Since the preferred routing of the headers is through the inner fender, is there any realistic way to keep the primary tubes separate while still muffling them? That way you could create actual functional ventiports! Another option might be to run them into an expansion chamber and then have individual pipes coming out the other side (four into one into four, times two). I think that would be kicka$$ on two levels. One, you would be recreating actual exhaust ports which were the inspiration for the ventiports. Second, with the mixed UK/US lineage of the project, it totally reminds me of the old piston engine warbirds that had actual exhaust ports! They often ran P-51 Mustangs with Rolls Royce engines, UK (Spitfire or Hurricane) planes with american Allison engines. You could even go with matte paint job in camo or low key warbird markings! Here are some vintage and one contemporary RAF warbirds for inspiration. Look at those "ventiports" on the Hawker Fury (third pic)!
Ed, I'd say it's a natural. And if you guys get done first more power to you. Anything I can do to help, just ask. Much as the idea of using the ports for the exhaust appeals to me it just isn't something we can make work. The law just won't allow it for starters, so I guess it begins and ends right there. Pete Mantell will be coming by this weekend, we'll see what we can get done. Fit up the radiator at the very least, and I'd like to get a start on the motor mounts. Jim
[SIZE=-0]Pete and his family made it over on Saturday and he brought not just his precision scales but also a couple of hoods. One was a standard steel hood and the other, a very nice piece, was a fiberglass MGC hood which I'm thinking will do a great job of providing us with just a little extra clearance in the right places. I'll post the photos below, in essence we'll have better than 1/2" to spare over the valvecovers once the motor mounts are in and everything is fitted up. The lower end of the steering will need to be moved down 2-3" at the firewall and this can be determined after the heater is out, the tunnel bumped in a bit, and the engine refitted, something I may be able to do in the next couple of days. The heater will go back in btw, we just need to see how far we can bump in the tunnel. We weighed the engine and also weighed a B series engine for comparison, equipping the two as similarly as was practical, weighing the BBB two different ways for verification. The BBB weight with iron heads and intake, rocker covers, front cover and water pump but without carb, distributor, pulleys, flywheel, starter, filter, or oil was 501.5 to 502 lbs. The B engine had no valve cover but did have the distributor, old style oil filter, oil hoses, fan, and had oil but was 1-1/2 qt low. Like this it weighed 305 lbs including the intake, heat shield and phenolic spacers. We felt this was close enough to conclude that the iron 430 adds 200 lbs to the front of the car, and anyone who would like to be more exact could easily weigh the individual components or oil themselves. At any rate the car sits remarkably level with the engine in place, and if we do manage to get aluminum heads and intake, dropping perhaps 60-80 lbs it puts us very close to the weight of a 302 swap. My scales showed a difference of 5 lbs less on the BBB so that shows me they are reasonably close for general usage. We are getting pretty close to being ready to ship the engine off to Dale Spooner. One or two more times in and out of the engine bay and I have some phone calls to make. At the same time Allen is making plans to ship us a 455 so the most likely outcome is that once it is here we'll pick which pieces to ship to Dale and use the others for fitting. Meanwhile, we have had our first cash contribution, left for us by the preacher who had owned the GT and found by Steve while dismantling the interior. There is now a grand total of $2.23 in the kitty. We will add to that without a doubt. For one thing, Pete declined the trade of the old hood for the fiberglass one so we have a perfectly good aluminum hood that we can sell for money to put towards parts or shipping that aren't covered otherwise, and we will no doubt find other parts we can do that with as well. So in reality a donation of good parts that we really don't exactly need for the car is still a way to help fund the project. Everyone has been pretty generous so far and I'd just like to remind everyone that this isn't my project, it is your project, and when it is finished those who have donated to it will be part owners of it and entitled to take it to their local shows. I'm doing what I can to make that happen, and I'll try this week to contact the secretary of state and get the organizational steps moving. In the meantime, thanks for your support, photos below. Jim Also, the caster wheels came in for the stands I plan to modify to use as a rotisserie so except for a bit of steel and possibly a rotating mechanism I think we have what we need for that. I also have a photo or two of Pete and his family but need to get his permission before posting those. [/SIZE]
Engine mounts Guys, I need some help on engine mounts. The stock BBB mounts won't fit in the space available, the stock MGB mounting pads had to be cut away to make room, and the stock BBB mount location is well forward of the crossmember. Is there any sort of a mount available that would work in this situation without going to a complete custom unit of some sort? Thanks, Jim
OK, I got some good suggestions from the MGE board on the motor mounts and it looks like some variation of a plate mount attaching to the front of the heads is going to get the nod. In the meantime I've cut away the extra starter bulge from the bellhousing, done some slight bumping around the footwell, removed the steering rack and moved the motor down and back to 1/4" from the firewall. The stock hood closes nicely on it now with plenty of clearance over the valvecovers. Relocating the steering rack is a fairly common mod so not a real big deal. Photos to follow. Pete is the guy in front. Jim
Valve covers fit, but what are you thinking for the carb on top? My vote is for a Stage 2 scoop... maybe mix a little more Buford in there :grin:
Well, nobody has donated a star wars air cleaner yet so no decision has been made. If we put a hole in the hood it will be the steel one, and if not we'll use the aluminum hood as it already fits properly and is a good bit lighter. Jim
CAD: cardboard aided design. verrr-ay nice! that's how we do it in Kazakhstan. :TU::TU: have you given any thought to a serpentine conversion? or have we been over that already?
Hadn't given it much thought, but AC would work well in a GT. Btw, what's the shortest water pump available? Jim
Re: Motor mount templates Great minds think alike. I used the same technique building a torque strap bracket.:TU: :TU:
Electric For belt driven pumps, there are two. Short is 67-70, some 71. Long is some 71-76. You've got the short one on the 430
OK, here's another idea. Shock pads for a semi. Good isolation, no torque link needed, easily installed. Not so sure about load capacity though. Jim
OK, here's another idea. Shock pads for a semi. o No: if you're really serious, you can just fab solid mounts and deal with the extra vibration....
Could I guess, but that hardly seems right for a car that is intended to be a driver. So I did a little testing. I was able to load the bushings with 320 lbs and took a photo of the compression. Based on appearance this is probably a bit less than the amount they are compressed then mounted on the semi, so squish-out over a long period doesn't seem like it would be a factor. I think these bushings will do the trick. Just for comparison, I had some left over hockey pucks with a 5/8" center hole that I had used when I did the body lift on my Travelall so I put that under the shock bushing. As you can see from the photos there was no discernible compression of the hockey puck, indicating that they would be too stiff. Might cut down the OD some, but why go to the trouble? Anyway, on to the photos: Although it's hard to see the deflection of the shock bushing in these photos, it does squish down a little, just enough to suggest that it would give a good cushioning effect. Guess it's time to get on with making the hard parts. Jim
Hey guys, I'm sorry if progress has seemed slow the last couple of weeks. I'm just one guy and we don't yet have a schedule in place for those of you that want to come and help. Maybe I'm a better fabricator than an organizer, but I'm hoping to remedy that problem right now. But first an update. I've made some progress on the motor mounts, and have photos to attach. The upper brackets and cushions are done but the lower plates still need to be cut and welded into the frame rails. The transmission mount can wait until Carl brings the transmission. This gets us close enough that once the lower plates are tacked into place and the mounting bosses located the engine can go out to Dale Spooner for the engine work. I will make sure that this gets done before the next scheduled work weekend so that we can concentrate on the body of the car and the rotisserie and get set up to do the work that needs to be done while we are waiting on the engine to come back. Anyway, the tentative schedule for scheduled work weekends is going to be the last weekend of each month. That way we can all plan for it and have a regular get together for those who can make it, starting with June, so that'd be the 30th and the 1st of July. Hopefully that won't be too close to the 4th to cause any trouble. We can probably juggle between the last and 4th weekend to accommodate events and such. Anyway it gives us something to work with that we can count on. So far the only photos of progress have been the ones that have been posted here and on the MGE forum and there has been no video taping done at all. I don't know if there will be either but if someone wants to come just to hang out and tape without having to deal with the mechanicals that would probably be a good thing and might allow us to have a video record of some sort once we are finished. Whether or not it would ever be good enough to market a tape or anything like that is debatable and I'm not altogether sure going in that direction is even a good idea, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to have the option. I'm more of a nuts-n-bolts kind of guy though so I'm not going to push for that, since I'll be more concerned with getting the project finished than with documenting it. However, if when we get near completion we do have tape, my brother is interested in editing it so that angle would be covered if we want to do that. There is a good deal of interest in the project. We have over 3000 hits this far on this thread and the MGE thread has about 50% more posts so it's possible they could have around 4500 hits over there, and we're not even really that far into the project. I'd hesitate to predict what it'll be by the time we finish, but it seems pretty likely we could break 20,000 total. Jim
The motor mounts are done except for some welding of the lower pieces. The motor is positioned 1/4" above the crossmember, forward of the firewall, and below the tunnel. I may have to do a little more bumping to the side but that's minor. Next are the header ports in the inner fenders and after that the steering. Then we can start in on the engine. Jim
