69gmachine
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Posts posted by 69gmachine
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Question for our friends down under: Does the falcon AUII-BA use the same wheel bolt pattern as American cars (5x4.5) or is it metric? I'm looking for a source of oversize rotors that would bolt on with no modifications. If not, are there any older Fords that used the 5x4.5 pattern?
Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
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What ignition are you running? If the ignition isn't working right, you will never get it to idle properly. Assuming you have the original Autolite distributor, you may or may not have the 10L/13L reluctor. There are several other combinations that give much more advance, so you need to be careful about dialing in too much initial advance.
I don't know much about the FE engines, perhaps they all had the desirable 10L/13L reluctor, but I would make sure before I cranked in more than 10 degrees initial. Also, is the distributor original or rebuilt? The cheap rebuilders throw any reluctor in they have available, so it could have come from anywhere.
If you haven't already, I would convert to electronic ignition. It's such a big improvement in reliability and performance, it has to be one of the top 3 changes to make an old car safe and reliable (front disc brakes and brighter lights the other 2).
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Moving the arm back will give you more caster, which may be beneficial depending on how you plan to use your car as it will track straighter while increasing the effort to turn, but also provides camber gain in a turn that goes away when the wheel is centered. It can also provide more clearance for a larger tire in a turn so long as it doesn't move too far back. I moved the top back by adjusting my arms out in the front, but of course I don't have stock upper arms.
The only down side to this mod is that it will weaken the shock tower slightly. That may not be an issue again depending on how you intend to use the car. There are a few ways to mitigate that;
1) use coil overs that mount to the lower control arm to reduce the lever effect on the shock tower.
2) use an upper control arm with the drop built in like the ones I have or that Total Control has rather than drill another set of holes.
3) lighten the weight of the front end, especially weight above the cam center line (and forward of the wheel centerline for better handling overall).
Unless you actually race your car in something like autocross, you probably won't stress the shock tower enough to matter, but the weight on the front end will also effect the stress; more weight = more stress.
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That's incredible! Congrats.
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I think the problem with the wheels is that they are simply too big. Scaling everything up made the dog dish center way too big to look proportional to the rest of the car. I'm guessing the fronts are 19 and the rears are 20". If they had only blown them up to 17s it would probably look much better.
As someone else mentioned, I'd bet they did get the whole car for much less than a Dyancorn shell, but given how much fabrication they were planning to do, they only needed to purchase individual panels, not a complete chassis. They could have saved time not cutting and instead just start by putting modified pieces together.
It's not a terrible looking car, it just doesn't look enough like a '69 to destroy a real one.
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My lights have flickered off and back on a few times, but so far we're doing pretty good down here. Wind gusts have hit 52 mph already but hopefully that's as bad as it gets.
Stay safe all.
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Huh? Taking shots at me? I just put the flex fan as last on my list. It's last for a reason not because I'm putting them down dude. They use more fuel than a clutch fan because they are always pulling and not free wheeling when not needed. And above 30 or so mph they don't pull any more air through the radiator than what is already passing through due to your forward speed. BruceNot taking shots at all, just stating my recent experience. Like myself, the OP has a 408 and TKO. This is not a grocery getter combo. At some point he's likely to either take it to the drag strip, open track it or autocross to get some return on his investment. A heavy clutch on the end of the water pump is likely to cause problems when he starts to rev it.
Yes all the potential benefits of the clutch are as you stated, but with a 408 you won't feel any loss in power because you have a fixed fan and any improvement in gas mileage is inconsequetial. The downside (losing a day at the track) far outweighs any benefit IMO.
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Which Wilwood brake package do you have?
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I had the same idea but never acted on it. One thing that would make this attractive even to those of us who own a good assortment of tools and a garage is the specialty tools the average gear head won't have like a lift.
With a lift, a compressor and a welder you can do a lot of jobs yourself. I agree that you need to offer different time packages for different projects and maybe even different rates for specialty bays like a front end alignment bay. I would start small, 4 bays max and see how that went before committing to a huge amount of overhead with 6 bays. Like any business location will be key. You need to be in a fairly affluent area with enough population to support a specialty business like this.
Best of luck with this idea!
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If you just plan to cruise around, the fan clutch is fine, but I would avoid it if you plan to race at all. Flex-a-lite makes a reverse rotation fan that doesn't use a clutch and is rated to 10,000 rpm. I don't know why Bruce is down on them, but my experience is they cool just as well as a clutch fan and can handle high RPMS no problem.
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If you find someone who makes/sells lexan for our cars I'd be interested also.
Are you just planning on open track events or is there a particular class you're trying to compete in? Given your mods, SCCA Autocross C Prepared has a minimum weight of 3000 lbs for cars over 5.1 liters (310 cubic inches) with an additional 50 lb penalty if your wheels are more than 16" diameter and another 50 lbs if they're over 10" wide (for a total of 100 lbs if both are over).
I'm planning to compete in C Prepared next year so there's no point in dropping below 3050 anyway as I run 17x9s now and may use 18x10s next year.
Here in the mid atlantic area everyone runs Hoosier A6s in all but the showroom stock classes that don't allow them.
This was my first year to attempt racing and I have a real street car, not a gutted race car. It didn't really matter as I was just trying to get my car sorted out and learn as much as I could.
Some observations I made this year:
P315 Hoosier A6s can hold well over 1.3 gs on a 3000 lb car. This is almost exclusively what everyone runs here in this class.
1.3 gs on a 3000 lb car can break things like the top of the strut tower on a car that doesn't have a strut tower brace, or the center section right out of a chineese made American Muscle knock off wheel.
IMO It's better to learn on tires that don't stick quite that well. I like the Toyo Proxes which are super sticky compared to a regular street tire but have enough tread to provide some feedback so you know when you're approaching the margin. Hoosiers stick like glue and then suddenly let go without so much as a squeal. They're also expensive.
On cars that are down on power (say less than 300 in this class), rotating weight becomes very important. You may go faster with a light weight 16" wheel than you would with a heavier 18" wheel.
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I did my own j car rack installation as well. See my cardomain site for pictures in my sig below.
In addition to the r&p I designed the entire front suspension steering and brakes using the Wilwood spindle. I can fit 275s on a 17x9 wheel in the stock front fender without spacers. I also have a turn rate and radius on par with a new Mustang. Of course there's no need for such a large front tire on the street, but you can't have too much tire for autocross.
Jimjific will be posting pics soon of a hybrid installation using many of my parts for his rack install (I think in the project progress forum).
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It's been years since I tried the Edelbrock, but I don't think the factory breather will sit down on it properly... it's too wide. If you're happy with a 600, I would chose between the new Summit vacuum secondary street/strip carb or the Autolite 4100 that it's derived from. Both have annular primaries which give them great throttle response and mileage.
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You can also make a pair of guide pins by cutting the heads off a pair of bolts. I use them for a standard trans, but same principle. It's easier to slide the trans on a solid shank rather than all thread.
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I was using an original 6 blade flex fan from a '69 cougar with an aftermarket thermostatic clutch. It never came apart, but when I tried to race, it vibrated so bad the water pump bolts would come loose causing the water pump to loose its seal and leak somewhere.
I replaced it with a straight spacer and a 6 blade flex-a-lite fan made specifically for racing and balanced to 8K rpm. It solved my vibration problem and cools just as effectively as the clutch set up did.
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Thanks.I hope to maybe try to race next year. Right now, with just a two barrel 302 that I don't have the history on hooked up to a C4, I probably wouldn't be that competitive. Although it might be kind of cool to have a baseline. I'd like to build a roller 347 w/5spd over the winter. We'll see how winter goes.
Jim
If you come across a decent aftermarket 4 bbl intake, I will "sponsor" your car with a loaner Autolite 4100. I used it on my 351 with excellent results. It just wasn't big enough for my 408. Autox doesn't require tons of power; braking and turning are at least as important as power. Besides, it's just plain fun even if you're not competitive.
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Nice work Jim. After all these mods I do hope you get a chance to take it out and race it at least once.
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As long as the shaker is getting manifold vacuum, it's not the "wrong" line. If you're trying to use the factory color coding, the line that goes to the shaker is supposed to have a blue stripe.
Look to see where the metal line that goes down the passenger side originates. My guess is that it's the hot air supply for the factory choke and is attached to the exhaust manifold.
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Did you use the same style as original or something else? Just curious.
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Wonderful! Hope you'll be cruising the streets soon.
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I really like my red interior. I had to dye/paint the dash, the dash end caps, the side bolsters on the aftermarket seats and the wind lace caps. Everything else I was able to buy new in red. I even bought new deluxe red door panels from one of the vendors (can't remeber which one now).
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After driving around for a while, I've come to really like my "OIL AJAR" light. This morning as I was heading off to work the light stayed on even after I shut my door hard. So I reached over and opened and shut the passenger door. Light went out just like it should. It will light up if the door is latched but not closed solid, just like it will on any modern car. I just need to have a new jewell made that says "DOOR" instead of "OIL".
One of the other mods I did didn't work out quite as well as intended; That is the relay I added to shut off the headlights when the key is removed. The problem is, it isn't connected to the tail lights, so it will still drain the battery if I forget to kill the lights, just not quite as fast.
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The vacuum line in the picture is too large to be the AC hot water valve control line. You should have a ported vacuum switch in the water inlet at the front of the intake. The line that provides vacuum to the switch has a red stripe (if original) and plugs into the bottom nipple at the switch and the fitting at the rear of the intake as in your picture. There should be another line from the carb to the switch with a yellow stripe (to top nipple), and one from the vacuum advance with a green stripe (middle nipple).
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Now that there's funny I don't care who you are.
That reminds me of a night when I was driving home to Dallas from College Station on I-45 at 2:00AM. Back then the national speed limit was still 55. That's a long straight stretch of road, and rather desolate at night.
I had a ragged looking Winter Blue M code fastback with a 5.0 liter and 5 speed I took out of a wrecked Fox body. Whenever I went over 70 MPH, the speedometer would lay over just exactly like your picture. All I knew for sure is that I was going over 70.
When I topped a slight hill I could see I was gaining on a couple of slower cars at an alarming rate, so I slowed down and fell in behind them. They were going exactly 55. I just couldn't take it, so I decided to pass them. A car was coming up from behind in the fast lane, so I decided I would get in behind him.
After going around the slower cars I pulled back into the RH lane. The car in front slowed down. Then he fell in behind me and flipped his lights and siren on. He had been chasing me for miles.
He clocked me doing 98. After determining I had no warrants or priors, he gave me a man's name and address and told me if I sent a money order for $200 (a lot of money in 1980) in less than 10 days, it wouldn't go on my record. I did, and he kept his word. Love those corrupt small Texas towns.
need some advice.. initial tunning. anyone local in CA?
in 1969-70 Technical Forum
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OK, I would set initial at 10 to run regular gas, 12 max. You may need mid grade or better to prevent knocking with that much dialed in. I would also change out one of the springs to bring the total in a little sooner (like 2500), so go one step lighter on one of them.
Although we don't know what ignition box you're running, it's obviously electronic as the 71000 uses the same style mag pick up as a Duraspark distributor, so I will assume it's not contributing to the problem.
Have you already checked for vacuum leaks? How about the set screw Bruce mentioned? Have you put a vacuum gauge on the timed port to see if it is pulling vacuum when the throttle is closed? There may be an internal problem with the carb passages allowing too much vacuum on the timed port.
Let us know what you've found after following the troubleshooting steps given previously.