My new 1970 M-Code Mach 1 Project

[RPM 1,190]

Outstanding work Rich.

[MorganLeBlanc 52]

Very nice job Rich. 

[Rich Ackermann 174]

3 hours ago, RPM said:

Outstanding work Rich.

Thanks.

[Rich Ackermann 174]

2 hours ago, MorganLeBlanc said:

Very nice job Rich. 

Thank you.

[Vicfreg 771]

Rich, nice work!

Where did your source your shaker air cleaner assembly from?   

[Rich Ackermann 174]

11 hours ago, Vicfreg said:

Rich, nice work!

Where did your source your shaker air cleaner assembly from?   

Hi Vicfreg, 

I bought the individual parts from Scott Drake. The parts are all steel. He offers kits base on engine type, but I with my Edelbrock Air Gap those kits would not work for me.

I used a 2" x 14" air filter and a 14" spectra filter lid with a recessed center for the wing nut. I confirmed that the lid clears for flapper mechanism.

On another note, did you finish your led lights in the headlight buckets?

 

[EastYorkStang 63]

On my shaker flapper plate there are two mounting holes. Second one is about an inch back from the one on yours.

[Rich Ackermann 174]

48 minutes ago, EastYorkStang said:

On my shaker flapper plate there are two mounting holes. Second one is about an inch back from the one on yours.

Hi,

I think original flapper plates had two holes on each side as you describe. Mine a is Scott Drake repro and only came with hole on each side.

Thanks

[Rich Ackermann 174]

Finally installed the rebuilt Cleveland. I had some clearance worries, but once I installed the Tremec TKO 600, which I had MDL machine the top covers on the TKO to provide more clearance on top to better match the stock alignment, my valve cover was no longer in contact with the brake booster....What a relief. Also my Sanderson Block Hugger shorty exhaust headers cleared everything, including the obnoxiously large GM style steering box I got from CPP. The next test was to install the shaker stack on top of my taller than stock Edelbrock Air Gap intake and hope it it fits under the hood. I used a (repro) 428 shaker base which is about 3/4" lower in height than a Cleveland base. First I had to re-clock the base to align the concaved area with the distributor. This turned the base from a 6:00 position on the 428 to about 7-8:00 o'clock on my Cleveland. With the Shaker stack in place, the height of the shaker scoop was perfect with the hood closed. Apparently the Cleveland sit farther back in the engine bay than the 428, so I needed to shift the plenum and scoop assembly forward on the base to fit thru the hood hole. Once I had it positioned and clocked correctly, I drilled new holes in the plenum for the mounting studs on the base. The most difficult part was fabricating two crescent shaped sheet metal filler pieces to close up the gaps between the base and plenum created as a result of shifting the base forward. these filler pieces were attached to the front and back between the base and the plenum. This created an offset ring on top of the base in a way like the factory Cleveland base has. Finally, I made a bracket to bolt to the back of the base to an existing mounting hole on the back of the Edelbrock intake to ensure the whole thing can not rotate on the carburetor since it is held only by the center stud thru the air cleaner lid. No clearance issues with my Holley Sniper EFI, or the Hyperspark Distributor. or with the throttle cable, which I had to add a small plate to the stock throttle bracket to extend it to align better with he Holley throttle linkage. I fabricated a mounting plate and mounted the Hyperspark Coil to the Edelbrock intake under the air cleaner base.

Installed the front end components... Four row copper radiator, Aftermarket six blade fan, Alternator, Sanden Compressor, Saginaw P/S pump with a Ford factory A/C mounted cooler. I fabricated the top plate over the Sanden compressor to mimic the mounting locations used on the factory York Compressor and mount the P/S cooler and Idler pulley bracket to it, just as it was from the factory York. 

I had to fabricate the P/S pump bracket and spacers to properly mount the Saginaw pump. This took a lot of time tweaking it until it was aligned with the water pump and crank pulleys.

 

Here are some pictures....

 

 

 

[Rich Ackermann 174]

Made a rookie mistake! I had a no start issue after wiring up my Sniper EFI with a Hyperspark Distributor, Ignition Box, and Coil on my 1970 Mustang with a 351 Cleveland, and I thought it  I would post it hoping it might help others who experience a similar issue. I had my Cleveland rebuilt and my engine builder and he installed the EFI set up and ran the engine and then disassembled the EFI components and wiring before I received it. I installed it back in my car and wired the Sniper and Hyperspark components. I wanted to keep the wires neat, so I re-pinned some of the plugs and trim and lengthened some of the wires on everything but the Sniper itself. Before I go any further, let me describe the wire harness for the Hyperspark Distributor... The Distributor harness starts with a three-pin plug for the... 1) Red/Pink 12v ignition, 2) (center) Purple +, and 3) Green - crank wires. On the other end of the harness, the pink 12v is a single loose wire and the green and purple are pinned to the two-pin square plug to connect to the Holley Sniper. In the process of making the wire mods, I noticed that the two-pin square plug for the Positive Purple Crank and Negative Green Crank wires coming from the distributor were reversed (green to purple and purple to green) when plugged into the Sniper two-pin crank plug counterpart. I checked the Holley documentation that I received with all the components and nowhere did it mention that it is normal for the purple and green wires to be reversed when plugged in to the sniper EFI. The complete wiring diagram did not have the wire colors for these two wires. The Holley documentation did say to use the harness that comes with the distributor, but that was all it said. So I thought this must be a manufacturing mistake, and I re-pinned the wires to match purple to purple and green to green. WHAT A MISTAKE! For days I tried to diagnose my "STALLED" problem undoing all my wiring and tearing my hair out in the process. Even with Holley tech's help, we could not figure out why my Sniper was indicating the engine was stalled and was not getting a crank signal. Long story short... I was at a loss and ready to ship the Sniper to Holley for testing under the warranty, when I was going back thru some pictures I had saved and saw a sales picture for the Hyperspark Distributor, and in the picture I noticed that the wire harness shows the purple and green wires were also reversed in the plug. I went back and re-pinned those wires back to purple to green and green to purple and the dam engine started right up! So, DO NOT make the same mistake I made! 

Holley should provide a better explanation and tell the installer that these wires are intentionally reversed and do not change them.

[RPM 1,190]

Not sure if I'd call that a rookie mistake. Why color code wires if they're not consistent?

[smh00n 87]

I have a Sniper but with MSD Pro-billet. Wiring that one component caused me more hassle than the entire carb/tank/wiring process.

Holley really need a better instruction writer, as I found their instructions wrong too. Sniper instructions said wire this way, MSD said wire that way. Can't remember the answer now but I'm sure the MSD instructions were right and Holley wrong.

You'll like the Sniper, just works when wired right. Cold starts are like a new car, no hesitation at all. Heck, all starts are like a new car :)

[Rich Ackermann 174]

17 hours ago, RPM said:

Not sure if I'd call that a rookie mistake. Why color code wires if they're not consistent?

RPM,

I should have called Holley tech and questioned it before assuming it was wrong. It would have saved me a lot of time and hair. Hair at my age I can't afford to loose....lol! ...For future reference.....

[Grabber70Mach 107]

That is looking great congrats on the milestone.  A couple of questions, 1. The upper radiator inlet going into the block isn't a stock style one.  Do you know where/what it came off of? 2. More details pictures on the bracket you made for mounting the coil? Thanks. 

[Rich Ackermann 174]

14 hours ago, Grabber70Mach said:

That is looking great congrats on the milestone.  A couple of questions, 1. The upper radiator inlet going into the block isn't a stock style one.  Do you know where/what it came off of? 2. More details pictures on the bracket you made for mounting the coil? Thanks. 

Good catch! If I recall, the water neck with the ports is from a 70s 351M or 400ci truck engine. They are getting hard to find. I watch for them on eBay and swap meets.

I'll dig up some pics of the Hyperspark bracket. 

[Grabber70Mach 107]

Thanks 

[Rich Ackermann 174]

On 7/23/2021 at 8:41 PM, Grabber70Mach said:

Thanks 

These are the only pics I can find of the Hyperspark coil bracket I made to mount it to the Edelbrock Air Gap intake. Unfortunately I don't have any pic when I was making it or the dimensions. My goal was to keep the coil horizontal and below the air cleaner base.

Looking the coil and bracket from the front of the engine  between the distributor and the Sanden AC compressor.

[Rich Ackermann 174]

A Project progress update....

Well, it's been more than 3 years since I bought the 1970 Calypso Coral Mach 1 M code with Vermillion Red interior and it's almost done. The Cleveland was stroked to 408ci with a Tremec 5spd, Eaton TrueTrac with 3.70 gears. Four-wheel disc brakes with Global West Front Suspension. Holley Sniper EFI and Holley Hyperspark Ignition. Lots of other mods.. Still needs the interior door panels and windshield installed.  I can't wait to drive it, but I still need to bleed the brakes again, Bleed the Hydraulic Clutch, take it in for a wheel alignment, and some exhaust pipe work. Then I can get it inspected and drive it. I'll post a walk-around video next.... hope you like it.

Still needs door panels and windshield and molding...

Here is the switch for the power windows and the toggle switch for the remote power side view mirrors. I mounted them in the center console where they are accessible to both the drive and passenger to avoid putting holes for them in the door panels.

The fold down rear seat with a pair of Kicker 8" sub woofers mounted in the trap door panel.

I was able to install a 17" x 9" rim with a Nitto 45 x 245 size tire in the trunk even with a fold down rear seat trap door panel. This spare wheel matches my front wheels and is a bit smaller than my rear wheels. I did it by relocating the hold down loop. First I sweeeezzzed the wheel in to the trunk where I wanted it, and then I placed the hold down bar thru the dust cap hole in the spare and marked where to weld the hold down loop to the trunk floor. The space is so tight, that I have to release the latch on the trap door when putting the wheel in, or taking it out, but once the wheel is completely in or out I can latch trap door again. Here is a pic of it....

Below is a walk-around video.... 

[Rich Ackermann 174]

[Rich Ackermann 174]

On 7/21/2021 at 2:10 AM, smh00n said:

I have a Sniper but with MSD Pro-billet. Wiring that one component caused me more hassle than the entire carb/tank/wiring process.

Holley really need a better instruction writer, as I found their instructions wrong too. Sniper instructions said wire this way, MSD said wire that way. Can't remember the answer now but I'm sure the MSD instructions were right and Holley wrong.

You'll like the Sniper, just works when wired right. Cold starts are like a new car, no hesitation at all. Heck, all starts are like a new car :)

You are spot on. Now that everything is installed correctly. It starts right up every time.

[Mike65 475]

WOW Rick your mustang looks great!.

[Rich Ackermann 174]

On 9/8/2021 at 4:09 PM, Mike65 said:

WOW Rick your mustang looks great!.

Thanks!

[EastYorkStang 63]

Very cool. Ever thought of getting the dash and console wrapped with red leather ?

[Rich Ackermann 174]

3 hours ago, EastYorkStang said:

Very cool. Ever thought of getting the dash and console wrapped with red leather ?

I like the black carpet, dash, console, and rear fold down. I think those parts in black contrast nicely against the red seats.

Thanks

[Rich Ackermann 174]

Well, took her out for a drive. First time she move3d under her own power since 1983, when the P.O parked it. My wife snapped a few pics of it as I left the drive for a quick trip around the block...Still no windshield, but nothing too strenuous. Still needs and alignment and some muffler work and a DMV inspection....

After I parked it in the driveway, I came out later to put her in the garage and saw her illuminated under the evening sky and had to snap one more picture... Just love that Calypso Coral color!