I recently put the wheels with tires on the car and let it support its own weight off of the jack stands. It's nice to see it come along.
Here are a few pictures of the coyote and a test fit of resting the body on the frame. These pictures are before I mounted the engine. I need to get some better pictures to illustrate the challenges with the foot boxes vs. valve covers and headers, and my alternator relocation.
The passenger side header clearance isn't too bad but the drivers is a pain. In order to get the driver header on I have to either remove the studs from the head, or take out the trans mount and drop the trans a bit to rotate the engine. It is a really tough squeeze.
I'm going to try to get some pictures of this but the alternator was another challenge. There is less than 5" on either side between the block and the radius arms/brackets. The stock alt location on the coyote hangs way out and wouldn't fit by a mile (or 6 inches). There are Coyote swap kits available from a few different vendors that relocate the factory alternator where it is pointing towards the rear of the car and almost as high as the water pump. I didn't want to go this route because I really don't like how it looks, and the prices I saw for these items were just outrageous for some simple brackets.
I ended up getting a compact GM unit modified for a single wire 80a output and mounted it on the pass side of the engine. I used one of the timing cover bolts for the lower alt mount. One of the problems I ran into with this is that the bolt hole in the timing cover is about 10MM, but it uses a M8 bolt to go through the cover and into the block. I should have taken some pictures of this before I put it together but the concern I had was that the approx 110mm long bolt, without supporting the shoulder through the timing cover, would put a great deal of leverage against the bolt and threads of the block. I used a 10x8mm bushing to sleeve the timing cover down to 8mm. It also protrudes from the cover and into the alternator's 10mm bolt hole. So the bushing is snugly supporting the shoulder of the bolt while also acting as a dowel to help locate alt. The upper mount was straight forward and made a simple strut/brace that uses one of the bolts previously used for a tensioner. I'm pretty happy with how this came out and like the look of having the alt tucked neatly away vs. the reverse mount.
Engine and trans assembly sitting on a pallet. I hate the look of the raw plastic so I painted the manifold, valve covers, and coil covers. The TR3650 is painted Ford Blue.
Test fit with the body resting on the frame.
The manifold is slightly visible in the scoop.
Threaded Mode
