do is push the shock all the way closed and turn CCW until it stops. That’s the limit on the soft side. Turn CW 2 for front and 1 for rear shocks.
In the rear, I was in luck, because the rear end is still down and the shocks were just hanging down. I guess what you’d do though, is just undo the bottom mounting nut and push it closed from the bottom.
In the front, I had to remove not only the top shock to shock collar fasteners, but also the shock collar nuts. I had to take out the Monte Carlo bar as well, because the tops of the shocks would not push down past rim of the Monte Carlo bar.
When I did this, it exposed a mistake that I had made when I put them in in the first place. The bottom mounts weren’t tight at all! I had tightened the bottom shock mount nuts with the top ones already tightened. Since the mounting surface on the bottom is a bit tilted, and spring-loaded, tightening the top first didn’t allow the bottom ones to sit flush with the mount surface. It gave me a false torque reading. Glad I checked that.
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Without supporting the lower control arm at all. the top of the shock is off and hard to get into its mount. The Ford manual actually suggests mounting it to the shock collar before inserting it, and bolting down the shock collar.
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Jack the lower control arm up, using a piece of wood to protect the control arm from the jack. don’t jack on the end, as it has the grease fitting that can easily break off.
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AN5 -6 bolt, AN 365 nylock nut, AN960 washers
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Now it’s in place and happy
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tightening the mountings. i heard that the stock, captive nuts can break, so I knocked them out and replaced them with AN5 -6 bolts and AN365 nylock nuts (with AN960 washers). This makes it so that you have to use a box-end on the bottom and tighten the top with a wrench. Torque setting is about 15 lbs
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chris Suspension and Brakes koni, shocks
Old radiator on the right, new Howe Racing radiator on the left. Double the HP requires a cooling upgrade
chris Engine, Photos cooling
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My new Ram aluminum flywheel. Strong and light – and SFI rated.
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The cleaned-up block, timing chain, cam, and crank installed
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I can’t believe how well these old valve covers cleaned up from media blasting – they look almost new
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I got this great intake used for about half price, and then had to spend the other half fixing it! well, at least I now know it’s just right. I even had the ports matched to my head intake ports.
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These AFR heads will be a killer part of a killer package. There’s a lot of custom porting and valve work done by Gromm Racing, and heavier-duty studs and springs to match my application
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I’m supporting the workers at Manley, ARP, Iskederian, Melling, Total Seal, Comp Cams… Really, I’m just trying to help in these tough times… :)
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My old water pump and timing cover, back from media blasting. You’d hardly know that timing cover is 45 years old
chris Engine, Photos block, heads, parts, timing chain, timing cover
As my motor gets closer to coming together, I realize I need to get a cooling solution together too. Ray said my old radiator setup won’t work – it will overheat. Actually, he told me to “get into the new millenium” and buy a Howe Racing radiator. So, he gave the the part numbers for his cooling setup, which never overheats, even with his nearly 600HP motor on 100 degree days. So I’ll be getting a Howe Racing 342A Aluminum crossflow radiator. It will require a bit of customization of the mounting area to fit it, but it will be worth it. I’ll also be adding an electric fan, to replace the big crank-driven one that I currently have. This should be more efficient at moving the right amount of air through (it will be 2000CFM) and it will free up about 15HP since the crank doesn’t have to drive the old fan anymore.
chris Engine, Photos cooling, fan, radiator
We got back from China several weeks ago, and Bob is back on the engine. Heads should be in and he should be working on those over the next few weeks. Machine work is mostly done. Scott has spec’d the cam and should be ordering cam and lifters this week. Once Bob’s done with the prep, I’ll take it over to Ray’s and we’ll put it together. I can’t wait to have it together again!
Then of course, there are a ton of details to take care of before driving the car. I still need to weld up the rear leaf spring slider mounts. I’ll have to put the new gauges in too, replace the windshield, get tires and alignment… the list is long but getting shorter!
chris Engine
So, why the so called “Shelby Drop”? First, let me explain just what it is. The “drop” refers to the fact that the inboard mount point of the upper control arm is moved down. Shelby moved it down 1″, and 1/8″ rearward. It would probably be more accurate to call it the “Arning Drop” because it was originally designed by Klaus Arning, a top suspension designer for Ford. He designed it as part of a full package for the Mustang, which included his 4 link Independent Rear Suspension design. The 4 link IRS didn’t make it into the final car, but Shelby made use of the front upper control arm positioning for the GT350. In my highly approximate picture of the stock setup, you can see why: 
The circle represents the path of motion of the outboard control arm mount point during suspension movement. You can see here that if the suspension is loaded, as in a hard turn or a bump, the control arm will move outward, pushing the top of the tire out, creating positive camber. This will make it so that the contact patch of hte tire is reduced, with just outer edge of the tire contacting the pavement.
You can imagine what happens when you move the mout point down a bit. The curve becomes more advantageous to the loaded condition. If the car is in a hard turn, it will actually be beneficial to have a bit of negative camber to maximize the contact patch of the tire.
The drop also lowers the CG a little, and reduces the leverage that the suspension has on the body, minimizing body twist. These 3 things together make for more performant handling under the stress of the track.
chris Suspension and Brakes shelby drop
