The path less traveled: 1978 Turbo I6 Futura (The Gila Monster)

[Mike1157]

Would those tilted wings in the front extremities of the oil pan possibly prevent oil that rests there from being circulated? Just seems like contaminants might sit there instead of being picked up and filtered. Come to think of it, those corners might be a good place to put a couple of small magnets.

Good idea,...I'm in the business that has just the right little magnets too. Consider it done.

[brianj]

Great work, by the way. I usually do not comment if I do not have anything to add- but I am following this build.

[Mike1157]

Thanks to all for the support, and words of encouragement.

[Mike1157]

Well another Saturday, another nose and set of eyes full of black metallic dust.

:banana:


Seems Saturday is my day of freedom to attempt to get enough done to even talk about Saturday night. While it don't look like much, I think I can say that I did make progress.

I finished the Exhaust header. I'm gonna take it to my friend that will blast it for me, and I'm gonna try the new 2000 degree VHT cast iron paint. It has to be heat cured to be fully capable of withstanding the temps a turbo will subject it to, I got another friend w/ a big assed oven that I'll be able to use to do that.


On one hand I think it looks goofy as hell, on the other, I think it'll look pretty decent when it gets blasted, and gets a coat of paint on it. What do you guys think?

The rest of the day I spent sitting, and standing in the engine compartment.


The big hole is round, it just looks egg shaped in the pic. The air intake will stick through that hole, the cold side exits through the little one.
I still got some final grinding to finish the holes to perfect round.

And it'll come back in through this hole, after the a2w I/C.

I do have a question though...Do you guys weld the plates that sit on top of the frame rail completely, or just stitch it every couple of inches?

I also finish the wound that I made in the side of my trans tunnel to allow the 4R70w shift linkage enough clearance w/o worry of it hitting the floor. Now there is no chance that that'll happen. Problem is I have a whole bunch of sh it piled in the interior, and I didn't want to unload it to take a pic.....so you'll just have to take my word for it.

[brianj]

Header looks good- form follows function, as they say.

[flyboy60]

Wow, how did i miss this - great build

[bridgener]

That header looks great. They always look better on inline sixes, nice and symmetrical.

[Silver83]

Futuras are so COOL! I plan on building one myself one day. I can't wait to see this thing done.

[super4ord]

Hey Mike,
I'm watching your build on this thread and on the fordsix forum too. Keep up the great work! Glad to see the head put to good use. Like I said before, it would have been about 4 cars down the line for me, and I ain't gettin' no younger! Keep this exciting project going!!! I don't post much here, but I sure have done a lot of reading over the years. (Yes, my join date and number of posts is correct!)
Darrell

[rab]

love this build, just yesterday i posted on your thread on the turboforums.

[Mike1157]

Header looks good- form follows function, as they say.

Thanks Brian

Wow, how did i miss this - great build

That header looks great. They always look better on inline sixes, nice and symmetrical.

Thanks guys

Futuras are so COOL! I plan on building one myself one day. I can't wait to see this thing done.

I think it's the best BS the Fairmont/Zephyr came in, and I've had 6 of them so far. I plan on really going all out w/ this one.

Hey Mike,
I'm watching your build on this thread and on the fordsix forum too. Keep up the great work! Glad to see the head put to good use. Like I said before, it would have been about 4 cars down the line for me, and I ain't gettin' no younger! Keep this exciting project going!!! I don't post much here, but I sure have done a lot of reading over the years. (Yes, my join date and number of posts is correct!)
Darrell

Hey D.
I think that I shoulda posted this thread in the turbo section over there, where it's at, most seem more interested in how to get a 1bbl carb to idle dead steady.
(obviously, I don't care about dead steady idle quality)
P.S. Don't happen to know where I can get a valve cover do you?

love this build, just yesterday i posted on your thread on the turboforums.

Thanks.

[Mike1157]

More stuff:

It's funny how my "plan", and reality are so far apart. I expected to get a whole bunch of stuff done today, but after spending the entire day down there feel I have little to show for it.

The plan was to mock the rear end up using the old stock control arms, to be sure that it was properly located. Once that was done I intended to build the upper and lower shock mounts, and finish the wheel tubs after that.

Ha!

I did get the rear end located.
Starting on the driver side, I "eyeballed" where I wanted to hang the shock, and marked the frame rail. The shock needed to be moved inboard to the extent that I was gonna have to notch the frame rail.
I just happened to have some 3.5" .125 wall tubing from some other past project, and decided to cut it in half, and use it to build a tunnel in the frame.


The tunnel ended up being so deep, that it compromised the integrity of the frame rail. I used the other half of the tubing to build a backer, to restore the section I cut out.



I still plan on fabbing some additional "out riggers" made out of .125" plate, and weld them to the inner semi-circle, to add additional width to the frame rail. I'll add one in front, and one in back. When done, it should just look like a bend in the frame there.
I bought single adjustable aluminum QA-1's. The adjustment knob has 18 positions. I've used these shocks on two other cars, including the last fox mustang. This time I opted for the street shock. The only real difference is how it's bushed. The race shocks, use a heim type end, these use some sort of hard rubber to house the eye for the bolt. The shock is supposed to be installed at a "ride height" of 13.75." Locating the bottom mount in the stock location would require that I lean the shock in pretty dramatically, and I did not want to do that. Instead, I built a lower shock mount inboard of the stock location.

[Mike1157]

I built a 3/16" end cap, and welded the short piece of 1.25" .125 wall tubing to a piece of plate I welded on top of the frame rail. I added a front support that is welded to the frame rail. I know that there is now significant added stress at that mount point due to it becoming a part of the support system for the rear of the vehicle. When the tub is re-installed, I intend to add additional reinforcement after that.
After I got it all welded up, I assembled the shock, and mounted the shock.



Then I loaded the chassis (as much as you can load a completely stripped chassis)


This is all I got done. I worked on it from 9 AM till 5 PM to get to this point.

Oh,....I did manage to do one, other, thing................

hand slipped up the angle grinder while I was cutting some of the stuff today. Cut has to be 1/16 deep. Because it was a cutoff wheel, the cut actually self cauterized, and didn't bleed.

Weird.
The upper shock mount will have a boxed cover built on top of it, then attached to the side of the inner wheel tub. I hope to make it as "factory looking" and as lease intrusive as possible, but I have to get the other side done before I can cover it, to make the other side as close to this one as possible.
And that'll have to be another day.

[Mike1157]

I'm making my own torque box re-inforcement. I've done several drag cars before, so I kinda followed the same plan on this car. Some may consider it overkill, considering that I could've just bought battle boxes, and bolted in the reinforcement,.......but that woul've cost money,...and I have the plate here,.......and I can weld,....so why spend a dime?

I started by locating the spot welds above the lower torque box, and completely cut the upper sheetmetal out.

I made a plate then bolted it to the side of the now exposed inner torque box.

(if you notice, the hole is smaller, than the hole above, and the plate in the pic above is welded, and in this one it ain't.......I thought better of trying to do all of this through a small hole, and cut it bigger)
I welded the plate around its perimeter. ( real pain in the ass,....dirty galvanized metal, and a poor weld angle make for an aggravating experience) **Make sure that you clean the weld surface as thoroughly as possible to minimize throwing things.
Once it was welded, I plated the top w/ 1/8" plate.

The notch, is the plate sticking through, so I can weld it into the plate as well.


I completely welded the underside of the torquebox where it attached to the frame and floor. Again, even though I try to prepare my weld surfaces as thoroughly as possible, the years of dirt, grease, under coating that managed to get into the seams between the two weld surfaces make for a real hard to weld experience. Couple that to the fact that the car was 2' in the air, and I was layinmg on my back, welding upside down, and you can get an idea why you'll just have to take my word for the welds under the car.

[82GTforME]

Oh,....I did manage to do one, other, thing................

hand slipped up the angle grinder while I was cutting some of the stuff today. Cut has to be 1/16 deep. Because it was a cutoff wheel, the cut actually self cauterized, and didn't bleed.

Working in an industrial shop, having experienced this myself once (worse) and seeing it a couple of times be very careful of infection. Minute fragments of metal and bits of grinding dust or stone may be imbedded in there. Guard and handle on?

Nice build and a lot of quality work going into it. What was the other site you belong to that was mentioned? Fordsix? Never heard of it, but one of our cars has a V6 so there be some useful info about the Cologne engine.

[mustangxtreme]

Mike, I have a concern with how much frame rail is left after you clearanced for the shock. Even with your addition, there looks to only be about 3/4" thickness left. IMHO a larger tube or perhaps adding some flat stock from the top of the tube to the frame rail should add back the strength you have lost.



Awesome build by the way. I love the roads less traveled.

[Mike1157]

Well Dave , that is what I intend to do as stated above. I just need to know how to add that draw line detail to illustrate my thoughts

[mustangxtreme]

I would use one piece of steel to tie in the sides of the frame rail and then cap them as you did with the tube. As for adding lines to pictures, you can use most graphics editing programs to do that. If you are running Windows, paint will work. Open the pic you want. Do a "save as (new name)" so you don't ruin the original and start playing.

[IDMooseMan]

Just finished reading the entire thread. I'm amazed and in awe of your skill and talent. As mentioned earlier, I didn't feel like you were being rude, either. That thought never crossed my mind while reading your posts. The processes you're doing, showing, and explaining make me feel like I'm a kid looking into the candy factory, all the while knowing there's no way for me to access the goodies inside. Once the process is complete, I'll be able to enjoy the candy (your car) more, but until then, all I can do is watch.

[Mike1157]

This was what I was talking about. Exactly the same as your drawing, only attached to the tunnel as opposed to just a bent piece of plate w/ a bottom. I think it'll be the strongest possible version of the reinforcement, and, it may actually be overkill, but better overkill than under built.


P.S. thanks for the editing tip. Had I known that it would be so easy, I would've never left anything vague in the first place. Too bad for everybody else, I'll be a drawing fool in the future.

[Mike1157]

Just finished reading the entire thread. I'm amazed and in awe of your skill and talent. As mentioned earlier, I didn't feel like you were being rude, either. That thought never crossed my mind while reading your posts. The processes you're doing, showing, and explaining make me feel like I'm a kid looking into the candy factory, all the while knowing there's no way for me to access the goodies inside. Once the process is complete, I'll be able to enjoy the candy (your car) more, but until then, all I can do is watch.

Thanks. That's good to know. I can be an ass, but I typically hold off on that until after people get to know me better. I gotta admit, that I looked back at all of the prior posts I had made before your reply to be sure that I didn't come off as a "know-it-all". I like to share my progress, and update because I believe that I have something to offer the folks out there trying to learn how I did something. There'll be tons more updates as I go along.
This car will be even more involved than the previous, and the previous fox got me a feature in 5.0.
http://www.mustang50magazine.com/fea...d/viewall.html

[mustangxtreme]

P.S. thanks for the editing tip. Had I known that it would be so easy, I would've never left anything vague in the first place. Too bad for everybody else, I'll be a drawing fool in the future.

My pleasure.

[whyidontknow]

Can't wait for a video of this running!

[fairmont city]

Thanks, I was wondering if anybody cared about the build at all. Guess it's just you, me, and bridgener. The X flow head I found was by pure luck, had I not had a guy from The ford six forum "offer" the head to me, I'd be modifying the log head I had machined before that. They're out there, but the conversion ain't cheap, requires a fair amount of machine work, and you basically butcher the block to get it to work. But in the end, the HP/TQ numbers I'm looking for require that I have it. I'm looking for 450 RWHP, and a 550 RWTQ curve that'll start at about 2500 RPM and remain there until 5700 when I shift.

love your car/build will be watching closely. What led me to this build is info on non ford ign/fuel injection on oddball 6 cyl builds such as yours and possibly mine (1984 ltd with 2001/04 3.8 ) .

[Mike1157]

Can't wait for a video of this running!

Hell, I can't wait till I can just get back in the garage just to work on the damn thing. A running vid is so far off it's like Fantasy Island. ("Th plane! Th plane!")