[Pete Munroe]

We installed a 427" center oiler AND clutch with Lakewood bell housing assembly into my friend Robert H's ERA 427 # 6~~? several months ago.

Trial fit the Tremec TKO first to the housing...had the clutch, flywheel, etc. all on and ready.

The KEY!!!!! to a SMOOTH, EASY install was a CHAIN DEAD-FALL...NOT a cherry picker/shop crane.

The chain dead-fall lets you drop the lump straight down, not in an ever changing ARC like you get with a cherry-picker/shop crane. You can adjust the angle with the plate bolted to the intake manifold.

Robert's garage has an overhead beam that let us hang the deadfall...(not everyone has that luxury...sniff, sob!).

We used my shop crane to install the engine and bell-housing in my 289 FIA car last year, and it was a PAIN with the shop crane...going in from the front of the car, padding the nose of the car, trying to move the crane/car to accomadate the swing of the cranes arm, on an asphalt driveway...!

(that said, I can not say for sure going straight down would work in a FIA 289 car to clear the front x-member...also, the 289/302 block I have is a LOWER HEIGHT assembly engine compared to a 351 block to clear at the fire wall...something else to think about... if you have a 351 block to go into the small block FIA car!)

But, in my humble opinion...THERE IS NO WAY to get the engine, bellhousing AND TRANS in the ERA 289FIA OR the ERA 427".

If you are doing an install, we used THREE people with both cars...on the FIA 289...one to work the lift, one on the sides to slip the headers up and around the engine as it settled in, and one sitting in the car on the chassis "X"...pulling the engine/bellhousing to come up and back into position...almost the same thing with the 427", but with the dead fall chain, no drama, no engine swinging back and forth, just very relaxed.

As I understand it a real AC Cobra/ACE has a removable center chassis section, so the whole engine/bellhousing/trans goes in no
problem, but not these cars I doubt it...absolutely WORTH IT for a torsionally stronger chassis.

Get three savy helpers, put on the clutch and bellhousing...LEAVE OFF THE TRANS. If you can use the dead-fall chain, man it makes things easier...!

Clois, greetings...does your car have a removable center section?...I can not visualize how you could do the job on either of the ERA cars, 289 or 427.

I have pulled and re-intalled the 327" engine/trans by myself with a cherry-picker in my 67' Corvette no problem...but there is no shortage of clearance under the car to drop the assembly down and swing it UP for trans.

Pete