Build Thread 1978 Mercury Cyclone. The pig is in the pen.

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#7,222
a91what said:
Sooo... gonna do one collector or make it so 3 pipes have a collector then each of those go into one? I know it's a bit late but won't a (merge?) header make better power?


Or did I miss the point and that's how your building this.
Click to expand...
I always intended to keep each bank merged separate, then merge both banks into one. It's gonna be cramped there as it usually is w/ any attempt to build an equal length shorty header.
As for whether or not it'll make more or less power or torque than some other version might have, that'll be a "never know",....I'm not building more than one of these replacement headers for this car.

Speaking of more or less power and torque.......

I did decide to cut the shafts on the Tb's so I can place them directly over the respective port. It's gonna be a needle in the haystack pain in the ass to do this......

The TB's all have to be precisely located so that they won't bind. Each TB has locating dowels built in that would have made it easy to remove and replace them on the engine they came off of just by popping the dowels into the holes in the head.. Those are dowel holes that I now have to drill in a piece of aluminum bar. Not only do I have to drill the holes for those dowels perfectly to ensure that all six TB's are not twisted and all at the right height to not cause shaft binding, They have to have my injector spacing now taken into account.

If I do my math correctly, and double/triple check myself, I may be able to do this right the first time...I'm thinking that a piece of aluminum bar 3/8-1/2" thick will be my mount flange...I'll lay out the spacing based on my 4.08" port spacing.
I'll have to drill (6) 1.625" holes that'll have to be made oval on one side of the plate to match the TB's mating surface, and blended like a funnel to the port opening. It's a good thing that the bases of those TB's are oval, because that'll guarantee that I get them all on the same plane simply by sitting them on a shoulder that I'll make from another piece of metal (like a framing square). That should guarantee that they are all not twisted, and at the same height. I can then center punch each TB's bolt hole pattern, and drill those 12 holes. then bolt them all on to determine what I'll do to reconnect the cut through shafts...(I just happen to have (6) 1/2" thin wall sleeves that I was gonna use as injector bosses...hopefully that shaft will be similar dimensions, and not hardened.
If the shaft is close enough to allow me to slide those sleeves over the cut ends of the shaft, I'll just drill a hole clean through the sleeve and shaft to let me bolt them back together...If not...I'll grind a "flat" on the shaft and use a set screw to do that.

Then if everything works the way I'm hoping it will,................I'll take those TB's apart, and have them PC'd (silver I think).
That is,.....if I can somehow have them keep the powder coating out of the throttle bore and the shaft bore.
Otherwise,...I'll clean them up best I can,...cut off what don't need to be on there,...and either paint or polish them myself.
I'll use the air injection boss as my vacuum port, I'll either fill those holes with epoxy, or pipe thread tap them for reducers that'll let me create the vacuum reservoir hard lines I talked about earlier.

I'll have to rig up a throttle linkage mount, and devise a way to hold on the fuel rail,..but those are incidentals...

I'm so looking forward to making this thing I can't stand it..
 
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#7,223
I'm guessing you don't have the room to build a manifold that will match the tb spacing to the head spacing, I do remember something about round this and oval that and bung holes but with all the non car blaa blaa blaa I'm not remembering nor am I gonna look for it.
Or would that be too easy :rolleyes:
 
#7,225
Save yourself lots of time and trouble - use a piece of 1/4 - 3/8" thick clear plastic sheet to make the layout template. Once you have all the holes perfectly lined up and sized, drill them oversize and press a drill bushing in place. It will enable you to get it right the first time and see what is going to interfere with other things.

The drill bushings are a little expensive ~$10, but the will help insure a factory perfect fit.

0781408-11.gif


With the drill bushings in place use the plastic sheet as a template The bushing will help make the alignment perfect and keep you from elongating the holes one way or another.. Press fit one of these little guys in each hole and if your layout was correct, the hole will be perfectly vertical and in alignment with the bolt hole centers.,

https://www.mscdirect.com/browse/tn...ners?navid=12106195#navid=12106195+4288074652
 
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#7,227
This will be funny.....

Not in a funny ha-ha way, but funny in "it figures" kind of way.

Medusa weighs about 25 pounds. Attaching her to the head has always been a giant pan in the ass. She is the reason the paint on my strut tower is all phckd up.
I decided to cut Medusa up because of that,...thinking that I could build a much lighter version that at the very least would accomplish the same end result, at a fraction of that weight now that the engine is N/A.

Today, I have 5 combo bends to work with....(Why I only ordered 5 combo bends for 6 ports is beyond me,..but I pushed forward nonetheless.)
I set out to do that....
I started by grinding off all of the old thick wall tubing weld residue on the three front ports that I'd already cut away a couple of days prior.
I was gonna build a meandering bundle of snakes so that I could have a "long tube" header in a "shorty" amount of space.....That lasted as long as it took to determine that I'd need another 5-6 combo bends, and would put the "bundle" too close to the back of the alternator for comfort.

So,....I decide to build the header in two sets of three,....with the center tubes (3 & 4) being made longer to try and even up the two longer spanning tubes, (1 & 2).

I thought that I was doing this when I built Medusa, but after measuring things,..found that I was far from equal length.
Regardless,...the turbo combo didn't care,......it ran great.

So then,...I've got a plan....I'm not gonna build a menagerie,....I'm gonna try to make them as close to equal as possible, and I'm gonna be able to save all of that weight that Medusa used to displace.

This is what the front 3 ended up looking like:
20180115_162313_zpsgisoquka.webp

I plan to put a V band flange on the mini collector,..It'll blend into a 2 into 1 merge pipe that'll tie into the existing down pipe.

This took the better part of the day to build....The center tube is longer and lower, the #2 tube is higher, and the #1 tube is higher still...trying to equalize the length of all three of them this way.

Are you ready for the funny part?....

I doubt that It'll make any difference..

20180115_163329_zpsstawggst.webp

Set up next to what is left of Medusa,...I'll bet that I coulda just cut enough away to allow me to attach a bend to the collector, and been done with it...It'd be 18 pounds heavier,...but it probably wouldn't have made one....single...horsepower, or one,..single foot pound of torque less than the new version.

Ha-ha.
 
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#7,229
droopie85gt said:
WOW! Looking at the bottom pic, I would say your fab skills are just getting better and better. Medusa was cool as :poo:, but that thing on the right is downright purty.
Click to expand...

Thanks.
I'm hell on wheels with a Mig and an angle grinder....It took only a few minutes to weld the tubes together, then it took 5 times that to grind, file, sand, and smooth the welds down to what you see in the pics.

Un altered I can weld the piss outta something, I won't lie...The tube to header flange is a testimony to that. But even as smooth as I can make a mig weld, it's still too big of a bead to leave alone on a tube.
 
#7,230
I'm not much, if any of a welder, but one of my first jobs was working at a company that did conveyor installs. They did a lot of fabricating. So I am very familiar with the full sized grinder and spending 12 hr days in 100 degree 70% humidity Memphis days grinding welds, laying out and drilling dozens of base plates on a drill press, and wiping down miles of mild steel with mineral spirits and laying on industrial blue or yellow enamel.

I guess I gotta get with the program. You'll have built the Monster motor 2 times while my pile has been sitting stationary. I look at it at least twice everyday though. Once on the way to work out the garage and once on the way back in!
 
#7,231
droopie85gt said:
I'm not much, if any of a welder, but one of my first jobs was working at a company that did conveyor installs. They did a lot of fabricating. So I am very familiar with the full sized grinder and spending 12 hr days in 100 degree 70% humidity Memphis days grinding welds, laying out and drilling dozens of base plates on a drill press, and wiping down miles of mild steel with mineral spirits and laying on industrial blue or yellow enamel.

I guess I gotta get with the program. You'll have built the Monster motor 2 times while my pile has been sitting stationary. I look at it at least twice everyday though. Once on the way to work out the garage and once on the way back in!
Click to expand...
That's my purpose in this place....to act as motivator for those that would rather walk by the project, rather than work the project.
That said,....I'll start off today with my usual words of wisdom............


Get on the stick.:chair:
 
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#7,233
Well hell.......

The throttle bodies are out for delivery today. They are being delivered by the usps. I called the wife, told her to call the new homeowner of our old house, and make him aware of that delivery. She says " He'll do like he always does when he gets one of our deliveries,......he'll text me."

That may be ok when it's a package of literature from her company,....but it's not ok when it's a box full of Vroom-vroom for me. Now it'll be a few more days before I get to put my hands on it.

Add to that, that we are having another one of our "weather events" that cripples the city,....despite the fact that it hasn't even snowed one flake here, and the temps are hovering around 35 degrees,...schools have closed, churches have closed, the grocery stores are mobbed,...and the local weather coverage has "teams" stationed all over the state to give us blow by blow coverage of the impending snowfall. Whether or not a flake ever falls is still yet to be determined...but it'll be my luck that it does,...and I won't be able to get to Hoover to get my coolness for days because of it.

I stopped by the machine shop to get my rod, and drop off my oil pan for cleaning. The rod isn't done ( naturally), but the guy working on it said "That thing is all kinds of wrong"... the big end is completely out of round. It will need resizing, and will end up being a few thousandths shorter because of it....

How did this happen?

The bearings looked the same as the other ones,..the crank is perfect, yet this cap was all stretched out of shape.
Even after messing with it, the cap still goes on way too hard...it'll go on...but you gotta bump it on, as opposed to being able to push it on like the rest of them.

Wondering on whether or not there is a red flag waving here....

A new forged stock rod is 37 bucks. But it'll need to be bushed,...have the bolts transferred over, and weight matched to the old rod. I'll have 60-80 dollars in a stock rod.......


And I just heard.........we're closing at 1:00.



And it still hasn't snowed a flake.
 
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#7,234
95BlueStallion said:
From the looks of your start, I think your engine compartment is going to look bad ass when youre done. Sorry if I missed your plan on coating, but have you thought of having both the intake and header ceramic coated?
Click to expand...
There is no intake....it'll only be throttle bodies attached directly to the head...

But I have thought about it...and yes, I plan to do both.
 
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#7,239
It''s a perfect world.
20180116_161239_Burst01_zpsrrrnnvai.webp

These are the gutted version of what came to me this afternoon. Main throttle shaft, linkage, throttle blade shafts, all removed. I'm gonna be able to do exactly what I wanted to do. The injector bosses will work, the main throttle shaft isn't hardened, so It can be cut and drilled. The upper hole was for an air injection system probably for EGR, but will become my vacuum ports.

What wont work as well is that there are only 3 bushings between the 6 throttle bodies. One on each end, and one in the middle. When I cut through that shaft to extend it between the throttle bodies, there wont be support between several of the inner units. Obviously wasn't a problem with the factory system,.. and it might not be an issue if I can get the sleeves that will go over the cut shaft to fit tightly enough,...but that'll be one more item that I have to get perfect, or the shaft will wobble.

A wobbly shaft might bind somewhere... and it would be bad to have a wobbly shaft. (I'm leaving myself wide open here)...

The other issue is that I can direct mount the throttle bodies,but how thick does the plate have to be to adequately transition from the 1.3" x 2" oval bottom of the throttle body to the round 1.625" opening at the port entrance....and given that there will be some of the round port on the head "cut off" on the top and bottom, am I better off going back to putting a tube between the head, and the throttle body to aid in that transition?. I really want to keep it simple and clean and just use a single plate.... I wonder if I can make this out of something other than metal?

I got the rod back this afternoon,....Put the piston on it, and stuffed it in the hole...Now the short block is assembled.

I got to figure out the TB dilemma and move forward..I don't really want to give up the integral injector mount boss that are built into the throttle bodies...................:thinking:.Decisions, decisions.
 
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#7,240
@CarMichael Angelo
Bolting the throttle bodies directly to the head without a tuned length intake runner is going to play havoc with any ram air effect that would be a power booster. When the sonic wave rebounds from hitting the closed intake valve, the next thing it hits is the throttle butterfly which either chokes the wave or makes it operate up in the high RPM range that the engine will not operate in.

Using a long stack on the other side of the throttle butterfly to tune the overall runner length is going to have the same problem. The throttle butterfly is going to have a negative effect on the sonic pressure wave because some of the sonic energy is going to bounce off of it and reflect back to the common plenum for the air cleaner.

See https://www.google.com/search?sourc...j0i10k1j0i22i30k1j33i22i29i30k1.0.R8_Nn5li2jQ

See http://www.wallaceracing.com/runnertorquecalc.php for a calculator to help determine intake runner size and length
http://www.wallaceracing.com/runnertorquecalc.php
 
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