Here’s where it all begins. Like when we showed you his method for laying out the dash, Kevin laid out where various accessories would bolt to the plate and made the proper cuts and holes for everything to fit where it was intended to go. Time, patience, and accuracy are the key elements here.

Because there will be stuff like a vacuum pump used on this application and the crank pulley is in a fixed location (or should be!) an adjustment slot was needed for the Flaming River Corvette power steering pump that wears a Moroso drive pulley and what you see here is the initial cut being made with an awesome old mill.

There’s the finished slot, which will be used to tension the Flaming River power steering pump when the car is ready to hit the streets….is it ready now? Now? Now?

Here’s a look at the plate with the accessories bolted to it while out of the car. A couple things here. The water pump is an electric piece mounted to the radiator so don’t you worry about that. Second is that Kevin specified the harmonic balancer, which is made by ATI to have a big block Chevy style front. This was done because there are literally hundreds of potential pulley combos with a BBC pulley bolt pattern where there are about three with the Chrysler wedge pattern from the early 1960s. Getting the accessory belts to line up an be a mess but not with this setup. It all looks as right as rain.

To the left you can see the engine and plate out of the car. Note how wide the plate is. That’s because it will span across the engine bay and be anchored on the two main chassis tubes up front. This will help to add even more stiffness to the front of the car and prevent the chassis from distorting during heavy cornering loads.

How is this for detail work? Kevin machined the rips into the mount for the crank trigger to match the Hilborn timing cover. In a mechanical injection application, this is where the Hilborn pump would be mounted as it is driven off the cam. As this is EFI, Kevin could use those holes for this setup. Pretty neat!

A look down at the front of the engine as mounted in the car for inspection.

If you look down the side of the block between the valve cover and the chassis tube you will see that there is a bunch of room for headers in there. Kevin said that sawing off the original motor mounting pads can save a few pounds and really open up the bottom of the engine.

Here’s the VFN hood that Kevin is starting with. His plan is not to alter it too drastically. Obviously the AAR-style scoop will be a change but that’s the biggest one. This is about properly fitting it to the car.

The basic tools for the job are certainly not fancy or high tech but they are the basics of every job in the world of fabrication. You’ll need some tape, a marker, a tape measure, and a tailor’s tape measure. Why the tailor’s tape? Not all of these surfaces are flat so the tailor’s tape is a Godsend to making sure that accurate measurements are made.

Before he went forward with fitting the hood, Kevin laid it in place and stuck the new scoop on it. We think it looks gnarly and will provide some nice fresh air for the Hilborn stacks which will be hiding under it soon enough.

Note the tape applied to the areas where surgery will take place. As you can see, Kevin has already taken several measurements for where the hood pins will be placed in the corners and the center section is clearly marked for where the holes will be cut for the injector stacks to fit through.

This hood, like millions of others over the years will be anchored with a Mr. Gasket hood pin kit. We honestly wonder how many of them they have sold. It has to be hundreds of thousands anyway.

After measuring from known points, cross checking, and measuring again about 1.3 million times, Kevin took the plunge and added the pins. Again, taking your time and checking your work multiple times is the key to getting this right.

These notes help Tully to both keep the pins in the right place but they can also transfer to the work he’s getting ready to do with the hood. Knowing the center to center distance is critical.

WOOT! It fits! (Hey, we knew it would…the man is a trained professional). Kevin recommends going slightly larger with the hood pin holes than necessary, like going with a 7/8″ hole instead of 3/4″ to give yourself a little bit of wiggle room (literally). Note that he also cut the holes for the injector stacks as well.

Here’s another look from the front with the scoop laid on. As we noted above, VFN will mold the scoop into the hood for you so Kevin is going to take advantage of that and have them handle it.

One thing we like about the AAR style scoop is that it is not going to be sitting too high and won’t be an obstruction to block the view of the driver.

The front valance was pretty gnarled up after years of bashing curbs and basically bearing the brunt of the elements on the front of the car so it required some time in the loving hands of HRCC’s guys to get it fixed up and nice again.

Slowly but surely it is getting straightened out. It’ll be good as new when it gets bolted onto the car.

Here’s a look at the beautiful aluminum piece from C&R. According to Tully, the C&R tech department will ask you a bunch of questions about your car, the engine, the application for the car, etc and design you a complete system to keep your stuff cool. We mean radiator, properly sized and constructed shroud, and Spal fan to keep the air moving. All of the pieces are designed to work together so you have nothing to worry about.

You’ll note that the radiator has been moved down somewhat and that is because the C&R piece is far larger than the weenie factory radiator that was keeping a slant six cooled off. Kevin is going to fabricate a subtle scoop in the front of the car to feed air up.

This is one bad ass unit. There is a Meziere 55 GPH tank mounted water pump, an integrated oil cool, and an integrated power steering cooler as well. If you want a full tilt custom piece it will be about six weeks from C&R according to Kevin but the company keeps inventor on commonly ordered models and they ship within days.

Even the catch can is nicer than anything that we have ever owned. The welding on it is so nice we think it should be mounted to the outside of the fender to shot it off!

Speaking of welding, here’s a look at the “wings” that Kevin made to properly mount the radiator in the car. The dude can stack times like a mad man. This big heat exchanger looks great in the car and due to both Kevin’s experience and C&R’s reputation, cooling issues will not be anything we ever talk about with this car.

We were very interested to learn that C&R doesn’t just sell you a radiator, they design the shroud and choose the correct fan as well. Shrouding is so important to keep the thing efficient and to keep the engine cool. We have seen fans with no shrouds and some with homemade pieces that should have been left….at home.

Here’s another look at the cool mounting wings that Kevin made up for the radiator to cling onto for dear life when the car is being flung around a track, onto a highway, or hammering on the brakes to enter a corner.

One final peek at the radiator which will be in and out of the car a bunch of times in the coming weeks as the mock engine will be jumping in and out as well. Built right there in Indiana, this is an American made piece of aluminum sculpture that’ll keep the temp happy on a snarling mountain of an engine during the summer heat. What’s better than that?!