Category: Misc.

You know I got the seat heaters installed, but at this point the heater wires were just hanging out of the side belt holes. More work to do.

I drilled a 1″ hole in the back inner corner of the seat for the wiring to come out. Had to get special grommets because of the 1/8″ thickness of the aluminum. I then installed the seat heater switches in the trans tunnel cover and used some Adel clamps to attach the wiring bundle with the relay to the back of the seat.

After this, I was able to get the seat mounts installed, set the seats in place and installed the seat belts. I was finally able to actually sit in my car!!

Since the pic was taken, I used a very sharp, new single edged razor blade to cut the threads and remove the badges from the belts. Looks much better. I am using RCI Platinum series 6 point harnesses, modified to 5 point. I chose to use these over the factory supplied Simpson harnesses simply because of the color and that the RCI’s use a camloc latching system. I like it.

Seats are set in place, belts are bolted in, adjusted and secure and the seat heaters are installed and working. Getting closer to playing go-cart….

Hey everyone,

Sorry for being gone for so long. Not only has the weather prevented me from having much garage time, my desktop computer crashed and it’s been a long process to get it fixed. I still haven’t accomplished that goal, so im trying to post updates from my phone. We’ll see how this goes.

 

One thing I have worked on is carpeting the trunk. Im using a grey almost felt-like material, similar to what you’d see on some speaker boxes. Cutting out pieces, gluing them in and keeping it looking good was a tough process. I would call the end result acceptable… Def not perfect and beautiful.

 

I also finished the area of what I call the glovebox or cubby… The area behind the rear bulkhead, accessible from between the seats.

 

Decided to do some seat work today. Its not out in the garage… I did with my dogs help in front of the TV. She mostly watched, but still…

These showed up from the UPS man the other day.

They are Kirkey model 47 Intermediate Road Race Seats. I got the 17″ wide version, which fits me quite well. The belts are RCI Platinum Series Kam-Lok 3″ racing harness’s.

First thing I did was cut the Kirkey label off the seats. They are rubber and I dont feel like doing all that advertising if I’m not getting paid. Then it’s time to install some seat heaters!

I’m installing Cobraheat waterproof seat heaters from Mike Forte at https://www.fortefactoryfive.com/. He’s a great supporter of this industry and sells a quality product.

Some guys had stripped the padding out of their seats to install the heaters right up against the fabric. I wasnt crazy about that and wasn’t sure I could put it all back together correctly. So I decided to install the heaters against the seat frame, but insulate it to project the heat into the seat. After researching some insulation type fabric stuff, I came up with some thermal batting called Insul-Bright., available right down the road at Jo-Ann Fabrics. Off I go and buy 1 sq yard for $7.99.

I cut this piece in half so it gave me a piece that 1.5′ wide by 3 feet long. Test fit it on the seat with a single piece of double sided aircraft carpet tape across the top.

Marked it, trimmed it,

taped the seat with more of the same tape,

…and stuck it all on there.

Next came the heaters.  The back, or upper, heater I decided to install full length. The lower heater wouldn’t fit, so I cut and trimmed it to fit. This is no problem with the elements as long as you are cutting the length. If you try to cut the width, you’ll cut off the power strips inside and then you’ll be cold. These I opted to spray glue onto the insulating batting because I felt the tape on the batting could end up doing something weird when it gets hot and maybe shifting.

So hopefully this will prevent the aluminum seats from becoming big heatsinks and soaking up all my seat heat when I need it the most. I’ve heard from other owners that it still works well and actually works to radiate the heat through all the padding.

Snapped the covers back on and snatched a pic real quick. Tomorrow I’ll get them wired up and see if they work…

By the way, sat in one and watched a movie this evening. They are pretty comfy… cant wait to drive in em. 🙂

 

Hey Guys. Been working on a few small things, trying to wrap up some of the details before i move on to big items. Had a leaking lower radiator hose at the radiator, replaced a 3/4″ heater hose from Auto Zone that had a full length disbond in the hose. Cut that tab off the back of the frame and patched it. Finished drilling my Breeze stainless roll bars and bolting them in.

One thing I’ve put off because I didnt know how I was going to do it is the parking brake. Now this should have been done a long time ago.

I powdercoated and put together the F5 parking brake as supplied in the complete kit. I wasnt crazy about the location, and with it installed, it was too tight on the trans tunnel. The cables wouldn’t pull evenly and didnt really match up with the Wilwood calipers quite right. I decided to go with the Lokar EHB-7000F Universal Floor mount handle and the Wilwoods 330-10993 Universal E-Brake Cables for CPB calipers. The Wilwood cables include a cable equalizer for 2 cables, an adjustable cable housing mount and several tight fitting cushioned Adel clamps.

I removed the 4 angles from the Lokar and the Lokar clevis. Installed the Wilwood equalizer and installed the handle as far aft as I could on the RH side of the trans tunnel. I quickly saw that was a mistake, as there was nowhere to mount the Wilwood cable housing mount. So I moved it forward, using the original front bolt hole as the aft. I mounted it with some 3/8″ countersink bolts I had around and some .250 steel spacers to give the clevis room from the frame.

Since everything in there is at an angle, it became a challenge to mount the cable housing mount. Needed to keep it pretty straight with the handle. I decided to pickup the lower bolt mount through one of the diagonal supports and the upper would just mount to the aluminum using a 1″ steel spacer. I may go back and install a thick mounting plate that will bolt to the diagonal that will give more support to the cable mount.

Attached the Wilwood cables to the brakes, easy peasy, ran them around over the axle to the cable mount. Clamped in a few places. Pulled out the inner cables and cut the housings using a pair of heavy cable cutters. No issues. Installed the inner cables, ran everything up to the handle and locked em down. Cut the cables with a dremel cutoff wheel and duct taped the ends.

Used the adjustable equalizer to tighten up the cables quite easily. First pull, brakes are locked tight at the 3rd click. Easy to pull when seated and doesnt look too bad.

Also cut off the original bracket and patched the trans tunnel hole.

I know I may have an issue with leather boots and trim rings when I finish off the trans cover, but I have something of a plan for that that I hope will look pretty cool.

OK, on to more little stuff…

So over the last 2 days, I filled the transmission with 3 qts of Royal Purple Synchromax, filled the rear axle with 2 qts Royal Purple Max Gear (both synthetic), torqued on the wheels and got her off the dollies, charged the battery, bolted on the sidepipes, filled the cooling system with just distilled water (for now… leak checks), manually checked the clutch engagement and finally put 5 gallons of premium in it…

Then this happened.

It’s freeking alive.

 

Continuing to work towards first start. Got the oxygen sensor mount welded to the passenger header yesterday by Tony at Tony’s custom exhaust in Glen Burnie. Today got the header mounted…

and all secured. Tomorrow I’ll pickup some 3/8 x 1.5″ bolts and get the sidepipes bolted on.

Checked and adjusted the pinion angle so that the pinion is pointing downward 1-2 degrees more than the engine. This helps keep the u joints on the driveshaft happy and hopefully prevents any driveline vibrations. Speaking of which… installed the driveshaft.

Took the top of the transmission to fill it, will be doing that tomorrow after I buy some fluid. Using Royal Purple Synchromax for the trans.

Also serviced the rear axle today with 2 qts of Royal Purple Synchromesh 75w140 synthetic gear oil. This also contains the friction additives needed for the Ford 8.8 rear.

Getting so close I can almost smell the exhaust…

Have taken a bit of time off from building the Boss 427 as its beautiful weather and difficult to stay working in the garage when friends are calling for fun.

I did get some time this last weekend to work on my switch panel. Got it covered with foam and leather matching the dash…

…and installed the switch harness with the switch labels this time. I custom ordered these from Carolina Laser

My brother came up for the weekend and we went to celebrate Nephew Nicks’ 30th birthday in Harrisburg (see previous post). Good times indeed and I managed to get some work out of Doug.

We finished the install of the dash, hooking up the connectors and making sure there was no leftover wiring.

As you can see, it all lit up and everything works except the brake lights, which were working before. I’ll look into that.

Meanwhile, we turned off all the shop lights and closed the doors for a night photo. I think its pretty cool and is going to look great in both daylight and at night.

Doug helped me do some final bleeding on the brakes and we filled and bled the Forte hydraulic clutch. I’m using a McLeod Super Street Clutch, capable of holding 600 ft/lbs of torque, so it’s a pretty beefy, strong unit. The hydraulic clutch feels good yet still reminds you that you are driving something significant.

Not much left to do for first engine start… maybe I’ll be ready by next weekend…

 

Last week, my nephew Nick came to visit for the weekend. I wasn’t planning on putting him to work (a good friend of mine warned me to not keep him out in the garage all weekend…) but my new Gas-N stainless 351 based headers showed up and there was no way I wasn’t grabbing that opportunity. After all, if I can’t trust a C-17 USAF crew chief, who can I trust?

We did have to work a few of the holes to get things to line up, but then it went straight on. Here’s the beautiful gap I’d been looking for all along on the drivers side…

The passenger side is now off at the exhaust shop having the O2 sensor mount welded on.

Next up is a job I’ve been putting off for too long. The expense of messing this up is pretty high, and the appearance needs to be very good. The Dash. I cut the holes for the gauges using a circle cutter in my drill press at the lowest speed. Man, it made some noise and what looks like pounds of shavings. But it worked. I glued down the 1/8″ foam and though it had a few wrinkles from being stored wrong, I figured the leather would smooth right over top of that. I was wrong.

So it all got ripped back off. Trashed that piece of leather and of course, the foam.

Second try went much better. Got my Speedhut custom gauges installed along with the horn button and the indicator lights (those are for L&R turn signals and High Beams). Check out the speedo and tach… both say BOSS 427 in them. The leather is left long on the top to fill any gaps between the dash and the body when it is installed. The empty hole at the bottom is for the ignition switch which is wired into the main harness. The 1/8″ foam worked very well, as the dash has some cushion to it, but not so much as the gauges look sucked in. I really like the look. Nice n classy, but serious. And fun. 🙂

On the back, I started the wiring. Everything will be plugged in, as well as individual gauges will be removable for maintenance. I should be able to remove the whole dash in about 15 minutes to access anything in there that I need.

Still have to run some individual wires for the horn and indicator lights, then everything except the white sensor plugs will go into Molex connectors, much as I did the center switch console.

Back at it this evening as I continue to work my way towards first engine start…

 

 

So the build has slowed down some. I’ve been going at it pretty good since February when the car was delivered. Lately, it’s become pretty frustrating. A lot of small details that take time, which is no big deal, but almost everything I work on requires me to go order some small part like an o-ring or a clamp. So I have to put that aside and work on something else until that job needs a new piece.

I took a break for a while. Haven’t done hardly anything for the last 2 weeks. I think about it every day, but just left it sit.

Yesterday I got out and opened up the garage. I installed some o-rings in the heater system, which should have that all sealed up now. Installed a weather pack 2-wire connector to the electric fan. Then I decided to tackle the fuel injection.

The FiTech fuel injection is pretty simple, but there’s still about 6 wires that have to be integrated to the Ron Francis wiring harness as supplied by Factory 5. We have 1 wire that goes the coil, 2 wires to the ignition switch, and additional wire connections to the electric fuel pump, electric fan, the display harness and the oxygen sensor. The O² sensor is just laying out in the open right now because Georgie at GAS-N still has not gotten me a set of headers that will work.

Oh, and the FiTech wire connectors would not fit through the firewall grommet, so I had to de-pin the 2 connectors, route the wires through, then rebuild the connectors properly. That took about 2 hours for something that should have been so simple… understand the frustration?

So finally everything was together. I connected the battery and voila! The fuel injection system is alive. I can hear the fuel pump run and the injectors click a few times as it’s trying to prime the system.

Last Saturday I was invited to an “on the lawn” car show. Lots of very nice exotics. One that showed up is an Aston Martin DB-11. Really sweet machine but the thing that really jumped at me was the paint. Found out it was 2017 Aston Martin Magnetic Silver, and man do I like it. I had planned on a dark metallic grey, and I think I found what I want. Need to do more research.

 

On Sunday, I met some friends with the Capital Area Cobra Club for breakfast. Took the Triumph Rocket 3 to stretch its legs a bit. Got a nice picture of it next to a 428FE / 4 speed / pin drive Everett-Morrison machine.

So I’m back to working on it this week and feeling better. Look for more posts soon.

 

Hi Readers.

Like the title for today says… more slow, small details. I’ve reached a point in the Boss 427 build that is becoming a bit frustrating. Lots of small things that take time, usually more time than expected.  Remember, almost everything I’m doing is custom… there’s no laid out plan or directions for so many small things. You have to think about it, decide how you want it to work, figure out what you need to do it, order parts / tools / supplies, try it, realize why it wont work or how it could be better, order more parts / tools / supplies, try it again…

I’ve started wiring the engine sensors that will be used for the gauges and the fuel injection computer. One is the coolant temperature system. Now here I have both a gauge and need an input to the fuel injection system, so there are 2 sensors. The small block / 351 Fords have always had 2 places to place coolant temp sensors, but I’m using 1 of those for my heater and 1 for my FiTech fuel injection. Nowhere for the sensor to the Speedhut gauge.  Research found a heater hose adapter made by Autometer that incorporates a brass tube that fits into a cut section of heater hose and has a port to install a temp sensor. Since the 351 Ford uses constantly circulating coolant in the heater system (more on that later), this can be used for coolant temp sensing. Cool!

At the same time, I’m figuring out the heater system. I’m using an electric heater control valve from Old Air Products, so that has to be plumbed in between the intake manifold, the heater and the water pump return. Found some Dayco 5/8″ heater hoses that were about 4 ft long with a 90* elbow at the end and about 7″ beyond the elbow. Bought the pieces and parts I needed, got it all together a few days later.

First thing was figuring out where to put the heater valve and how to securely mount it. Looked all over, tried a few things, then McMaster Carr to the rescue. I bought 2 padded U-bolts, 1″ wide on the inside that fit right around the tubes on the valve.

Drilled and mounted the U-bolts to the top of the passenger footbox. I loaded the locknuts up with silicone adhesive to prevent any leaks.

So this valve… why and what does it do? The heater system in the Boss is pretty simple… hot water from the engine circulates through a small radiator, and a fan blows air across the radiator, creating hot air that is pumped into the cabin. But if you turn off the fan, circulating water and ambient moving air will still move hot air into the cabin. So this valve takes the hot water and turns it back into the engine when not needed. When it is desired, just turn the heater knob to control how much hot water is allowed to the radiator, controlling how much heat you get.

Got the valve installed, started installing all the 5/8″ hoses with some nice heavy stainless steel clamps. Last hose goes back to the water pump return and… 3/4″. Sigh. Another piece to order and wait. Adapted the valve output from 5/8 to 3/4″, then finally on the water pump.

Back to that coolant temp sensor. Its a 1/8″NPT thread, so it fits right into the Autometer adapter… right? Not quite. The Speedhut temp sensor is a bit longer than the depth of the adapter… threads wont even reach. After spending a few hours researching other temp sensors that may be shorter and still have the same resistance (no luck), I looked at the Speedhut directions to get a phone number to call. Corner of my eye, I catch the words “… trim length of sensor to this point only.” What?!?! Trimming the sensor?

Yep. There’s a notch in the sensor that is the limit for trimming if needed. I need. 😉 So into the vice it goes and I go at the brass tip with a pipe cutter. BTW, that cutter was my Dad’s and I believe it’s older than I am.

I initially trimmed it short of the notch, just to be safe, but it wasnt enough and I had to go all the way to the notch. The finished sensor…

…and installed in the Autometer heater hose adapter.

Now some bright engineer types out there may take note that there’s no way the sensor will work… there’s no ground circuit. There is a threaded hole for an 8-32 screw in the side of the adapter, but I dont need it because the Speedhut sensors are 2 contact… ground is made through the wiring harness and chassis ground.

Some other things that went a bit better… got the oil pressure and oil temperature sensors installed with the help of some 1/2 to 1/8 NPT brass adapters.

Oil temp…

and oil pressure…

Ran, harnessed and secured the wiring along the engine to get safely back to the dash.

You can see how a small item like the heater can turn into a 2 week project. While waiting on parts to arrive, I end up working on things like the headers (still do not have a good set), dash wiring (removing the harness wires for the gauges and installing the Speedhut wires) and a myriad of other small things. So I’m progressing, just not at a breakneck pace.

New update soon, I promise. Believe it or not, I can feel it all getting closer to first engine start.

Thanks for reading.