Rwd sho guys.

[vetteboy]

Here's what it's going in...I mentioned some of the details a while ago, but this is a '94 Wrangler body on a '93 2-door Ford Explorer chassis. The wheelbase is staying roughly the same (103"), cutting & dovetailing the rear of the body, back half of the frame is getting cut and 4-linked, etc...keeping the TTB suspension up front with about 14-15" travel. 35" tires.



The body is just resting on it for now; by the end it'll be little more than sheetmetal skins wrapped around a tubular frame, kinda like you said.

The class that I race in requires a production body & frame (though not necessarily the same vehicle), and I wanted to in the 6-cylinder group, so I sat around a while and came up with these 3 vehicles (including the SHO) to mash together. Should be a fun project I think.

About to drop the subframe outta the SHO now, back to work!

 

[rubydist]

really, 14" of travel on a ttb front axle? wow. I want to see how you do that.

 

[vetteboy]

That's actually a pretty conservative amount of travel for this platform...guys are gettin way more than that. For what I'm doing it's not worth the extra work and cost. I'll be keeping the Explorer TTB arms with F150 knuckles/spindles/etc...upgrading the diffand outer stubs to 30 spline with 300M CV shafts...

But more on point:

Now we're getting somewhere. Not bolted together yet but I'll be ordering the adapter plate material shortly.

 

[kevinspann]

What trans is that?


Edit, saw the post up there.

Neat project. Custom flywheel/clutch?

More edits. I see now, I'll learn to read.




Neat project.

 

[vetteboy]

The flywheel is going to be a bit of an issue as the starter on the AMC is mounted in the bellhousing so I need the larger diameter of the Jeep flywheel (however it'd then use the Jeep clutch, pressure plate, throwout assembly, etc). I'll be posting about all of this as I get further along.

So unfortunately the AMC flywheel bolt pattern and the SHO bolt pattern crash into each other, so a one-piece adapter isn't an option.

Both the SHO 8-bolt pattern and the 6-bolt Jeep pattern have the one offset hole to set the orientation of the flywheel, I just drew both patterns round, but it's the same idea.

This is looking at the side that the Jeep flywheel mounts to; the 6 open holes would be tapped for the flywheel bolts.



This is the side that bolts to the crank ****** on the SHO motor:



And the exploded view of what's going on in there:



Honestly it's not all that hard to make, just kind of an awkward lil piece. Thoughts?

 

[rubydist]

it would be far safer to just get a flywheel custom-drilled to the SHO pattern.

 

[vetteboy]

Safer, in what regard?

The bolts all end up being captured so they can't back out, so I'm not worried about it coming apart...I'd probably machine in a few dowel pin holes to hold the halves together as well.

Fact remains I still need to make up the ~1" thickness of the bellhousing adapter somehow. I'd take this over a straight-thru adapter just because I like the idea of using as many off-the-shelf components as possible (I don't wanna have my starter chew up the ring gear and be stuck with a custom-drilled paperweight).

Still open to ideas though.

 

[rubydist]

just because they cannot back out does not mean they cannot come loose.

the torque pulses of the engine will shear the bolts if they are loose - it takes the clamp force of the bolts in tension to hold the flywheel on securely and safely.

so, the fact that your adapter has 3x the number of bolts just means it is 3x more likely to result in a problem - hence a custom flywheel is safer.

 

[vetteboy]

I know how bolted connections are supposed to work...

So because the SHO motor uses 8 bolts instead of 6 like the Jeep pattern, it's 33% more likely to fail?

Honestly if I could delete 2 bolts outta the SHO pattern and run two groups of 3 opposing each other, that'd solve my interference issue right away.

So you'd rather see a straight-through 1-1/4" spacer and ~1-3/4" long flywheel bolts?

I mean, worst case scenario here is it shears the bolts, which ends my race for the day and I winch it back up on my trailer and go home. It would also be checked before every race...the maintenance schedule on these rigs is aggressive to say the least.

 

[vetteboy]

So about the little waterneck/thermostat housing on the rear of the motor.

Here's how this thing is gonna sit in my truck; I'm leaving the intake facing in the factory direction so the filter winds up protected in the cab:

This puts the upper radiator hose somewhere inside the cab too.

Is there an alternate plumbing setup or a different t-stat housing that can be used in this case?

 

[Off Road SHO]

We buggy guys usually just cut it down to an inch past the thermostat bubble so we can get a hose clamped on it.

I've seen an electric water pump setup also where they did away with the cross-over tube in the valley and ran the outputs from the heads back along the outside of the heads to a resevoir that then had a thermostat on it. He said he didn't need the thermostat with his electric pump setup because of the temp sensors it used, but he put it in anyway.

Tom

 

[Off Road SHO]

How do you get the stock wiring to fit up to a T5? I can't wait:woo-hoo:

????? There aint no wiring that needs to "fit" up. Except maybe the back-up lights switch.

Tom

 

[vetteboy]

We buggy guys usually just cut it down to an inch past the thermostat bubble so we can get a hose clamped on it.

I've seen an electric water pump setup also where they did away with the cross-over tube in the valley and ran the outputs from the heads back along the outside of the heads to a resevoir that then had a thermostat on it. He said he didn't need the thermostat with his electric pump setup because of the temp sensors it used, but he put it in anyway.

Tom

Cool, thanks. I'll likely have to do something similar with the lower radiator hose inlet as that long pipe comes down right next to my front suspension crossmember.

A brief glance through RockAuto makes it look like a Ranger 3.0 thermostat housing might bolt up, and it's significantly shorter...I'll dig around the shop here and see if we've got one of those. I had a bad (read: expensive) experience in a race last season with a hose blowing off so I'd like to have the added security of a ridge on the end of that pipe, especially with it pointed right into the cab.

Either way I don't think I'll need to do something as elaborate as the electric pump deal.

 

[Shovert]

I got a 90 degree housing off a vehicle maybe one you are talking about. Has this Number on it. f6ze-8594-08. If same as one you are talking about the bolt spacing is wrong. I presenting running a 90 rubber hose on mine [Like off road sho did] but I guess getting a extra 3.2 one modified to 90 to get room between firewall and engine. Maurice

 

[vetteboy]

I got a 90 degree housing off a vehicle maybe one you are talking about. Has this Number on it. f6ze-8594-08. If same as one you are talking about the bolt spacing is wrong. I presenting running a 90 rubber hose on mine [Like off road sho did] but I guess getting a extra 3.2 one modified to 90 to get room between firewall and engine. Maurice

Cool, thanks for the info.

The hose has a ~1.5" ID and I'm going to be buying and bending a lot of 1.5" DOM tube for this project, so I might just bend a single piece of tube to run from the rear coolant outlet up to the front of the motor, weld a ****** on it, and omit the factory t-stat housing entirely. We'll see how it lays out once I'm farther along.

Here's a few more pics, relevant to this thread:





Captures 5 out of 6 bolts of the trans bellhousing pattern (the Jeep bellhousing only uses 4 anyway); the one above the rear seal carrier just takes a shallower bolt. I used the router to give clearance for the cover while keeping some adapter plate material to allow for that bolt hole.





Tight, remote oil filter required, but everything else clears. Driver side exhaust will run around the front of the oil pan and join on the passenger side with a Y-pipe.





There was some discussion previously about what transmissions this opens up...in addition to the Jeep units I mentioned before, you could also use this to run a Torqueflight 727, 904, 999, or there's even a Turbo 400 variant that AMC used.

Coming together slowly but surely.

 

[rubydist]

cool stuff.


can you show us more pics of how you route the exhaust around the front and how that interacts with the motor mounts you have?

 

[Low fo SHO]

im putting a sho motor in my mitsubishi starion. its my drift car and the 2.6 iron block that comes stock is shit. and to the guy who said drifting a miata is a bad idea, do your homework. my homie mike being a boss...
http://vimeo.com/32131435

 

[Shovert]

Nice looking work. Unsure if would help. Could make some headers. There is a nice thread on specs on one with your skill level. I made some out of modified 3.8 Mustang one. [They were free.]
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w224/mgman75/93 mustang converiable/sep42011109.jpg
http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w224/mgman75/93 mustang converiable/8-13-2011033.jpg
Running video if interested. Open headers right now. Maurice
http://s177.photobucket.com/albums/... converiable/?action=view&current=Picture.mp4

 

[vetteboy]

cool stuff.


can you show us more pics of how you route the exhaust around the front and how that interacts with the motor mounts you have?

Definitely, once I get there...I've been traveling for work a lot lately so it's been tough to make significant progress. Right now it's still suspended in the chassis by the shop crane.

I'm about 90% sure I'm not going to be using either of the factory motor mount brackets. The passenger side (in my case...in your guys' case, the one that holds the power steering pump) could work, and in fact the high-performance TC-style steering pump I have actually bolts in place of the OEM unit, but the driver side one doesn't stand a chance, so in order to simplify the bushing situation I'll probably just build one for each side to use the same kind of bushing.

The driver side motor mount is probably going to occupy some of the space where the compressor used to be, and the frame rail there allows me to mount it high enough that the exhaust can sneak under it.

 

[RichieSHO34]

Definitely, once I get there...I've been traveling for work a lot lately so it's been tough to make significant progress. Right now it's still suspended in the chassis by the shop crane.

I'm about 90% sure I'm not going to be using either of the factory motor mount brackets. The passenger side (in my case...in your guys' case, the one that holds the power steering pump) could work, and in fact the high-performance TC-style steering pump I have actually bolts in place of the OEM unit, but the driver side one doesn't stand a chance, so in order to simplify the bushing situation I'll probably just build one for each side to use the same kind of bushing.

The driver side motor mount is probably going to occupy some of the space where the compressor used to be, and the frame rail there allows me to mount it high enough that the exhaust can sneak under it.

Do you have a welder? Have you ever just though about getting a small aluminum radiator and **** moving ti the the far left side of the front support then fab up something with 2 inlets and a 90 degree bend then just run a hose straight to the radiator? My Supra came with one like that stock to keep the coolent away from the exhaust piping