Seems I recall a Jalopnik story a while back about a guy who corner weighted his 911 by buying 12 cheap ($10-$12) 300 lb. bathroom scales and building a little platform for each corner out of plywood and 2x4's. Used 3 at each corner as I recall....memory could be askew.
I used 3 bathroom scales (1 each) under the 3 casters on my engine stand to do before/after engine weights on the 5.0L and the LS3. Worked great! I was able to borrow a friend/racer's corner scales to corner weight the car.
My build thread, so I can derail it...
Knowing that I am done with it, the Minion asked if he could borrow the foam 302 mock-up engine. Said he has a new plasma cutter and a plan.
Figured I had better wander over to see if addult supervision might be required.
Too late!
Someone wants a V8 MGB and he wants to move the engine way back behind the front crossmember.
No need to feel sorry for this MGB: It was just a rolling shell and not a very solid one at that. Gonna end up pretty tube-framed with a stroked Cleveland kinda under some kind of "Bonnet" or what is left of one. The gutted C4 is there as a place-marker for the T5 that will end up in the car.
Are you mentoring this build to the point that Minion will create his own?
759NRNG wrote: Are you mentoring this build to the point that Minion will create his own?
You mean his own build thread? Not his thing really. The Minion likes to launch into the deep end of a crazy project and go balls-to-the-wall at it until someone decides they want the thing more than he does and he sells it to them.
Can he make guest appearances on your coattail? Like doing a thread derail update... 
759NRNG wrote: Can he make guest appearances on your coattail? Like doing a thread derail update...
I second this motion. All in favor...
Ayes have it!
A small block Ford will fit in an MGB, ask me how I know ;) Spridgetech makes a fiberglass hood with a bulge big enough to hide a V8
loosecannon wrote: A small block Ford will fit in an MGB, ask me how I know ;) Spridgetech makes a fiberglass hood with a bulge big enough to hide a V8
I was there when you started cutting on the GT. Seems like yesterday!
Perhaps a little over a year ago ?
There's a lot of that going around at britishV8.org.
Lets see, where did I leave off? Oh yeah..waiting for parts.
Got some. A few hoses and belts and tightened fasteners short of a full picnic, but I am pretty much ready to fire this thing up.
Not that it is critical in the short term, but I went ahead and installed the HVAC components just to see what it looked like. That E36 M3 takes up a lot of space! An aftermarket system from Vintage air would need about half that space and might be easier to integrate. But like I said, future work.
19 days to go
The observant amonst y'all will have noticed a Holley 4 barrel carb sitting in a box. If this fancy FITECH gives me ANY sass, its going back in the box till after I collect my money.
Be sure you give it an appropriate amount of time to "learn"...that you don't want any sass.
NoHome, I'm cheering for you to collect on that bet.
I know you will, but I'm eager to hear your opinion of the FITECH set up once you get it all up and running.
How much of the Miata dash will survive?
Also eager to hear about the fuel injection. My wife's boss has decided that I'm some sort of mechanical genius after he stumbled on the R63 article online and is convinced I could help him with a 70's pickup. I'm pretty sure swapping to self learning FI would be the easy button.
The "self learn" mode is why I might default to the "known to be running" carb for the first drive. Since the car wont be going on the road for some time, the FI wont really have a chance to learn it's job.
Looking good.
Hopefully you have some sort of tuning software that lets you see all of the sensor inputs before attempting first start. When Megasquirting a TR6, we first established that all of the sensors were providing reasonable values and the crank position signal was synchronized. After that, I was just cranking to build oil pressure when the thing fired and ran on the first try. The idle took some tuning but it was no sweat running the engine for 20 minutes for initial break-in. First start to drivable was much easier than tuning Webers. And this was from a generic generated tune. You should be able to find a decent initial tune to start with.
Indy-Guy wrote: I know you will, but I'm eager to hear your opinion of the FITECH set up once you get it all up and running.
Me too, I'm considering one for the Vette if the Holley performs as poorly at autox as I expect. At least once I get some decent tires & shocks under it.
Joe:
The FITECH system has sensor checks as part of the user interface. How good of a jog they do, I have yet to determine.
Been doing a lot of reading into the new FI throttle bodies from FITECH and Holley and they are not without their pitfalls. Vacuum leaks, exhaust leaks, poor electrical grounds and as you mention, bad sensors can lead the user on a merry chase. There will always be a concern about the quality of the sensors when they are being bought by a supplier who needs to keep cost as low as possible. I have already read that it might be wise to replace the temp sensor as the one that comes with the FITECH is of dubious quality; fine if it works, but frustrating if/when it does not.
Then there is the brain embedded in the throttle-body itself; I am not sure if there is any way to perform a sanity check that I am aware of.
I am on the FITECH Facebook page, and there are a lot of frustrated users.For the most part I think a lot of them would be frustrated by anything that did not work perfect out of the box.
In my eyes FiTech is worse than a MS because you can't get inside it to do stuff. I have had some really bad experiences with both Holley and Edelbrock, miserable support, hours on the phone getting shuffled back and forth, inflexable hardware, and software that does not allow full access, "engineers" with vague conclusions and non-solutions just to get you off their phones in hopes you will give up and live with it. The MS support you get on the forums is 10 times better, you just need patience and a working BS detector.
With MS Tuner Studio will tune it for you (after you get the idle set) but it is (I'm sure) much more flexible and configurable.
If you can get past the FUD surrounding a system like MS you will discover how good it really is.
Myself I would never attempt a TB injected setup there are pitfalls built into it, wet flow, wall wetting, fuel distribution, and other gotchya's. MS has some settings to bandaid this, but BANDAID. It's better if you don't need a bandaid. It's like straight pipes on a Harley there are plenty of tricks to make them "work" (define work) but you can never get ahead of starting two or three steps behind. So port injection is the way to do it, there is a reason OEM's quit using TB injection. And the only reason The FiTech uses it is to make the buyer feel better and get past the FUD, it looks like a carb "it's OK".
It still needs a solid fuel supply and a return system is the only way (in my eyes) to do that right. Many cars will need a swirl pot, as an in-tank pump will suck air. I see the plumbing as more challenging than the electronics on many EFI installs. Especially to embrace safety, a clean install, economics, durability, and ease of maintenance. The injector supply pump needs a flooded inlet and that is next to impossible to do in an old carb type or fabbed large fuel tank, even with a sump (especially for spirited drivers). Even non-spirited drivers will have problems with low fuel levels and hills/cambers, lateral G forces. This is made worse with a single line system, as the only way for air to get out is through the injector.
99% of the FUD around EFI is guys taking shortcuts or trying to use less than ideal components. The real downside of MS systems is the documentation. The doc's were written by guys who have been doing this for years and a lot of knowledge is assumed (tribal). And they try to embrace hardware that is less than optimal or requires complex workarounds (less than optimal). I won't delve into the creative wiring some do or simple mistakes like trying to use non-resistor spark plugs and low resistance plug wires.
I wish you the best with the FiTech unit and look forward to hearing how it works out for you. Not to gloat, but in hopes that they have built a setup that works well.
Fairly sure I've mentioned this before, but for what NOHOME is building this car to do (remember he's NOT building a race car), a standard Ford 5.0HO EFI is what I would do. Parts are easy to source and Ford already sells a replacement 5.0HO harness that will allow it to be fitted into any car. No futzing, no programming, no carb tuning. Just plug it in and drive.
NOHOME wrote:
This has a decidedly 64-66 Mustang look. Not just due to the carb, either, but the headlight buckets, SBF, etc. Beautiful, and looks totally as if it could have come off an assembly line somewhere.
wheelsmithy wrote:NOHOME wrote:This has a decidedly 64-66 Mustang look. Not just due to the carb, either, but the headlight buckets, SBF, etc. Beautiful, and looks totally as if it could have come off an assembly line somewhere.
Thank you. That was the intent.
As to the fuel delivery choice, it was based on the fact that I wanted to get away from the stink or a carburated car and the time it takes farfing around in the driveway warming up before you can drive the car.
There are lots of opinions out there. The person (Minion) who is helping me goes by the nickname of "Mustang Pete"; his opinion of the factory mustang injection centers around how fast you can replace it with a carburator. He also hates cats and don't care about emissions or smell.
Any port aftermarket port injection option (in Canada) is going to end up around $3000. Just not in the budget.
Home brewed with MS would work. Eventually. If I could commit to the year of education and trial and error. All roads lead to where you eventually need to be, so lets see where the FITECH takes me and where I go from there?
Edit:
One of the design rules I am following is called the "Broke down 1000 miles from home" requirement. What this means is that I want a minimum of custom parts that Fed X cant deliver overnight and be installed as they are delivered. So far 80% of this car could be serviced at a Ford or Mazda dealer.
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