1966 Ford Mustang, Ford 3.7L v6 Cyclone Swap

And the crossmember is finished, aside from paint. I also moved the rack mounts inboard in preperation for the shortenening the rack. To complee this little side project I am actually just waiting on machine work. In particular, I need to get the correct ball joint reamer for the spindles, and need to dissasemble the rack(machine shop wont take the liability understandably) so I can get the rack gear shortened. Unfortunately it takes a special tool that I will likely have to make, some odd type of spanner wrench that I am assuming looks like a grinder arbor wrench.

I went ahead and bought a 7 degree reamer from Speedway. It was pretty simple to set the spindle up on my drill press and ream the ball joint holes out.  It took more time in setup for each hole than it did to do the job.

Next up was narrowing the rack housing to move the pivot points for the inner tie rods inwards....needed to prevent bump-steer with the rack mounted below the stock-type LCA. I would narrow the steering gear shaft itself if I had any way to actually re-thread the thing...but that will have to be farmed out to a machine shop(what I would give for a lathe)

Once reamed out, the spindles fit just like the factory did....except being front-steer instead of rear-steer...and being 3/4" shorter....ok, ok, they fit nothing like the factory...but they fit none the less.

Oops? Maybe I shouldn't have chosen the 2" drop spindle and insead should have opted for the standard height spindle? Even with the coilovers full-out I am at this ride height without an engine in the car. It will squat another 1" or so once I put the engine and trans back in. Ah well, I have a couple of potential solutions lined up...but its a mistake that cost me some money.

Thank god for Minilites...the scalloped spoke just clears the caliper by about 1/4" or less. I am sure some wheels would have issues. On the bright side...the lug nuts that didn't fit the old studs fit the studs in the new hub great.

The real world strikes again! There is a definite limit to just how low I can drop the rod-end to counteract bump-steer. Hopefully it will be enough...also, alignments are going to be a real PITA if I can't find the correctly threaded left-hand adjuster for a 9/16 thread....almost every one out there is for 1/2" or 5/8". Having to remove the wheel for every toe adjustment with just right hand thread connections is going to be a nightmare....heres hoping google will help me find what I need.

Finished up the 2nd side before I realized that the rotors are on the wrong side of the car....uggh, I hate directional cross drilled and slotted rotors...really wish they had just sent me a solid rotor instead. Will flip them next time I have the car in the air.

Speaking of the next time the car is in the air, I have to put in the crossmember then as well. I didn't want to fool with it today since it involves removing the LCA bolts and some likely to be PITA alignment headaches.

Wicked93gs said:

 

Next up was narrowing the rack housing to move the pivot points for the inner tie rods inwards....needed to prevent bump-steer with the rack mounted below the stock-type LCA. I would narrow the steering gear shaft itself if I had any way to actually re-thread the thing...but that will have to be farmed out to a machine shop(what I would give for a lathe)

Looking at shortening a rack myself. I was thinking for the rack, I might cut out a section as you did on the housing, then drill and tap the rack to secure it together. I would think an 1/2" threaded length with the rack screwed togather would be stiff enough.

Or am I crazy? A distint possibility...

In reply to twentyover :

I suppose you could do in that way, sleeve it and drill/tap it together(assuming you find a sleeve that fits around the outside diameter nicely and that you seal it against dust it would would for a manual rack but not a power rack). Its not a structural member for most cars after all. just be aware that there probably isn't a lot of room between the housing and the rack gear, so bolt length would definitely be critical. In the end though, if you have a welder, its just simpler and faster to weld it.

Got the modified crossmember installed today with the #2 camber kit plates(roughly 0.5" negative as the starting point, though from the looks of things I may end up with a #3 on one side and a #2 on the other). The camber plates allow using shims on the UCA only for fine-tuning rather than stacking a ton of them.(yes my UCAs are adjustable...but considering you want the UCAs to be the same length, that doesn't do much for fine-tuning alignment).

I have been playing with the idea of using Steeda offset aluminum rack bushings:

They will allow for fine-tuning rack height(more bumpsteer adjustability is always good)...and being solid, less deflection at the cost of marginally more NVH. Honestly, I doubt the NVH would change much at all, since the rubber bushings have a metal sleeve that transmits vibration from the mounting bolts to the crossmember anyway when you tighten the bolts

Wicked93gs said:

In reply to twentyover :

I suppose you could do in that way, sleeve it and drill/tap it together(assuming you find a sleeve that fits around the outside diameter nicely and that you seal it against dust it would would for a manual rack but not a power rack). Its not a structural member for most cars after all. just be aware that there probably isn't a lot of room between the housing and the rack gear, so bolt length would definitely be critical. In the end though, if you have a welder, its just simpler and faster to weld it.

Was referring to the rack itself, not the housing

In reply to twentyover :

I don't see how that would work. On a manual rack I guess it would be theoretically possible since the driver's side of the housing doesn't have a seal you might be able to get a sleeved shaft in there if the sleeve was a small enough outside diameter...but it still boils down to the same thing...its easier to shorten the gear by welding. Just bevel it down to about 5/16" and build the shaft up again with weld. Keeping it straight might be a bit challenging, but using a piece of angle iron and welding around the diameter as you go would keep the distortion to a minimum. People do it with axle shafts after all...something like a rack gear would be easier than that...in fact cut and welding the gear is how power-steering guys generally shorten their gears since they have internal seals on the shaft they can't just cut and re-thread the end like us manual rack guys.

So...the tie rod end needs to drop down a whopping 4.5" in comparison to the spindle(I swapped the drop-spindle for the non-drop version here). What a conundrum...that is way more than your typical bump steer kit, so what to do? Well, my soultion was to make a supplemental lower steering arm that will prevent flex on such a long bump-steer stud:

Good old posterboard to make a template and help visualize.

For the arm itself, I needed 2 bends. Yes, I could have heated up this 3/8 bar stock and bent it...but I needed a crisper bend for what I am doing...so I relief cut it and bent the remaining metal almost to the breaking point(hot rolled steel so it takes welding better)

Backfill the opened up side with weld.

Test fit to make sure my angles are looking good.

Back-cut it here to located the lower flat underneath the stud.

Set up and weld the 2 bracket pieces together.

Locate the center of the stud on the flat(I used a straight edge down the threads of the stud, then moved them in 5/16" of an inch because it was a 5/8 bolt seemed to work great)

Test fit the basic bracket.

Get rid of all excess material not doing anything.

Voila! Lower supplemental steering arm(I also gusseted these though I didnt get a pic of that) These things are beefy enough to do the job even without the main steering arm...but I can rest easy since in reality its just a reinforcement bracket to prevent flex under hard cornering.

And a basic visualization of how it connects to the rack.

All in all about 10 hours of work for 2 brackets...never fails to amaze me how a few pictures make it seem like its so much faster than it really is.

The shortened steering rack re-assembled.

Fitment pics of the rack and tie rod fitment. So this side of the front-steer conversion is complete. All that remains is to connect the steering-column side of things. All in all I should end up with a shorter turning radius, solve all the engine swap fitment issues the rear steer was causing, and still come in at 3 turns lock-to-lock for manual steering. At some point I may retrofit a power steering rack in and de-power it for fewer turns lock-to-lock...and then use an EPAS unit to power it from under the dash, but shortening a power rack gear is a bit more complex, so its future project.

Looks good!

I have tech inspected a number of cars with similar challenges vs steering arms, and I think your solution is neat. One thing I have learnt is that it is often useful to check for flex, by having someone turn or rock the steering wheel and looking at all parts in the front end (car on wheels of course). We have even strapped some planks the wheels to give extra force input - hold the plank or wedge it against something to make turning the wheels even harder.

Gustaf

therealpinto said:

Looks good!

I have tech inspected a number of cars with similar challenges vs steering arms, and I think your solution is neat. One thing I have learnt is that it is often useful to check for flex, by having someone turn or rock the steering wheel and looking at all parts in the front end (car on wheels of course). We have even strapped some planks the wheels to give extra force input - hold the plank or wedge it against something to make turning the wheels even harder.

Gustaf

Thanks, I will test it out at some point here.

The particular bearing I am using has a collar its pressed into(its some type of router arbor I think) So I rosette welded the collar to the tube, after cutting soe 4.5" off the column tube(the original mustang steering shaft connected directly to the old steering box)

Then I cut a slot into the end of the tube to access the shaft retaining collar set screw(have to make sure the steering shaft stays in place inside the column)

Did a bit of paint touch up on the assembled column...which was stupid in retrospect since I still have to weld on the firewall lower column mount...but whatever.

A quick picture of the steering linkage fit. I tacked on the lower column mount here(ignore the wacky bolt angles, I have to do some work on the holes in the firewall so I can make that right). I also have another u-joint and more double-D shaft if I end up needing to re-route the intermediate shaft a little. I did after all bring the pinon gear inboard 2" over the typical MII install when I shortened the rack by 4", so other possible interference is as of yet unknown.

On a different note....for manual steering there is almost zero effort when I tested this setup...but as a grain of salt the drivetrain is not yet installed...but I don't predict that steering effort will be bad with this setup regardless. I also took the opportunity to measure toe with the suspension at full droop with the car in the air and on the ground(roughly 1.5" inches suspension travel without the drivetrain in there) and found zero change in tow in that range of travel...not even 1/16", so that bodes well for the setup having little to no bump-steer.

Hopefully tomorrow I will finish this up. I still have some offset delrin steering rack bushings to install, as well as a few other things to do, but so far it looks like this little side project was a success

Set the engine back in the car after finishing the front-steer swap and putting a rear-sump pan back on.

My offset rack bushings ate up all the space I would otherwise be able to use to drop the engine...oh well, too bad, so sad I guess.

So I decided to re-make my frame-side engine mount plates...for the 3rd time:

This drawing was originally meant for adjustable mounts for a SBF. Good enough for a starting point for me.

I found the shape of the old mounts to have some nasty stress risers with the corner cuts being 90 degrees. I actually found some cracks! Old design had to go.

A few hours of messing around in the garage later and I had some nice functional side-to-side adjustable plates. Now I just need to remove the engine-side plates and modify them to become slotted as well to give me the same fore/aft adjustability.

good to see the TOE-SHA approved footwear in the shop!

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :

Heh, I grew up half feral by today's standards, if it weren't for the fact I am always producing metal shards I might not wear footwear of any type at home.

In reply to Wicked93gs :

I should have read through this thread before embarking on my own custom intake journey.

I might have missed it in here, but where did you get your bell mouths / trumpets for your intake?

Nukem said:

In reply to Wicked93gs :

I should have read through this thread before embarking on my own custom intake journey.

I might have missed it in here, but where did you get your bell mouths / trumpets for your intake?

Same as the rest of the system aside from the TB themselves, I made them(and the TBs have welded on flanges). I did everything except the actual welding myself(not good enough with a TIG to weld thin-wall aluminum to the thicker flanges without melting everything). The TB setup is changing again in an effort to gain an additional 2" of hood clearance shortly.

As far as the bellmouths themselves, they are a combination of some ebay bellmouths sold by some guy who cuts them from billet and welded to a v-band clamp from silicone intakes(the idea behind it is that changing the length of the intake tract is as simple as swapping one bellmouth for a longer one)

In reply to Wicked93gs :

Amazing stuff.

Thanks!

More motor mount plate nonsense, block-side this time, starting with my old plates:

So yesterday I finished re-engineering the transmission crossmember to maximize room and actually put it directly under the trans mount isntead of offset like using the factory floor support holes required. Also, I couldn't use the factory floor support holes if I wanted side-to-side adjustability as well as front-to-back...which I did, so I drilled and tapped into my subframe connectors to mount it:

We will ignore the ugly welds here since it gets stuck under the car. It was actually a bit of challenge since its flat stock that spans 30" to remove as much flex as possible. At this point it only flexes 1/16" or so if I suspend it from the ends and stand in the middle...so I deem that acceptable.. I weigh more than the trans+whatever portion of engine weight the trans mount holds so I deem the flex test involved close enough to reality to pass muster. Not like I can think of many other ways to reinforce it further anyway and retain all the adjustability I want...maybe a bolt on extra brace that runs under the exhaust?

I gave in. I got a set of Jenvey ITBs. This should solve the hood clearance issue. Now I just need a set of LS1/LS3 or other super short injectors to pull the fuel rails down. Even after I build some airboxes I suspect it will fit under the stock hood. Worst case scenario a low profile 2" cowl hood will do the trick. Of course I do also have to do some black magic in regards to the water pipe since this kit looks like it was built for a FWD 3.7L, but I will figure that out later.

Can the TBs be flipped, or would they just jam up against the valve covers?

Also, I'm jealous.

Nice.  That will look and sound fantastic!  

I also grafted together the '66 Mustang back seat bottom frame and the '73 Capri seat frame. Swapping in the '73 Capri rear seat to match the front seats. Its really not that difficult. Not that I will ever carry many people around back there, but they deserve a seating upgrade from the factory Mustang slab as well. A few modifications here and there, but aside from the lower frame graft its all pretty easy stuff I have to do.

Nukem said:

Can the TBs be flipped, or would they just jam up against the valve covers?

Also, I'm jealous.

They won't touch the valve covers...but they also don't allow enough room for injectors between the valve covers and the TBs if flipped. I looked at that as well.