Bringing the 351C-now-302-Ranger to life in street/strip trim on the cheap

[BBR]

Re: Bringing the Clevo-Ranger back to life in street/strip trim on the cheap

Tri-Y reference pics

[milner351]

Re: Bringing the Clevo-Ranger back to life in street/strip trim on the cheap

Thanks BBR! I'm thinking the AOD 164 tooth flywheel bellhousing may argue with those C4 designed tri y's... even though I'd love to run them.... I wonder if a torch and a long bar could bend the bottom pipes by the collectors enough to get them to clear the trans after a little grinding on the trans case.

The safe fall back plan is 94-95 mustang shorties - I'm watching a cheap set on ebay now.
The ranger already has "clearancing" for headers - wait till you see the mess of home built headers the 351c4v has on it now...

CHECK OUT THE FLOW NUMBERS THIS GUY GOT WITH STOCK E7TE HEADS!

http://www.diyporting.com/E7prj.html

Now I just need the time to make those porting adjustments on the best set of heads I have (three pair to choose from, hopefully I can find two with good stem to guide clearance)

stock rods, stock forged pistons, good bolts, stock replacement rings, stock cast crank, 164 tooth flywheel (have an SFI I could use if I remove the balancing weights welded on by the machine shop for the 393 W I sold) and a fluid damper.....

worth $210 to balance it?

worth $200+ for a valve job after porting?

man this budget thing really does hamper a build.... but I've got to keep it reasonable.

[milner351]

Re: Bringing the Clevo-Ranger back to life in street/strip trim on the cheap

Machine shop turned around the rods in less than two business days - well worth the '96 to have the good bolts installed and the big ends re-sized.

I will not balance it or pay for a valve job, the recip assembly is all stock save for rod bolts, and a fluidamper - I'm only going to 6000ish rpm - so - balancing would be nice - but not on this budget.

I will try my hand at duplicating the porting work found at diyporting.com link above - and lap the valves.

hopefully the rings and bearings will come in this week.... I'm hoping for a productive weekend.

Trans rebuild got pushed back again to tomorrow night.

[milner351]

Re: Bringing the Clevo-Ranger back to life in street/strip trim on the cheap

Lou at Accurate transmissions in Belleville hooked me up with the 2.84 first gear "wide ratio" set up for the AOD last night. He walked me through the assembly, showed me the differences between the AOD and the more modern gear set, how the newer gear seat has the larger band, different planetary set up etc. it's like having Indy right up the street - but a Ford guy! ;) :D ;D

The valve body that was in the AOD when I got it has been pretty heavily modified - it's not a kit that Lou recognized, there is a small diameter copper tube running from the shift select spool valve (which is also an aftermarket piece) over to a part of the valve body that has been blocked off with a couple tubes. For curiosity's sake - we're going to run it as is and see what it does.

I have to come up with a TV cable set up for the trans to the holley carb - stock 87-93 mustang AOD stuff is supposed to be pretty easy to adapt

anyone have a bracket and TV cable from a fox mustang laying around they care to sell?

Lou also let me put the 302 roller block in his "washing machine" for a couple cycles, and it came out in great shape - it's already back on the engine stand with a fresh coat of POR15 ford blue brushed on and the cylinders coated with wd40.

The rods are resized - one piston had a crack in the lower skirt area - so the shop that resized the rods is swapping that out for me with another trw forged stock HO piston I had around.

My plan is to measure all the pistons and bores after a light home hone to cross hatch the cylinders - then try to match up the biggest bore with the biggest piston, etc. I've decided to go without the balancing expense.

I got the "fluidamper" from ebay yesterday - it is in fact NOT a fluidamper but some off brand balancer that was not carefully packaged and arrived with a little bit of damage - for $35 shipped - I can't complain - but the seller won't get any positive feedback from me -- it is SFI approved and the markings for timing look easy to read - we'll see how accurate they are.

The bearings and rings should be in by Friday - so - hopefully this weekend the short block can be assembled and maybe we can even get Seth's Bu out of the way so we can bring the ranger in the shop and get the old powertrain out of it!

I'm just sure there are little details that are going to screw me on this project - but so far - the major pieces are starting to come together.

Thanks to another fried - I've got a 'like new' Eaton posi unit for the 8.8 too.... ;D

[DanStokes]

Re: Bringing the Clevo-Ranger back to life in street/strip trim on the cheap

Great! It's super that this is all falling into place. I'm thinking the balance will be OK if you don't wind the wee out of it. Have fun - but don't neglect your sweetie - her hormones are raging right now.

Dan

[milner351]

Re: Bringing the Clevo-Ranger back to life in street/strip trim on the cheap

Dan -

thanks - I'm hoping I can do enough leg work up front and have enough connections that I don't have to place a last minute big bucks summit order to get the thing race ready.

Don't worry about Rhonda - our trip up North last weekend, and a trip to Chicago next weekend are all figured into this weeknight thrashing.... this coming weekend is really the last big chunk of time I'll have to hammer away at this thing - from then until BSEAST - it's going to be afterwork evenings to finish it.

getting the porting work done on the E7s is looking doubtfull at this point.

[min301]

Re: Bringing the Clevo-Ranger back to life in street/strip trim on the cheap

Unless you bring em to me...had you done so a couple weeks ago,
they'd be done now.

[milner351]

Re: Bringing the Clevo-Ranger back to life in street/strip trim on the cheap

I hear ya Bill - what I need to do is clone myself... so one of me can be at work, and the other running errands and working on hotrods.

I hear you... but I need to figure out which pair of heads is worth porting first - and see if I have a pair that have all good guides.... I know one pair was pretty beat up.

Hopefully I can get into this tonight... last night was the trans rebuild. Seth wants to put the TH400 back in the 'bu tonight....

like I said, I need two of me.

[milner351]

Re: Bringing the Clevo-Ranger back to life in street/strip trim on the cheap

Well - so much for keeping this cheap - the temptation to find a bargain on good aftermarket heads is becoming nearly uncontainable.

Seth was nice enough to forego installing his trans in the 'bu last night to help me out
- he spent quite a bit of time cleaning up the shop and making room for Saturday's mayhem - thanks a million!
- we also got the 428 block and crank crated and delivered to the freight depot - so the ebay buyer will be happy
(since he already paid me for them!)

Then we took the valve spring compressor to all three sets of E7TE heads I have and it didn't take long to realize that every single one of those heads is going to need at least a couple exhaust valve guides replaced, we didn't even check the intakes but I'd venture a guess they are in need of similar attention.

Decision time:

Spend $6.50 labor plus guide cost to replace X number of guides in heads that don't flow that good....

OR

Spend $___ and try to find a bargain on either ready to run GT40 iron heads, or aftermarket
(no GT40P - too many header complications)

I found a set of Dart Iron Eagles on ebay - bare - for around $400 - they are less than 2 hours from my house, so shipping is the cost of gas and I can probably have a neighbor who works up that way pick 'em up for free.

But it gets complicated - I would then need to buy new valves for those heads
(2.02 / 1.65 I think)

I should be able to use the springs, retainers, locks, seals I just got from Summit.

I would also have to buy studs, guideplates, and hardened pushrods,
AND
trade back with my friend who just traded me the bolt down style roller rockers for the stock heads... for a set of roller rockers I had for studs.

??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ???

[BBR]

Re: Bringing the Clevo-Ranger back to life in street/strip trim on the cheap

http://forums.corral.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1164325&highlight=GT40

http://forums.corral.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1164718&highlight=GT40

;D

[VTJUNK]

Re: Bringing the Clevo-Ranger back to life in street/strip trim on the cheap

In the interest of getting this truck running, just run the E7TE heads. Grind out the exhaust bumps, lap in the valves and throw them on with the parts you already have. Skip the milling. You can have the heads rebuilt later and do all that stuff or pull them and sell them to put the cash towards a set of aftermarket heads.

Are the guides loose or tight?

[fahrenschnell]

Re: Bringing the Clevo-Ranger back to life in street/strip trim on the cheap

The guides are loose.....There is pretty fair amount of lateral play in most of the exhaust valves....

Seth

[Huskinhano]

Re: Bringing the Clevo-Ranger back to life in street/strip trim on the cheap

I kind of like the tri-tone! ;D

Yeah, people stay away from you on the high way ;D

[milner351]

Re: Bringing the Clevo-Ranger back to life in street/strip trim on the cheap

http://forums.corral.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1164325&highlight=GT40

http://forums.corral.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1164718&highlight=GT40

;D

BBR - is there a website on the net you don't have connections to?

Who lives near Philly that's going to BSEAST? we could install the heads, intake, headers, valve covers saturday morning, then.... oh yea ... reality!

[BBR]

Re: Bringing the Clevo-Ranger back to life in street/strip trim on the cheap

ha ha I love searching for stuff and sit at a computer all day everyday.

;D