Mustang Sally Restoration: 306ci 5.0 mated to the T-5z Close Ratio Trans

 Progress continues and things are getting pretty serious. The longblock is complete and the accessories are installed, water and oil pump, clutch, bellhousing and the brand new T-5z close ratio 5 speed manual transmission.

The engine and trans are looking great!!! The T5z is brand new from Moderndriveline.com! 

Here it is after getting the oil pan, filter and water pump, and lower intake manifold installed. Note the repainted shorty equal length headers. It looks great and ready to rock!

The brand new McLeod clutch and resurfaced steel flywheel are in and ready for the bellhousing next...

Fresh NGK spark plugs with some anti-seize and torqued down to 18 ft-lbs.

The plan is to meet up at the Tehachapi Hechtspeed Garage to get this bad boy into the 1994 Mustang engine bay. Can't wait!!! More pics and vids to come.

See Hecht Speed YouTube channel!!!

Mustang Sally Restoration: AFR165 Heads installed, Longblock is assembled!!!

 Tonight the longblock was assembled boys and girls! Here are some beauty shots to enjoy! 

ProForm 1.6 roller rockers getting installed!

Top view of the AFR165 heads and ProForm rockers.

Here's a pic with stock, but freshly painted valve covers.

Pops says it has the old valve cover gaskets on it for extra height clearance and that it will probably need a second one once the lifters pump up with oil. 

Next up is oil pump and oil pan tomorrow. Stay tuned!

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: Block painted and Plastigauging the crank and bearing clearance

 Progress continues on the Sally 302 engine rebuild. The block has been painted black.

The brass freeze plugs are also installed.

Using a front and rear bearing only, Pops uses a dial indicator to check crank runout. It measured about 0.0002", amazing for 271,000 miles of wear and tear.

Here's the plastigauge strip laid down on the crank. 

The plastigauge kit comes with 2 sets of gauge material. The green material is in the range of 0.001" - 0.003" bearing clearance gap. The red set is from 0.002" to 0.006". Inspection results look like about .0035-.0037" range. The high-volume oil pump will fill that gap nicely.

Here's 2 inspections of a red strip. Looking like its between the 0.003" and 0.004" range. This is a really cool technique. It's very simple and manual process that provides very precise measurement information.

Here's an underside view of the 302 block for reference. I was asking dad how the crank gets supplied with oil. The crank journal webs have oil passage drilled into them. You can see the 2 holes in the middle and top side of the bearing journals.

Here's a close up view looking at the side. The one small hole in the crank journal area goes up to the cam bearing journal to provide oil to the cam bearings.