Well, this was a very productive weekend, the most productive weekend I've had on the Cobra in a while.
The intake manifold is officially on and torqued down. I'm not entirely thrilled with how it all went together, but I think it should seal just fine. I ended up cutting the tops off of the inner 4 studs with the dremel and then unscrewing them from the head bout a turn. Torqued in the appropriate pattern. It doesn't look especially pretty because of the mismatched fasteners at different heights, but really a lot of that has to do with the intake itself. They could have designed it to be easier to install, but they didn't.
I then went and made the longer brackets that I thought I needed for the fuel rails using Ford injectors. Not particularly hard but took about an hour. When I went to get the hardware out of the bag, I realized that the intake had come with two sets of brackets and, you guessed it, one was longer and fit Ford style injectors. I had to laugh at that and give myself the idiot of the day award. One of the brackets touched the throttle body it was attached to, so I had to trim it down again. Machining on this intake definitely leaves something to be desired.
But, the fuel rails and injectors are on, and the intake is in. I then did some looking at it to figure out how I want to run the fuel system. I need to buy a different fitting for the aft of the passenger side fuel rail, specifically a 90-degree fitting. I did some thinking about how I wanted to route everything, and decided that the rear will be the crossover, and then the front ports will be the inlet and outlet. I'll need to do some more thinking to figure out exactly how I want to plumb all of that and where to mount the fuel pressure regulator. There are a few areas that look promising but I also need to make sure they'll have adequate clearance for the body.
I also got the fuel lines effectively done. There's a little more clean-up to do in the back where I have the fuel filter mounted (or rather where it needs to be mounted - right now just sitting) , but I'm happy with how the lines are routed and they're attached mostly. Fittings need to all get tightened, and then I need to bend the lines up front in the engine bay.
I was going to put the starter on, but decided that I was going to get a new one after all. This one works but with the oil pan I'm using, replacing it is a pain. Some have said you have to remove the oil pan to get the starter off. I'm skeptical of that, but it would be a pain since the race pan goes underneath the starter. And then after my issue with my tube of Right Stuff, I couldn't put the oil pan on anyway. So those items got taken off the list.
I then looked at the radiator, and ultimately decided I don't want to put that on until I'm fairly close to being ready for first start. As much as I'd like to "close up" each system one at a time, the radiator is going to ultimately be very in the way, and until the body gets put on the bottom portion of it is held in place by zip ties. Those two things strike me as just asking for trouble. So I think what I want to do is get the car otherwise ready to run, install the radiator last, then fill the system with coolant and do the first start and go-karting, before putting the body on.
Today I then went ahead and riveted on one of the trunk panels, specifically the upper on. There were a couple of lines of holes I hadn't drilled, so I had to get my 1/8" drill bit out and do those. Didn't take long and then got those siliconed on. Factory Five includes both 1/4" and 1/2" length rivets, and I apparently have used some 1/2" ones in places they didn't need to be (and/or drilled too many holes... probably a bit of both) and I will need to buy more. I had just enough for this panel.
I then figured I'd keep on going with progress and rivet on the lower trunk panel. However, first I need to trim it. There are some triangular panels on the sides of the inner trunk that I thought could go on first. Well, apparently I was wrong and the lower trunk aluminum panel is now just a hair too wide to fit. Oops. Not a hard fix, just have to grind some material away. But I wasn't going to do that today.
I also started playing around with the throttle cable some. I'm going to have to make a bracket on the intake for it, but I got it mounted to the body. The gas pedal I got I'm also going to need to do a bit of adjustment on to make the cable fit on it correctly.
One thing that I started working on but am thinking about how I want to handle is the hand brake cables. Factory Five has you run the Mustang cables underneath one of the 4" round tubes. In other words, every time you pull on the hand brake lever it literally will be rubbing the cables on the tube. Realistically for how much (little) the hand brake is used, this is unlikely to cause a problem. However I inherently don't like the idea of running something such that it, by design, touches something else.
So, good progress. Several boxes thrown out, some big parts finished. I'm guessing that the fuel system is going to require two more orders from Summit to get everything that I need to finish it up although I may get away with one. The gas pedal is close to doing what it's supposed to, at which point all three pedals will be physically doing what they're supposed to.
I want to finish up the fuel system components and the throttle cable (including bracket), and of course install the starter and oil pan. But after that, I think the next step will be electrical. Maybe working on the HVAC first or in parallel to some extent.
But, this makes me smile:
