BuckeyeDemon

thanks for the positive feedback. the accelerator linkage was certainly one of the items to be addressed during this process. when i first posted on this site about doing this last year, i was expecting to have to cut a channel for the linkage. it turns out that everything worked out ok. i've spent the last couple days cleaning up a few items with the shaker, radiator, linkage's, etc, before i pull everything back out and continue fitting up the fenders. of course the original bracket didn't work with this mechanical carb. i had to bend it and make a new end to clear the accelerator pump. there is quite a bit of clearance for the cable and bracket. i believe i had responded to moteaux a few weeks ago about doing a 1 1/4" drop base with the concern of the throttle linkage possibly interfering. without the angle i put in the base, the bracket would have come very close to hitting. if a person were to put an 1/8" bend in the bracket it would probably clear. even at WOT there is plenty of clearance. i had asked Pro-Systems when they built the carb if i could get the original holley finish because i'm trying to minimize how far i stray from looking original. they wouldn't do it. turns out like you have recognized, you can't see the carb anyways!

well, i can finally say that a shaker is going to fit with a victor jr. this is aK&N 7/8" drop base. this is exactly the same as the 1 1/4" drop base with the only difference being the neck length. i'm using the 7/8" because i wanted to trim it down to the height I need. i cut the entire neck off the drop base. while mocking the shaker up, i determined the angle and neck length. i inserted the neck back thru the hole and tacked it into position. i had to dig for any space i could to make this thing fit. the victor jr. is a flat intake, thus the front of the air cleaner will want to rise in the air at an angle equal to the engine angle. by angling the air cleaner down, it allows more space in the shaker base. i then trimmed the excess off the top and welded it shut. since i lowered and angled the base as much as possible, the front float adjuster interfered with the base. this was a fair trade because i probably picked up somewhere in excess of 1/2" of filter height. here you can see the result drop and angle. after a lot of work the shaker base has been trued up and is ready to get the air cleaner base into position. after carefully aligning everything on the car, i made an L-shaped round piece of metal to attach the base to the air cleaner base. this was time consuming because the air cleaner base sits at an angle with the shaker base. i made some little brackets to properly position the shaker base on the carburetor. there is still a couple of things to clean up but it's 95% there.

4" stroke cranks are available for windsors and clevelands.

i had to add more clearance to the shaker base for the distributor and wires. i made a couple cuts so i could flex the original metal into the approximate shape for clearance i used a shaping hammer on a shot bag in combination with a shrinker to shape a piece of steel

as mentioned, i have been working on trying to squeeze a shaker under the hood with the Victor Jr. intake and the 351W. here are a couple pictures. i still have to weld up the drop base to the shaker base and do some clean up work, add some clearance to the distributor, etc.... inside this is a 14" X 2.813" round filter. i think the stock was something like a 13.3 X 2.2? because the base was originally for a 428CJ, i wanted to added the lip to make it look more like a 351W shaker base. So i had to raise the lip up a little. i formed a piece of 3/16" solid tube into a circle and welded this the entire way around the base. the midplate will rest against this. i think cut a piece of 20 awg steel. folded the edge on once side and bent an angle on the other side, then used a shrinker/stretcher to form it into a circle. this detail consumed about 10 hours of work for me. i then welded it around the base.

a 408 is simply a 4" stroke with a 4.030" bore. i'll be starting with a 351 windsor block

lakewood muscle mounts have sold. i still have the original brackets and motor mounts available.

i would have preferred a shifter with positive stops in the shifter itself instead of the transmission, but i couldn't find anything with those types of features and low profile. with the stock tremec shifter, i couldn't even get the boot to bolt down to the tunnel bracket. revhead, out of curiosity, what motor/rear gear are you using?

toploader is sold.

i'm an electrical design engineer developing hi-rel electronics for satellites, launch vehicles, etc. i have no formal training on the car stuff. however, i've been around it my whole life. so most of what i post are just my experiences. which in many cases i hope can help others in their projects by learning from the mistakes i make. with the car in the current configuration, i don't plan on checking the additional angles any time soon. nor do i plan on moving the engine/transmission at all in the future. with the headers, clutch linkage and shaker, it would be a tremendous amount of work to alter later. i will check the angle once the car is built and sitting back on the wheels weighted down. then i will make the necessary pinion angle change. that is one reason i wanted to try and keep the engine angle as close to original as possible because of the other two unknowns. the mods i did made a nominal 0.25 to 0.50 degree change. however the engine and transmission did drop at least 0.5" that also has an effect on the rest of the angles. i made an assumption (right or wrong) that the tailshaft sits just a little higher than the pinion. thus lowering would only have a positive effect on the working angle of the universal. i only had to notch the floor support. the ron morris drops helped alot in my opinion. consider a tko600 instead of the 500. i don't think the price difference was that much (in the big picture).

not my thing, but i really thing they did a good job with it.

sent PM

i watched my buddy install one in his chevy. it appeared pretty straightforward. it made noise while turning. he didn't drag the car, so i can't speak of it's ultimate strength.

i personally wanted the clunking sound of the locker...

i personally HATE automatics! the extra labor was worth it too me!

detroit locker w/31 spline axles.

i did not have my fenders installed. i installed and aligned the doors before removing the quarters as reference. i also spent a lot of time fitting the quarter before welding. however, i'm an electrical engineer, not an experienced bodyman!

i had my quarter on and off what seemed like 20 times. i played around with it trying to figure out the same thing. i used a lot of clamps and sheet metal screws to first figure out how to get it aligned and the order of how i would screw/clamp it down and the order of welding. i wrote notes on my quarter as a plan of attack on how i was going to weld it. i can't really offer the best way for you to do it since they are probably all different. however, i do recall one of the first welds was the quarter to rear window filler panel. for whatever reason i had to work to get this to pull together. be cautious with my advice since i only have experience at replacing two quarter panels...

i have read on other forums that 69 351W cars many times didn't have any badges (351) on the shaker and may have been a running change during production. out of curiosity, what is the code on the block and/or build date/assembly plant of your car.

the last few months have been spent on fitting some of the driveline. as mentioned this is a 351W car with TFS high port heads. The one complaint about these heads is the raised exhaust ports (3/4"). I have a set FPA 1 3/4" stepped long tubes. i expected clearance problems, so i ordered them uncoated. they have excellent clearance to the chassis. however one tube was hitting the oil pan both on the mounting flange and the side of the pan. this was NOT because of the raised port heads. one of the tubes just really seemed to go where it shouldn't have. i will count this as the one strike on the FPA's. because of the shaker and a victor Jr. intake that sits considerably higher, i decided to drop the motor using ron morris drop mounts. i didn't want to do this because of the potential dominoe effect, but i'm trying to squeeze every 1/10" i can get. i also decided now was the time to convert to a 5-speed. i spent several days reading trying to determine how much modification would be required. i've read many posts concerning driveline angles, many of which i don't necessarily agree with. this is a TKO 600. the bellhousing is for the early toploaders. i used the spacer plate because of the longer input shaft. i have a little concern about this spacer because it seems to fit a little sloppy. if i were to do it again, i would have ordered a shortened input shaft version. that would have shifted the trannsmission forward 0.675". This would have reduced the amount cutout of the floor support and reduced the needed offset of the crossmember. i'm not a fan of the aftermarket swap crossmembers. i wanted the liberty to make something similar to a stock piece while allowing me to position it where i wanted. finished crossmember. it has an offset of 1.5" and is made from 10 gauge steel. this stupid thing took me two days to build! here is the final fit. FPA's tuck under the car nicely here is one of the trouble spots. i had to cutout the support. i will box the support in once the car is back on the rotisserie for the final time prior to getting topcoated. as mentioned early, i could have cut 5/8" less if i would have used the short input shaft version. there is probably 5/8" to 3/4" of clearance here. the tight spot exists about 10" forward. there is currently about 1/8" of space right where the floor pan meets the firewall (overlap area). I'm going to have to cut a slit, hammer it out a little and then reweld to get about 1/4" of clearance. after everything was bolted down in the final config (including engine drop mounts), the driveline angle for reference is around 2.75-3 degrees. before the mods i recorded a measurement of 2.5". this mod has added about 0.25-0.5 degrees. i'm showing the measurement on the carb plate of the intake. the victor jr. carb plate is level (not angled like most other intakes). this measurement was to take a before and after. this does not represent the actual driveline angle for two reasons: 1. the car is not level (rockers measure about 0.5 degrees. 2. there can be error in the degree meter (mine was off 3 degrees, so i had to open it and shift the paper). the key angles are driveline to driveshaft, driveshaft to pinion and driveline to pinion difference. i have no idea what angle my driveshaft is. thus another reason why i tried to minimize the added angle. generally i read that you want less than 3 degrees of driveline to driveshaft angle (not engine angle with no reference). another reason was the shaker. dropping the tailshaft was going to make it even more difficult to fit the shaker under the hood. i read many times about people who say there fan is sticking up in the air at a severe angle because of this swap. not the case here. it's tough to see any angle for the fan to radiator. i think dropping the engine 0.5" made a huge difference. this is a Griffin radiator. it was supposed to fit in original saddle type mounts. it does sort of. it is a little thicker, so i had to grind less than 1/8" from the rubber isolators at the top. in addition it must be overal thicker. i had to re fabricate part of the lower mounts (make them wider and move them towards the motor 1/2") and add about 1/2" to the top saddle support so that it wasn't touching the radiator support. in addition, because of the dropped engine, the fan was almost hitting the shroud at the bottom. i trimmed about 1/4" from the edge of the fan blades to achieve about 1/2" of clearance. more of the dominoe effect. the engine crossmember had to be notched. because of the 1/2" drop and the larger oil pan. i'm also having a little clearance issue with this Canton 7-qt pan and the steering center link. it is hitting the one side of the pan about 1/4". i'm hoping that once everything is bolted up (steering) that it won't be a problem. if it is, i have a plan. with two of the exhaust tubes completely relocated already and the engine moved around, the z-bar setup was having big problems. first i converted everything to heim joints. this are simply 1/2" female threaded, teflon coated, stainless heim joints. i cut and threaded a 1/2" rod (had to put a slight bend in it). the studs that the heim joints mount to are simply 1/2" grade 8 bolts with the heads turned down to give them a cleaner look. you can see here that the z-bar no longer attached to the block, but a mount on the backside of the bellhousing. i also had to make a new bracket that mounts to the frame rail. i completely cut the bottom arm off the z-bar and made my own. i added a little rod to strengthen it for good measure. also added a grease fitting. because the shifter hole isn't centered, i ordered a low profile shifter from Modern Driveline. I asked for a 1" left offset, so they built one up for me. (fyi, he was willing to make any offset combination i wanted). the low profile shifter allowed me not to have to cut anything out of the shifter opening. of course, i ended up cutting the stub off the shifter. i made a plate and threaded it so i could mount a 69 shift handle. finishing up the shaker base pan is the last item and everything will be finished mocking up.

69 small block motor mounts and brackets. the original motor mounts are in good condition. the black mounts in the photo are lakewood muscle mounts. PN# 24094 The lakewood mounts look very similar to the originals. However, internally they are interlocked to prevent and motor coming loose. I paid $50 for the pair. I wanted a stronger set of mounts that looked factory. However, I needed to drop the engine 0.5" so I can't use these. I would return them to the distrubutor for a refund, but i did have them installed while mocking up the motor, so i didn't feel right about returning them. $30 for the lakewood mounts. $40 for the original motor mounts and brackets. will ship for extra.

sold!

the cam wasn't for a stock 351w. as mentioned when Fox Lake was setting up the motor for me it was for 351 cubes their heads and a victor intake. i believe they told me it was originally a small block chevy circle track grind that they had comp cam put on a 351w firing order. factory crank, lightweight pistons, and beam polished truck rods (truck rods with centered wrist pins without the oiling holes). they told me they expected 450 hp. maybe they were conservative. this cam has a 22 lash so the duration is a couple of degrees less in reality. i have the pushrods, triple springs, retainers and keepers as well for this setup for a couple of dollars extra. the springs, retainers and keepers are installed on the heads now (never run). i would advertise these also but the problem is i don't have part numbers for these items. they were installed by Fox Lake also.

rear valance. i'm sure you could weld it solid. to much of a deviation from stock on the exterior for me. i spent a couple hours on the rear valance to get the fit right. with all the metal that was replaced, i can't necessarily say the valance was bad. here is the fit after some work.

thanks for the comments on the subframe connectors. that was a labor intensive process, but indeed wanted something that looked like what the factory would have designed. trunk lid. yep, mine was sticking up in the middle. i did litteraly put the lid on the floor and jump up and down on the side to flex it flat. because the lid didn't have the skin welded, it flexed quite easily. i still had to do a lot of hammer and dollie work to the edge to get it true. the lid was so flimsy that it would loose it's shape when i would open and shut it. after welding it was much more solid. i also tack glued a new piece of weatherstrip in to make sure the fit was right with the weatherstrip. i didn't want any surprises after paint. i buy 1/8 flux coated arc weld rod. i chip off the flux (then media blast or wire wheel to get the remaining residue off). i tack weld the rod down the edge. i completely weld both sides using small tacks, cooling after each tack with compressed air or a damp cloth. i grind the the surfaces flat. i skim coat the panels when all the metal work is complete. i do have to grind the edges down because in many causes the 1/8 rod is too much. i use a d/a to get a slight radius when it's done.