A couple of weeks ago, I printed up the engine parts pictures that I posted here last month and took them to Aldridge Motorsport. Denny was busy so I gave them and my phone number to the office manager (aka Mrs. Aldridge).
A week or so later, Denny called me and we set up an appointment to talk about the engine. After an hour of questions and a few real answers, we agreed on what would be done and the price.
He has an engine in the dyno room to finish, another in the engine room to finish and then dyno, so in about two weeks I'll be taking him my parts and pieces. (Hurrah!) Should take him about a month. He only assembles engines that he wants to and does it on Tuesday and Thursday evenings with zero interruptions. He encourages customers to come by and take pictures and post them on the web.
In the meantime, with enthusiasm renewed, it's back to work:
First problem is that the rudimentary engine mounts using Thunderbird Turbocoupe pieces that I threw together in April 2012 wouldn't work at all, the TC mounts intersected the Barnes dry sump pump. So out came a generic small block Ford mount from Chassis Engineering (the street rod folks in Iowa, not the race car people) that had been sitting for several years along with some mid-80s 4-cylinder Mustang mounts that someone had made into solid mounts. After a bunch of whacking and hacking:
It actually sits a little further forward than the picture seems to show.
Then out comes the old (stock) engine that made it easy to back out of the garage (uphill).
In goes the new mount (narrowed about 18"), shown in "full" mock-up.
The tube is notched in the lower rear to fit against the lower crossmember and it is snug against the frame rails. The crank centerline is about an inch higher that the "stock" engine that was removed, but I'm going to have to modify steering mounts, and I'd like to keep it as high as possible.
Bonneville: I'm going to take Rick's advice and use the (low-horsepower
) turbo(s) that I have now, use the low-buck ECU setup (PiMP from Stinger Performance) that I now have, and make it to Speedweek if at all possible.
More later.
Mike
