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

What a day.

I picked up my block, crank, rods, and pistons from the machine shop Friday so that I could mock up a couple of holes to determine final deck height. This morning, the block was still in the bed of my truck.
The engine stand that I have was given to me by my former boss. I didn't like how badly an engine would sag when placed on it, so the first thing I did today was cut the rear spine, and tilt it back about 20 degrees, then rewelded it.

That took about 20 minutes. It's now 9:00 AM.

I wheeled the modified engine stand over to my truck, bolted it up to the block, and wheeled the mounted engine back over in front of the garage. When I started to clean the crank, there was just so much casting flash, and sharp, jaggy parting lines all over the place, I decided to prep the crank. ( something I wasn't gonna do).

An hour later, all the parting lines were smoothed, the rough casting flash was gone, and the crank was washed, and ready to drop in. It's now 10:00 AM.

The pistons I bought were ordered with the pin lower by .100 from stock. The last time I checked the stock setup, the stock piston was over .100 down in the hole at TDC. By moving the pin down on the new pistons the top should be almost where it needed to be, but I knew that it was still gonna be below deck. So I assembled #1, and #6 and set them aside. Dropped in the crank, snugged up three of the seven main caps, and slid those two pistons in their holes.

After I got out my feeler gauges and a straight edge, I was able to sneak an .008 gauge between it, and the top of the piston. It was the same for the rear. This took about another hour in total. It's now 11:00.

This is where the day goes to hell.

As I was checking the piston I was rocking it in the bore to be sure I wasn't getting a false reading from the piston top as a result of it not being square in the bore. Since there are no rings installed yet,...it moves quite easily. I expected the piston to rock side to side on the axis of the pin. What I didn't expect was front to back movement. Pressing on the front edge, and back edge of the piston was causing the thing to rock as well. I thought "how can that be?" the rod bearing should be tight enough, and the rod side clearance should limit the movement to almost nothing. That didn't seem to be the case. To me it seemed like the piston was moving way to much.

There had to be something wrong.

Again, I didn't plan to check bearing clearances today. So I didn't have any plastigage to check it. Additionally, I didn't even know what the stupid clearances were even supposed to be.

I was gonna find out now by God, so Off I go to AutoZone to get some Plastigage.

"Plastigage???? what's that?" was the answer I got from the Autozoner.
I called O'reillys.
"Yes we have all four colors,..which one do you need?" the Oreilly guy asks.
"I don't know,...I don't even know how much clearance this engine is supposed to have."
He tells me he has a book that'll tell me that,...and to come on down.
I get in my car and leave the worthless Auto Zone behind.
It's Saturday. Saturday in Birmingham is stupid driver day. There was traffic to rival Christmas, construction everywhere,.and of course,.......people who decide it was such a nice day,...they'd go out and run into somebody.
It took me an hour to get to the O'reillys store. There's a sign on the door.
They've moved.
2 Miles further down that congested ass road.
I went across the street to NAPA. They had what I wanted, I started back home. This time I'll take the Interstate.
Which went great until I merged onto 459,..and then it stopped. More construction. I'm back home at 1:30.

I manage to find rod bearing clearances for my engine online...( .0008 to .003).
I clean the oil off of the bearings from the previous install, cut a little piece of green plastigage and lay it across the bearing surface,..install the cap, torque it to 20 ft lbs, remove the cap,...and check it.

.oo15. What was I worried about? I took that sh it back apart, and put the block back in the bed of my truck.

View attachment 117174
One old skool stock rod. Beams polished, bushed, w/ ARP bolts.

The fact that my name is laser etched on the piston has gotta be good for 10 HP,.....per piston.
All I know is that It's like 4:00 PM,..now. I planned on having the first part of the day over and done by 11:00,..now I'm 5 hours in the bag,..and I got little to show for it.

I drug out my aluminum fuel line.
I decided come Hell of highwater, I'm gonna get the fuel lines ran. I almost did.

It's worth mentioning that the lines are uncut. One line for the feed, one line for the return runs from front to back bent, clamped, and routed. I managed to do this in two hours.

I fed the lines from the rear of the car,..and bent these front two first.

Back along the front subframe, and under the SFC's.

Out from under the SFC's, and onto the rear subframe.
View attachment 117179
Then up onto the top of the floor, and across to the other side.

Two things:

I need to spray more paint, ( which I can't do now, because the fuel lines are run)
I ran outta time. The fuel lines stop at the rear frame rails.

Noobz347 said:

Well if it's any consolation, the motor is beginning to look like it's going to be a badass.

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Thanks Noobz. It is a consolation. I hope that the damn "kit built" Frank-N-Motor makes the power everybody tells me it should, and that it holds together.

More work on the fuel system today.
Made a bracket to hold the 1o micron filter. Mounted the pump, and made an interconnect from the outlet to the filter.

This is a "just for today" mounting solution. I'll get newer clamps and a piece of rubber to sandwich between the metal tab and the filter later.

I originally had the fuel pump mounted, so that it would be level w/ the sump, but it hung down so far that it would literally be 6"below the bottom of the bumper. I raised it so the bottom of the filter is slightly below the bottom of the bumper. When I add the 1.5" valance to the bottom of the bumper that's in the pl;ans for the rear end, it'll disappear. I ordered about 250.00 in fittings to complete the fuel system, and the adapter that will allow me to convert -8 to 1/2" pipe had to come from a different warehouse, so I I'm waiting for that to complete the fuel system mock up.

Originally, I planned to use the fuel lines that are pictured on the tank, but after reading, found out that they are not supposed to be used as fuel lines.
I can use the black line for a vent, and that is how it's intended in this pic. the other was to be the fuel return,..I'll have to change that over to something else.


I did have some -6 nylon braided line, that I ended up using for a return. I hate that sh it,..and more than likely,..it'll be removed and I'll change it over to SS braided.
The lines will stay. The fittings, pump and filters will all go back in their boxes until I paint it. I just needed to locate the necessary mount tabs for the bulk head fittings, pump and filter.

Da Done Dah.

tannerc91gt said:

What are the details on that pump mike?

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Pumps flows 110 gal/hr free flow @ 14V, 83 gal/hr @ 40 psi @ 14V, 63 gal/hr @ 65 psi @ 14V. Pump pulls 11.6 amps under full load. Includes 15 amp fuse. Pump is submersible.

RacEoHolic330 said:

Plumbing looks great! I bet your crack was hanging out the whole time. Mine sure was.

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Thanks man,.....I actually did it w/ one hand behind my back.

84Ttop said:

I'm going to leave my two cents right here...

Project should have been renamed to "Durango". You are probably saying to yourself "hey dumb @$$ Durango is a Dodge product why would I name my car after that?" My response is simple...

Ford Had the Durango First!!!
Now in my sheer brilliance I have aided you in keeping your Ford a Ford and the Fairmont purest will be happy. For this you can thank me at any time

Coming along nicely Mike, Keep up the good work!

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let me thank you in advance to never show me a picture of that stupid car again.

Well. Sat in my pajamas for 6 hours this morning until all of this was built, and tested.


The MSII ecu left, a "Jimstim" simulator to check operation of the ECU, and a relay board kit to run injectors, and fuel pump. All of these things were in kit form in one way or another, with the relay board being the easiest to build. That Jim stim duplicates every sensor the engine has, including EDIS. It is pretty cool to watch that thing running and all the leds flashing simulating injector firing. The rubber hose comes off of an internal 2 bar map sensor (all I'm ever gonna need).

When that was done, I got dressed and went to pick up the rotating assy from the other machine shop I dropped it off to yesterday. The only thing that has been cheaper than a V8 in this build was the balance job. 100.00. Course he didn't have to deal w/ my pistons since they were custom,..so that knocked a whole 25.00 off of the tab.

hoopty5.0 said:

I need to order my MS stuff, that's my next major purchase. Did you get the wiring harness too or are you going to build one?

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I bought the ECU to relay board harness (90.00) and some bundle of wires to run from the screw terminals on the relay board to the engine.
Do you have anything bought yet? I need to check if it's truly only for the build,... I may be able to sell you my jimstim if I dont need the thing now that mines all done.