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

Cosmetic upgrades today. Prepping the engine bay for the engine that'll end up in there very soon.

Probably one of the best, cheap tools I've bought from HF. This os one of a set of four panel punch dies that you drill a smaller hole, and stick the cutter on one side, and the stud on the other, and simply by tightening the bolt you get a perfect hole from 3/4-1-1/2" in about a minute.

I also made the panel to pass the column through. That raggedy rubber grommet is not available as a replacement, so I made a panel outta .030 alum, and used a seals-it grommet to pass the column through. I used another on the firewall where all of my engine electrical will come through.

I also ran the lines for the intercooler, and terminated the ends at both bulkheads, and plumbed the intercooler itself into those bulkheads.




The line coming out of the rear of the I/C is gonna be real close on a tight right turn. Right now, It sneaks by,...but I'll have to see it in action after I get the weight of the engine on the front end, and see what I gonna have to deal with.


Engine next.

RacEoHolic330 said:

I had no idea HF had a tool like that. Man, that would have come in handy for me a while ago.

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Yeah, cost about 20 bucks. Since I bought it every big-assed hole I've put in this car (now about 6 of them) has been done w/ that thing. Another one of my fav tools.

You guys are talking about a rock that makes a click, click, click noise when driving?

How far do you think that rock can stick out of the tread? That is 3/4" from making contact?

OK.
Time for more grit your teeth moments.
To reiterate:

The cam in this engine is custom. A solid mechanical roller custom ground in Australia shipped to me here in Alabama.
The timing chain is custom. A SBF multi-indexed set w/a chain sourced from a 69 Toyota Corrolla, customized to fit the application.
The crank is custom. .080 machined off of the front main journal with a full length keyway cut into the snout.

It came time today to degree the cam. I've been leaving the front of the engine off in anticipation of having to change the cam timing to accommodate the cam specs.
I started out this morning with the set installed straight up.
Following the procedure to degree the cam, i determined the C/L to be 101.75 degrees.

It's supposed to be 112.
I retarded the cam the max 8 degrees on the crank the gear allowed, and rechecked the specs.
109.75 degrees.

I still needed 2 degrees to get it where it needed to be,

Blame it on the fact that the cam is for a completely different engine.
Blame it on the fact that the timing chain set is a Summit branded Chinee set.
Blame it on the fact that the chain itself is from a completely different engine.
Blame it on the fact that we may have improperly indexed the cam gear when we drilled the thing to fit the 250 cam ( most likely to be the culprit).
Blame it on the fact that I am inexperienced when it comes to degreeing a cam.
Blame it on all of the above.

All in all I was still 2-3 degrees off from where the cam grinder recommended the cam to be installed.

I resigned myself to calling several timing set manufacturers to see if I could get a different crank gear that would allow me 12 degrees of retard, or offer custom services to modify my gear to provide that option.
Nobody offered a solution,..except Cloyes.
He advised me to move the crank gear one tooth counterclockwise, and make up for the massive retard by advancing the cam. That process managed to get me closer but I was still 1.5 degrees off. One way it spec'd 110.5, the other way, it came in at 113.5.

Either way, it was either early by 1/5 degrees, or late by the same amount.

I called Schneider cams, an inline six cylinder cam grinder, and asked which option he thought was better. He recommended that I run it at 110.5,..not happy w/ the cam specs I provided him. He stated that he wanted to see a turbo cam profile with less exhaust duration (opposite of mine) and by advancing the intake to 110.5, I would actually delay the exhaust event, something that he wanted to see more of.

So I left it where it was.



Then I installed the rest of the lifters.

Six sets of two. Despite the fact that I've installed the sets in every cylinder by themselves, I've never tried to get them all in at the same time.

The sixth set did not fit. The last lifter would not get past the other lifter standing in the hole next to it.
I had to come up w/another solution.

Comp uses a 5mm button head screw to hold the locator lug on the side of the lifter. Additionally, they peen the end of that screw to keep it from backing out. I decided to grind off the end of that screw so i could unscrew the bolt and remove the screw, thereby removing the anchor lug.

I drilled out the threads on the lug to create a pass through for a longer screw, and replaced the old 5mm screw with a longer one that would allow me to put a nut on it to lock the anchor in place.

Are you gritting your teeth now?
Are you worried that that nut will/could come off and fall into the engine, allowing that link bar to come off the set of lifters,... allowing them to rotate in their respective bores and destroy the cam? That nut binging, and banging off of the internals until it gets jammed between some part of the recip assembly potentially seizing up some part of the rotating assembly?

So am I.

But I got no choice. There simply is no way to get that sixth set in there w/o taking that link bar apart and reassembling it after the lifter is in the hole.

The best I could do is lock it in place w/ red loctite.
And cross my fingers.
And pray.

jrichker said:

No one has heard of all metal self locking nuts? They are a standard item on many aircraft engines.



http://www.aircraftfast.com/flexloc-nuts.htm

OR

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8#q=all metal self locking nuts

Let me know if you are interested. I may have just what you need in my stash of leftover aircraft nuts and bolts.

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It has to be a 5mm nut. That was the problem I encountered. There was no option for a locking 5mm nut.

Unless you can pull a rabbit outta your hat.

hoopty5.0 said:

Is there a way to send an email 'down unda' and ask what he suggests for setting timing, and double check specs with the bloak who ground it?

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I'm gonna ck the thing after I get the head on it. I could email the guy and ask him, but he'd just plead no contest since I've changed so much that revolves around the original cam he ground. I'm where you are w/ your engine compartment on it. It'll have to do for now.