Bought an old BTF U4 buggy

Joe_U4 said:
The rabbit hole got deeper, way deeper. I cut off the old links and sway bar mount, ground out all the bugger welds, made new brackets, and welded everything up. Got ready to cut the OEM spindles off for the new ones. Something told me to check the alignment before hand and I'm glad I did because it's warped like a mofo, ~3/8" on each end. When the PO welded the truss on he didn't take steps to mitigate warping from the heat. So WTF now.....big ass paperweight! Considered rethinking using my ST housings but I did not want to wait 6 weeks for axles shafts. Called ECGS and they set me up with a custom 14 bolt housing. Called them Monday and picked it up today! Uses their high clearance center casting, 4" tubes 1/2" wall, spindles already welded for the 40 spline shafts. Went ahead and got Wilwood calipers while I was there. I can't say enough good stuff about those guys. I suppose it's good and bad they are only 30min from me 😆

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New ECGS 14B:rockon:

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No onto taking the old POS out and finishing out the new housing.....
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Badass!
 
Joe_U4 said:
The rabbit hole got deeper, way deeper. I cut off the old links and sway bar mount, ground out all the bugger welds, made new brackets, and welded everything up. Got ready to cut the OEM spindles off for the new ones. Something told me to check the alignment before hand and I'm glad I did because it's warped like a mofo, ~3/8" on each end. When the PO welded the truss on he didn't take steps to mitigate warping from the heat. So WTF now.....big ass paperweight! Considered rethinking using my ST housings but I did not want to wait 6 weeks for axles shafts. Called ECGS and they set me up with a custom 14 bolt housing. Called them Monday and picked it up today! Uses their high clearance center casting, 4" tubes 1/2" wall, spindles already welded for the 40 spline shafts. Went ahead and got Wilwood calipers while I was there. I can't say enough good stuff about those guys. I suppose it's good and bad they are only 30min from me 😆

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New ECGS 14B:rockon:

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Now onto taking the old POS out and finishing out the new housing.....
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Does this mean you got a spider 9 for sale?
 
I need to let these ladies know we found it in Joe's garage.

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Been busy but not on the BTR buggy. Finally stopped working on shit and spent time to rearrange and organize the garage. Got tired of pushing stuff out of the way to have room to work on stuff and not being able to find shit. Not done but done enough for now and to get back to working on stuff.
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Last trip out with the blue buggy I broke a trans mount. Only way to fix it is to remove the engine, trans, and TC. So.... being OCD again while they are out I decided it's time for some upgrades. Called Fritz Performance and got him to build a new C6 with all the googies and custom converter. The little 347 is badass but it was time for rings. Since a refresh was in order why not upgrade the engine, ECU, and fuel system 🤔 Will be installing a new Ford Performance crate 427ci 543hp small block. Out with the Accell DFI and in with a new Eldebrock Pro 4 EFI system.

Started tearing everything out yesterday...

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When time permits I'll freshen up the 347 and list it for sale. It's badass little engine...stay tuned
 
Joe_U4 said:
Been busy but not on the BTR buggy. Finally stopped working on shit and spent time to rearrange and organize the garage. Got tired of pushing stuff out of the way to have room to work on stuff and not being able to find shit. Not done but done enough for now and to get back to working on stuff.
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After stripping my Ranger down, I did the same massive clean out and shop reorganization this week. Since I'm needing to stash a lot of little things until it's back from WOD.
Even took a leaf blower to the toilet seat 🤣
I may be interested in the 347 as is. Shoot me a PM sometime.
 
I've built my share of engines over the years from scratch and since this is not a race car I didn't want to go down the rabbit hole of chasing power. The main focus is good power, simplicity, and reliability so I decided to go with a Ford Performance 427 CUBIC INCH 535 HP BOSS CRATE ENGINE (M-6007-Z2427FFT). It comes with a 2yr warranty and I can pick it up at a local dealer with no shipping charges. I had a ton of Ford rewards points so that helped on the price and it should be here 3/15.

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The original 347 was running off an Accell DFI system which worked fine but it was antiquated and I've wanted to change it out for a while. I was looking at the Eldebrock Pro Flow 4 for simplicity, price, and it uses a Super Victor Jr intake which is what I wanted. I had some questions so I called Eldebrock only to be put on hold, after an hour I gave....If I can't even talk to a sales rep when trying to buy something I can only imagine how bad support would be....fuck em! So I called Holley and immediately got tech support, answered all my questions, and even put together a parts list with options which he emailed to me. So needless to say it's getting a new Terminator X and all the goodies. It's going to cost ~$1500 more than the Eldebrock but that's ok and now both buggies will have the same EFI 😉

Holley Terniantor X - Ford MPFI Kit #550-937
Holley 48lb/hr EV1 Injectors #522-488
Super Victor Jr EFI 351W Intake #EDL-29245
Holley 4150 TB #112-588
Holley Dual Sync Dist #Part # 565-201BK
MSD 6EFI #6415
MSD 6EFI Coil #Part # MSD-86415

If anyone has suggestions on different parts I'm all ears.

I had ordered a new C6 from Fritz Transmissions about a week ago, talked to him today and it's on track for the end of the month. The convertor that was in the buggy is BTE 10" so I'm going to send it to him to taylor it to the new engine and cam specs. Hopefully I'll be putting everything back togther the 1st or 2nd week of April.


This is not what I wanted to be doing right before riding season and in the middle of building the other buggy but.......
 
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UPS delivered a big package of goodies from Summit Racing. Got confirmation that the engine was delivered to the dealership today. If the parts department is open tomorrow I might go get it.

Next week is going to suck because I had scheduled a company to come paint the garage floor on Monday. I have to shuffle stuff to one side so they can do one half. Then shuffle it to the other side so they can paint the other half Friday. Then I will have to wait until Sunday to put everything back. So that means I can't work on anything for a week and half.

Ordered a serpentine pulley system from Chap Performance in FL. Turns out the owner is an engineer who use to work for March Performance. CVF bought March and he left to start his own company. But I digress, I struggled with ordering a new pulley system because I could reuse but it's a hodgepodge of CV Products, KRC, and custom stuff. A have been using a Powermaster 180A Denso alternator which uses a special bracket from CV Products which is out of business now. Going to change the alternator to a conventional Ford 3G 200A unit from Powermaster. The power steering unit is a Howe TT unit that is now discontinued. It's such a badass pump I didn't want to change it. The OG builder had a custom bracelet made for it. After some research it turns out it's based off a Saganaw P-Series "canned ham" style PS pump and shares the same bolt pattern. Ford used Saganaw P-Series pumps up until 74ish on some applications. So I was able to order pulleys and brackets that should work without modifications (should).

Still need to order the alternator and new bushings for all the mounts. Waiting on my Summit bucks to post from the recent order to save a few $$.

Expensive box of goodies 😆

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Joe_U4 said:
Next week is going to suck because I had scheduled a company to come paint the garage floor on Monday. I have to shuffle stuff to one side so they can do one half. Then shuffle it to the other side so they can paint the other half Friday. Then I will have to wait until Sunday to put everything back. So that means I can't work on anything for a week and half.

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I would reschedule, buggy more importanter.
 
Joe_U4 said:
Ford used Saganaw P-Series pumps up until 74ish on some applications
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Well into the 90s on 302/351w equipped vans. I might even have a bracket for one still. Not sure the offset would work, but you're welcome to it if I can find it
 
shawn said:
Well into the 90s on 302/351w equipped vans. I might even have a bracket for one still. Not sure the offset would work, but you're welcome to it if I can find it
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I think after '74 they changed from key-way pulleys to press fir pulleys? I have a complete bracket system on the way but I appreciate it 👍
 
I've been a SBF guy all my life but I didn't think one one thing when deciding to go with a 351W block based engine in place of 302W based engine. The 351 has a 9.5" deck height vs 8.2" on a 302 which is not an issue. The difference in deck height would raise the headers slightly but since they turn upwards it's not a problem. In the Windsor family the 260/289/302 & 351 are 90% interchangeable. They all share a 4.00" bore but the stroke is different. Here's where I forgot the 351 has larger mains than it's smaller brothen.

Why does that matter? Having larger mains means the oil pans are different. I had planned to swap the custom pan on the old engine to the new one. When Rob built the buggy he made a very unique engine mount system. The motor mounts are built into a custom engine cradle. The engine cradle bolts to the frame via two double isolated links and an isolated pad in the rear. The oil pan was custom made to fit the cradle.

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So I can't use the oil pan or the engine cradle on the 351. While it's an oversight on my part it's not a bad thing. I had planned on redoing the side engine mounts anyway as they are partially the cause of me doing all this work. The TC and trans mounts wore out completely. With the engine mounts having double pivot isolation the TC and trans mounts were what kept the engine from twisting in the frame.

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With the mounts wore out the engine cocked to the drivers side and the driveshaft self clearanced it's self on the bell housing.

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I had to pull the drivetrain to fix the mounts anyway. So while I was at "let's upgrade the engine" I thought 🤔 As always one change leads to another so looks like I'll be making completely new engine mount system. I'm not convinced the rear mount on the cradle was necessary and did much of anything besides to help prevent torque twist. New mounts will be single isolated and bolted straight to the frame with no way for the engine to twist. Fortunately Summit makes a set so I don't have to reinvest the wheel.
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That's a whole lot of 427ci of badassery, I hope it's worth all the extra effort of dropping in another 347 or a 363 🤔

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Badass lil 347 that came out. I need to take it apart to see if it needs anything besides rings. It may be going to a new home

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When I have a problem I'm kinda like a dog with a bone, I won't let it go. I didn't like any of the fixes I came up with yesterday and I woke up around 2am with this on my mind. I went out to the garage to a find a simple yet effective solution. Bolted the engine cradle in place and studied the problem. You can see in the below picture how the engine could twist because the mounts have double pivot points. Simple solution: Add another bolt-in bushing mount to the engine cradle support arm and tie it into with another tube. This will make installation / removal easy, positively locate the engine mounts, and be an easy fix. One problem solved 😉

The oil pan on the 427 is a deep 9qt pan that is 12" wide and will not fit inside the engine cradle. After a bit of searching the interwebs I could not find a pan I liked that would solve my problem. I did some measuring I came up with another easy fix, modify the pan. I'll cut the sides off and remake the pan to fit the cradle and it should still be able to hold ~7qts. Hopefully this shit works out the way it did on my mind 😅

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So the garage floor epoxy has been pushed back two days by the contractor, which means more delays in working on shit 😡

After anguishing over cutting up a high $ pan to make it work I found a pan that will work. Stef's makes a 6qt front sump pan that will fit the engine cradle. It's not quite ideal but a custom pan is 8+ weeks out and $1200-$1400. I might have a custom 9qt made at a later date but this one will do for now. I'm ok with the lessor volume because I have a 3qt accumulator in the oiling system.

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Ford 9qt pan that came on the 427 is too wide.
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Custom 9qt pan that was on the 347
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Anytime the word "custom" is mentioned the price goes through the roof, story of my life 😂
 
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