Herman's Factory Five Racing 65' Roadster Build Site

JULY 2006

7/1/2006 - Today was a productive day. As mentioned before, due to new block and crank, one should be mindful of the bellhousing alignment. Using the dowels from CHP, I registered the following starting points:

12-O'clock: 0.000"
9-O'clock : -.001"
6-O'clock: -.006"
3-O'clock: - .071"

After over an hour of work before I remembered I have to TORQUE the bolts, I basically started over again!!! But now it only took another 20 minutes to dial it in; the final numbers:

12-O'clock: 0.000"
9-O'clock: -.004-.005"
6-O'clock: +.001 - .002"
3-O'clock: -.004-.005"

Keep in mind Lakewood specifies a total runout of .005" and Ford indicates a .015" runout. Personally, I like to run it a bit tighter and I've managed to just make Lakewoods spec. The reason for the "spread" on a couple of the measurements was due to a inexpensive dial indicator. Taking several measurements yielded delta's but they were consistent delta's (if that makes any sense) but as noted, within Lakewood specs.

After the alignment, I reinstalled the clutch., paying attention to the friction plate to ensure the correct side faces the "engine". Finally torqued the housing bolts to 80ft.-lbs.

I mentioned a few days ago I had used some timing tape since the balancer is using a 2-O'clock timing position. Here's a picture of the timing tape from Summit Racing:

7/3/2006 - Yesterday the T5 went back onto the Lakewood housing. Next was the old-big moment of putting the engine in. I must say that after doing this a few times before, this has been the fastest this motor's gone in. About 30 minutes and it was done. Torqued all the motor mount bolts/nuts and reinstalled the driveshaftcalled before calling it a day (first 1/2 of the day was spent with family.)

Today, I filled the tranny with fluid and put the shifter back on and began reattaching the various hoses, cables, and wires to the motor. Re-filled the T5 with fluid and bolted down the shifter as well as the transmission poly mount. Headers are now bolted on, and will get to the carburator tonight; I bought a phenolic spacer from Holley, about 1/2", and should help to keep the gas from boiling. If I have time, I'll get the radiator installed and associated hoses clamped down. :)

I'm slightly nervous about this from a "leaking" issue. I know I did well the first time and I'm pretty sure I did an adaquate job the second time but you never know about these things; keeping fingers double crossed for tomorrow!

7/4/2006 - Happy Indepdendence Day! And there is much to celebrate - "SNKVNNM" was started for the first time ... again! Howver, it's with the new CHP 347 stroker motor! This motor was smooth and started like it was just another day. I am much happier with this motor and there is much to report.

The morning started off with some final things such as checking the gaps on the plugs again, torquing them into place, and then installed the side pipes, set the inital static timing at 12 deg. BTDC, filled up the radiator with fluids, checked fuel pressure and for leaks. My neighbor and I did a final round of brake bleeding to ensure we've done what we can with the spongy feeling that still prevails. After a final check, we started up the new CHP-347 stroker for the first time and it was an immediate success! Just a couple of cranks was all it took. We began adjusting timing first and static timing got us close; at idle, we adjusted the distributor a bit more and registered about 13 deg. at about 700RPM. My friend did some additional idle mixutres on both sides. It's probably still a bit rich but it was good enough to get the car going.

The biggest difference of this motor v.s. the old was the lack of vibration. This thing was steady as you could expect for a V8. I could actualy read the fuel pressuge gauge on the fuel log; it was rock steady, despite the lopey idle of the cam. And at speed (well, up to 2k), it remained just as smooth!

I took it around a couple of blocks and completed probably a good 30 minutes of runtime on the motor by the end of the session. One of the things I paid particular attention to was the oil pressure. With the "standard" volume oil pump, I was getting 50 psi at idle and hit just a bit over 60psi during a 2K run. Unlike the old motor which dipped below 20psi, this one never went down. I'm so happy I listedn to the guy's on FFCobra.com! Also during the go-around the block, I hit 3rd gear and pressed the pedal only slightly more to get it to 2,000RPM and was simply SHOVED into my seat! Took me a bit by surprised so I let off rather quickly but man, I can't wait for when I hit 5-6K!

Cooling. What can I say but I have absolutely no problems. I filled it like I've done old 60's/70's cars in the past and it just went humming along. When the temperature reached 195 deg., the water temp sensor switch kicked on and the dual Ron Davis radiator fans went like gang busters until it went to about 170-175ish and then it shut off. I also tested my manual override switch as well. When the motor cooled, it sucked maybe about 2" of water out of my Billett Specialties tank and there was still air in the system which allowed me to add in about less than a quart of "Water Wetter" and some more water. Then I realized I did not open up the heater hose so tomorrows final run will be with the heater open and an air filter. I might have to raise the idle a tad due to the restriction of the filter. Then I'll bring it in for an oil and filter change. I think I'll run it around the block again a few more times after the oil change if I have time! Might be rather late but we'll see.

As for the "seat-of-the-pants" evaluation, all I can say is this thing is going to haul some serious ass once I can gather the guts to push it past 3K, but since I can't really do that legally anywhere, it'll have to wait until I get the bod back from SRP.

By the way, the brakes aren't quite what I wanted but it's adaquate and seems to pull down the car to a stop. I have to believe part of me just needs to get used to manual brakes. I don't know if I adaquately bedded the pads (new Hawk HPS pads). I'll have to get used to this setup to see. Maybe I just simply need to get the pads warmed up for more effective braking.

Oh, as per the FFCobra.com credo, I have proof that all of this happened. I've downloaded a couple of videos to go with this!

Part I, Part II

7/6/2006 - Despite wanting to really fire up the motor and take another go-kart around the block, the other side of my brain told me that paint will soon be coming so I decided to remove the seat belts and seats and begin the insulation installation. I had obtained a free role of insulation material from a GT40 builder, Dave Harris, up in Northern California (Santa Rosa vicinity) was very generous in offering me the roll after a failed attempt to get the insulation straight from the company. Thanks Dave!!!

Primary focus is the rear wall area where Ken Pike has indicated that if I do no other section, do the rear wall so that is what I'm working on but I will have very limited time; basically tonight and maybe on the 12th after my camping trip. Then I'm off on vacation again. Next viable opportunity will be the 19th-21st, unless Ken has me pick up the body on the 29th, then I have another week. Here's what I've done so far:

7/12/2006 - Just got back from camping and in the mail, I received my UPR billet pointer to replace my now defunct hand-made pointer. Note I'm in the 10 o'clock position; the pointer was designed for both 10 or 11 O'clock but I waste a bit of the aluminum since this is the only viable position I have. Had I bought the UPR pointer in advance, I could have positioned it in the 11-12 O'clock position and then laid down the timing tape. But it's on now and it looks pretty good.

I've also continued with some more insulation; I finished up the rear "wings" and lower areas to complete the entire rear wall aluminum. I've now started on the driver side and hope next week when I get back from my vacation (part II) that I can finish up at least the driver side as planned, before having to go to SRP to have the body installed. The driver side is much more involved so I feel I need to get at least that part done with carpet.

On another subject, I was running the engine on Friday and forgot to turn off the battery at the kill switch. So it's been running the gauges and MSD for the last 4 days until the Optima battery was drained! I'm doing a 2Amp charge in hopes that it will get the battery charged enough where I can run the engine next week. I should have my hands full next weekend with insulation, carpeting the driver side, draining oil (have now put in a good 30 minutes of running the motor with a few minutes of it on go-kart/load.) and hope to do an extensive go-kart to charge the battery!!!

7/29/2006 - It's been a couple of weeks since my last entry due to a Mexico trip and the historical heat wave that's gripped California when I returned. It wasn't until probably Tueday or Wednesday of this week that we finally had "bearable" weather to allow me to resume working on the FFR. I continued with the insulation.

Friday I had used my VW Passat to charge my nearly dead battery. Since the battery was drastically below what the trickle charge could overcome, the VW became the charger. After almost 30 minutes of charge time, my battery was now at 11+v. Today, the trickle charger had no problems topping off the system to 12v.

From Wednesday to today, I've slowly been adding on insulation and carperting. At this point, the large rear cockpit wall has been completed, the driver side rear wall pieces ( 2 pc.) has been completed, the driver floor and 75% of it's footbox has been completed. The driver side "under-door" aluminum has not been added because I believe you need to put the bulb seal on it and install it with the body on to ensure a good fit. So the underdoor aluminum panels are not carpeted at this time. Overall, not a bad day.

7/31/2006 - I'm ending the month with more progress on the interior carpet. Today, I made good progress by installing the transmission tunnel carpet along with 2/3 of the passenger side footbox. I had almost run out of the 3M #90 Heavy Duty adheasive. While it does a decent job on the surfaces, it's expensive at about $13 a can, and there are some areas on the aluminum panels that are hard for the spray can to reach. I decided to get some outdoor carpet tape and attempt to finish up the remaining carpet with this material. It seems to hold fairly decently. Time will tell if I made a good decision or not but I'm getting tired of the fumes and mess and excruciating positioning needed before applying the carpet to the aluminum with contact adheasive on both sides. Especially behind frame members in the foot box!!!

As you can see in the photo, I'm nearly done. Only one major panel is left, the center verticle panel above the transmission tunnel, under the dash. This piece has the larger panels for both the driver and passenger side that flank the transmission. Once this has been completed. The underdoor carpet is the last pieces but since I did not position the under door aluminum when the body was on the first time, I must wait until the "painted" body comes back for a final fit of the aluminum and bulb seal, and then I can carpet both sides.