Mustang Sally Restoration: Short assembled!!!

 Big hassle averted! After the last blog, pops followed up with Reynolds Machine and here is the result: The machine shop did not pay attention to the number stamped on the factory rods. But, simply moving the left side piston-rod combo to the right and vice versa solves the issue. Apparently this is a standard process for machine shops to not care about the rod stamped #, but to set up 4 piston-rod combos one way and 4 the other way. This way the chamfered side of the rod faces the radius on the crank journal. So, as long as the piston to bore clearance stays the same and balance is the same, they are fine to be assembled like this. So, as you can see, dad wrote new numbers for the 8 cylinders.

It looks amazing! haha

Here is the 1-4 side...

...and here is 5-8...

Thanks to friend Corey, he took the specs and calculated an estimate of 9.8:1 compression ratio. The stock 5.0L from the 1994 Mustang GT came with 9.0:1 compression. 

A reminder on the set up now, we have AFR165 58cc heads (Head chamber volume), 0.030" overbored pistons (4.030"), stock stroke of 3.00", stock deck height 8.2" and piston height, 0.006" below deck height that dad measured, measured head gasket thickness of .039" and valve notch volume of 3cc. This is a nice increase in compression that will help response and power and will go well with the purpose of this car, which is street driving and the occasional drag strip runs. 

Mustang Sally Restoration: Gapping rings and Machine Shop woopsie!

 Making good progress. Yesterday pops sent a few pics of his ring gap process.

I just love the freshly machined metal. Here is a ring being checked for gap. Here's the results he went for:

0.023" Top ring

0.025" Second ring

0.037 Oil rings (out of the box)

He says these gaps should be good for anything you throw at it, drag, road course, turbo or super charger or Nitrous.

Here pops uses his Dremel to grind the end of the rings to get the desired gap and then deburring and polishing with 320 grit sandpaper.

He says "It's tedious but if the gaps are too tight, then when they get up to temperature they can expand so much that the ends of the ring butt up against each other and can damage rings or break piston ring lands".

After gapping all the rings, they were bagged up in 8 sets and marked with the piston # so the combos stay together.

So, pops was installing, or attempting to install some piston/rod assemblies onto the crank today. Here he is plastigauging the bearing clearance for the rod bearing journals. He quickly found out that the wrong rods were assembled to the wrong pistons because when he put the first set together on the crank, they were not oriented right and were not able to move without making contact. :( So, he'll be calling Reynolds Machine tomorrow and find out what's going on. 

Mustang Sally Restoration: Parts back from the Machine Shop!!!

Big shout out to Reynolds Machine in Bakersfield, California for the relatively quick turnaround on all the machine work and balancing. Pops picked up the parts today and sent along some photos as he inspects what he's got.

First up is the bored (0.030" over), torque plate honed and decked. It was cleaned and magnafluxed as well and checked out just fine. Gotta love freshly milled iron! Looks great!

Next up is the factory 5.0L crankshaft. The bearing journals were polished and it was machined in a couple spots to balance it with the rotating assembly. The plan is to use factory sized crank main bearings.

The factory rods were assembled to the Summit Racing 0.030" overbore pistons. The bottom of the rods were machined down to remove weight as part of the balancing.

Another view of the factory rod and Summit Racing hypereutectic piston.

This photo of the underside of the pistons shows the machined areas for balancing. Every piston except the #2 piston had at least one balance spot machined and some have 2 like this one on the right.

Here is the cleaned up block with machinist notes to "Bore, Hone, Deck"

The McLeod clutch was mated to the re-surfaced flywheel and balanced. You can see the weight welded on and the blue markings to ensure they are reassembled where they were balanced to ensure smooth operation.

Here is the kit for all new cam plug oil gallery plugs and freeze plugs.

The block will be painted before re-assembly.

Mustang Sally Restoration: Big Summit Racing parts order

 With the bare block at Reynolds Machine for cleaning and inspection, Poppi got on the phone with the helpful customer service folks at Summit Racing, and ordered up all the "pieces parts" needed for the rebuild. Seriously, we've had great service from the Summit Racing people. They're very helpful and detailed and do a good job of making sure we got the right parts for our needs.

Hmm, not sure how good of a picture this is. About $1235 worth of goodies. A big chunk of this arrived today actually and Poppi said it was like Christmas!!!

Here is the flat top hypereutectic piston from Summit Racing, p/n SUM-17302C-30. Being the quality geek I am, I can see the 302 signifies the engine it goes to and the -30 meaning .030" over bore size. This will give the engine 306cu in of displacement. This piston design will give a slight bump in compression as its flat top. In combination with the AFR165's smaller combustion chambers, there will definitely be a compression increase. Poppi is thinking he might have to run octane booster. We'll see. :)

$193 for this set of 8 pistons. 

In no particular order, here are the hardened steel pushrods from Comp Cams in stock length. Poppi is crossing fingers that these will be the right length. $41 for the set of 16.

Mahle Clevite main bearings ready to go! $42 for this set.

A McLeod "StreetPro" 10.5 clutch kit was purchased after the recent throw-out bearing and worn/damaged clutch fingers in the current set up were noticed. $275 for the whole kit.

Here's a view of the damaged and "deformed" clutch fingers of the out-going piece up against the new McLeod stuff. 

Here is the stock oil pump driveshaft next to the stronger ARP (in a Ford Perf box) unit. $33 for this guy.

The new oil pump is $65.

Cam bearings are on their way and they were $32. Apparently, per the guy at Reynolds Machine, there is a shortage of supply of cam bearings. I'm pretty sure when we looked at Summit's website they said they were out of stock, but when Poppi talked to the person, they had them stock. Here's to hoping their inventory system was correct, err incorrect, and that the cam bearings in the mail are the right ones. :)

So, our original estimate on cost of parts and machine work was about $7900. How close did we get? Here's a summary of what has been spent so far (should be everything except for some engine oil, oil filter and some more spray cans of engine degreaser. heh heh

-$2990 T5z transmission and gear oil

-$2277 AFR165 CARB E.O. egr heads, Ford Performance lifters

-$420 Comp Cams XE264HR .512" lift camshaft

-$498 24lb reman LMR injectors and BBK 76mm calibrated MAS meter

-$1235 pistons/rings, pushrods, bearings, gasket kit, roller rockers, clutch, oil pump/shaft

-$1010 Reynolds machine work and cleaning (boring, honing, decking, crank polish, balancing)

TOTAL: $8430

We'll see how the machine shop waiting game goes. The cam bearings arrive next Tuesday, so theoretically, the next day Poppi could drive the parts down to Bakes' and hand deliver them to the shop. Then, who knows where in line he will be for getting his work done. I'm hoping to be able to drive down to Tehachapi to be there the final assembly and install back into the car for the first start up.

Crossing fingers...

Mustang Sally Restoration: Engine disassembly continues

 This post continues the disassembly of Mustang Sally's 302ci short block in preparation for the next step which is machine work.

Here's a look at the bare 302ci block. This was after getting it as clean as possible so it could be delivered to the machine shop so it can be cleaned and magnafluxed. 

Here poppi is cleaning out the threads with a tap.

Here's the view of the bottom of the short block getting a view of the oil pickup and pump and oil soaked short block assembly.

Here we get a look at the bottom of the block with crank removed. Kind of a cool view that I haven't seen much previously. The stock camshaft is still in the block at this point.

Here is the stock HO roller camshaft removed for all the word to see. It's still super impressive that Sally ran 12-second quarter miles with stock cam, heads, intake manifold. 

Couple pics of factory pistons with 271k miles of wear. Interesting to note the wear patterns and where the piston rings are situated upon removal. The combustion chamber #8 was a bit wet and so this could have been the cause.

Upon inspection, most top bearings had a bit of copper showing through. Poppi says it could have been caused by detonation. 

You can see in main bearing #2 the wear and  big pit in the surface. The #1 main bearing had a deep scratch. The plan is to polish the stock crank.

The block and crank were dropped off at Reynolds Machine in Bakersfield, California. Poppi says the guy is super nice. Mimi was talking with his wife about grand kids. :) 

Reynolds grinds cranks for "Vintage V12s" engine shop in Tehachapi. Reynolds is a very clean and tidy shop. 

So far the cost is $1010, which includes a clean and magnaflux, decking the block, honing cylinders, resurface of the flywheel and press the pistons on and off. Reynolds will use a torque plate to hone. The crank will be polish instead of machined to save a little cash due to the good condition of the crank.

Now its off to summitracing.com to order up some parts. He needs to get the pistons and rings quick so he can get measurements for the final hone process and then to balance the rotating assembly. 

It's coming along nicely! It's always a big step to drop off the goods at the machine shop. :)