engine does not look center
 

hi all got a bit of a problem, picked up my car today and all was going great .
got home and started looking over the whole car and noticed my side pipes on the pass side are closer to the body then the drivers side , looking closer i noticed that the spf motor mounts that bolt on the car frame are about quarter inch off, meaning that the motor is quarter inch pushed over to the drivers side more the the pass side, i know the mounts are slotted to move side to side but is this normal? also the gaps from the side pipe that come through the body are not even also. i will try to post pics of it shortly.
another thing is my pass side motor mounts have 2 shims under it to raise it up, is this also a comon thing when installing the engine.

now im thinking of loosing off the rear side pipe mounts on both sides and the tranny mount, loosing off the engine mounts to the fram and prying the motor over the quarter inch, i know it does not seem like much but it will resolve the side pipes not look staight on the body and im hoping it will correct the side pipe through the body opening space,



anothe issue if it is one is the gas pedal has to travel down about an inch and a half before it actually make the carb open up is this the norm for an spf?

and also the clutch pedal works good disengaging the trany but seems slow to come back up i have never had a hyd clutch before so not sure if that is the way it is, should there be a spring on the clutch fork to pull back the fork once you release the clutch pedal?

any insight on this would be great,

pics to follow soon

ok photos are in my profile

Cobras,

Did your car end up having the TKO 500 or TKO 600? My car has the Olthoff motor mounts with a Roush 402 and the pipes are in a similar orientation (very close to the body on the passenger side and more centered on the driver's side). If the pipes aren't hitting the body and/or you don't see any cracks, then I would leave it alone.

BTW - Congrats on the new car!! :D

Guys
You need to center the headers equally on both sides cause
if you don't the exhaust temperatures will blister the paint
on the side with the least clearance. Been there and done that.

McDoo The real one

thanks got the bug, been a long time waiting to get one of these cars.

im sure that if i lossen off the motor mounts and the tranny,side pipe mounts i should be able to shift over the motor, it would straighten out the clearance issues with the pipes. but then again who really knows untill i do it, i dont think it would throw out anything in the drive line, the drive shaft should compensate for it. even when the hood is closed and you look in at the air cleaner its not centerd with the hood scoop, its pushed over to the drivers side that quarter of an inch. weird as hell but that has to be the issue.


how about the clutch? is yours the same way, kind of slow to come back up when you let go of it? mind you its not bad but not as fast as i would like it to be,


and the gas pedal... seems a long way down to press before it activates the carb.

none the less i love the car still havent driven it beside getting it off the trailer and into the garage,,, no insuance as of yet till appraisal is done.

so i hope to be cruising the streets come monday or tuesday


oh and as for the tranny still no idea what it is will look at the plate when i got it up on the jack stands when im shifting over the motor.... :LOL:

As McDoo said, the important thing is having the headers passing thru the bodywork properly centered to prevent paint blistering. As to where the engine sits, is the engine level left to right? Sliding the engine forward and backwards is easy to do by loosening the motormounts on the chassis and using a short prybar to move the engine. The driveshaft is rarely perfectly straight from the trans to the rearend. Is this a new SPF? What is the car number? Who did the install?

blas the install was done at D&M, car is spo 2162 and has 700 miles on it. also there are 2 shims under the mount on the pass side to raise the motor up.

when i said about shifting the motor i mean shifting it from side to side driver to pass side.

its just the side pipes are off running down the side of the car and where the pipes come through the body is bad also, i talked with kevin 2 days ago and he told me the car originally had a roush engine in it and they took it out and put a ford mosport 475hp engine in it, im not sur if this issue is the norm for these cars or if its the ngine not looking centered in the engine bay

[quote=cobras;891946]thanks got the bug, been a long time waiting to get one of these cars.
even when the hood is closed and you look in at the air cleaner its not centerd with the hood scoop

I'm not sure about the small block cars, but the 427s were offset 3/4" towards the passenger side to give more room in the drivers footwell.

Engine/Header Positioning
 

As others have said the pipes need to be centered in the fender openings or you risk heat damage to the paint and body. When the headers are centered properly in the fender holes and spaced equally side to side your engine will be essentially centered or so close your eye can't tell the difference.

Take the extra effort to do it right. You will feel real bad if you cook your paint and/or glass.

Ed

I agree everyhting should be centered, and is sounds like the adjustment is their to do it. As far as pipe close to the body and causing blistering, I had a BDR where one pipe was 3/16" from the body and zero, nada, none paint or body damage. But again the closer to center you can get it the better. Strange how one side is shimmed and the other not, sounds like a dumb assss installed. Give erik a call at performance engineering he will tell you in about 3 seconds. my SPF engine has shims under both motor mounts and the side pipes exit the body perfectly centered.

The exhaust temperatures at the point of exit from the body can easily get into the 800- 900 degrees F range with a stroked SB motor such as a 392.402 408 etc. If the timing is retarded just a little bit the exhaust temps rise under hard excelleration and will go way above those temps and these are all temps that can and will cause blistering so you need as much free space as you can get.
Check your timing often and replace that aluminum distributor hold down plate with a more reliable steel one so the timing stays true.

McDoo The real one

My SPF (Rousch 427R) has none of the above problems. Looks/sounds like a poor installation. Real risk of burning the paint if not fixed.

OK. Write out all of your complaints and ask D&M for a written answer. Maybe they will correct some of the things. If not, get a written reply to your questions. Then you will have a leg to stand on if anything goes wrong. Once you make any adjustment to the "install", D&M are off the hook.

One thing you want to take a look at is the driveshaft angles.

Now that you have my attention, I may go out to my unheated garage (42°F outside) and take some measurements. But I have 17K miles, and no problems with paint by header/exhaust pipes.

As soon as you touch the gas pedal, the carb should respond. Are you a SCOF member yet? There is a great write up on accelerator pedal adjustments in the library. You should also join Second Strike. Both SPF based sites have a ton of help.
Good Luck

I have #1436 with a big block in it. My motor sits 3/4" off to the passenger side. Even though the engine is that far over, my side pipe was still closer to the body on the passenger side. On SCOF, you can purchase a shim to correct it. Is isn't just a flat shim, is is a tapered shim. Otherwise the pipe drops down to much.
Before I put the shim in, I couldn't even put my finger between the pipes and body. I never changed it till I had about 15k miles on the car.

As for the clutch, it is only the master cylinder pushing the pedal back up. So I can't image it getting any faster unless you put a spring on it which I don't think it needs.

Did you check to make sure the nut on the gas pedal shaft is tight? If it is loose, the pedal will move before the shaft moves all the linkage. If thats the case, the shaft might already be worn. I had to replace mine.

Hope this helps.

Scott

My experience is to shim the side pipe. You can get these from Eric at Performance Engineering, Ross, OH.

Bill

Cobras,
I have SPF #2259 and my gas pedal was doing the same thing. As Scootter said, make sure the nut holding the gas pedal on is tight. Mine was real loose and there was 1-2 in of movement before the throttle moved on the carb.
Also, the rods under the hood connected to the throttle and carb might need adjustment. In addition to the pedal nut, the rods have a direct effect on movement of the pedal to movement of the carb linkeage.
If you take a look at the rods, it is pretty easy to see which ones need adjustment. Think I had to length the travel from the carb to the firewall and the drivers side to the firewall. The rod nuts use a 10mm wrench.
When you push on the gas pedal, you should see direct throttle movement all the way to WOT with pedal to the floor. Might want to test it with the engine off and pushing the gas pedal to the floor.

Dont have an issue with the clutch as you do. It does grab about 1/2" off the floor but dont notice any slowness with the pedal returning.

thanks guys for your time and tips, well im happy to say that i did fix the issue today took me 5 hrs to do but its done gaps are almost perfect 100 times better then what it was, but let me tell you to undo motor tranny mounts wasnt bad at all it was shifting the motor around and the checking it the back under car etc,, damm it sucked but 6 cups of coffee and about 10 smokes its all said and done,

sonow i move on to the next issue the gas pedal the 10mm nut at the top of the gas peddal is tight and all looks good there, i will have to join the 2 sites mentioned above to research the whole site and tinker withmy car,

again thanks to all who posted.

You spoke with Brian at D&M today too I understand...

Cobras - glad you fixed your problem. Have you taken it for a ride yet?

I went out to measure my clearances about 3:30 and it was all the way up to 62°F, so I had to take a ride. Thanks for giving me a reason to go out today. :LOL::LOL:

BTW, the closest distance between pipes and body is 5/8 inch at the back radius of the header tubes as it exits from the body. The closest distance of my exhaust along the bottom of the body is about 3/4 inch. And the clearances are approx equal on both sides.

hey blas yes i did call kevin, he gave me the number to snake power, the guys who do the installs, he was a great guy to talk to helped me out with all my questions and told me what to do almost step by step, the install was top notch 100% while i was under the car pulling on tranny and motor, i was taking a break and looking at whats involved to installing all this crap,, its alot of work and it was all done awsome, everything tied up nice everything looks like it was from an assymbley line well its done thank god, im loving the car but still no drive will happen i hope tuesday tho,

as for wtm442, glad i was a help in getting you to go for a ride hahaah

and also mitch from vintage thanks for the info and help also

great group of guys here

so like i said i will be hitting the gas peddal and im sure it will be straight forward. dammm i love this car