Where are you going to mount those twins? High or low?

..............Somewhere else :underchair:

In the middle!!! LOL

Andrew

^^This, but not vertically

Mounting the ballast.... Since the bed wasn't mounted yet I just took a guess on where they should be based off the factory cab mounts.

http://i981.photobucket.com/albums/a...psgkwfpgk1.jpg

http://i981.photobucket.com/albums/a...psmzxldxer.jpg

Came pretty close on my guesstimate.

http://i981.photobucket.com/albums/a...psl3yackc1.jpg

You can kinda see it hiding under there.

http://i981.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps75dbb7xn.jpg

Mounted the Holley Hi-Ram to check for clearance issues.

http://i981.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps0r3bvpbz.jpg

http://i981.photobucket.com/albums/a...psrvs3uyn3.jpg

I have always hated the 67-72 dash. It's flat, tall, ugly and boring.

http://i981.photobucket.com/albums/a...pswkna86wq.jpg

http://i981.photobucket.com/albums/a...pswgkatdnh.jpg

So about 5:30 last night I'm in the shop and Ed(Owner of TCI) comes walking out of his office. I'm sitting on a short stool inside the cab just staring at the dash contemplating things. Ed says "You know, when I was building my Mustang I wish I would have cut the dash out. It would have made my life much easier". That was all I needed to hear. I grabbed a sharpie and started marking it up. Removed the few retaining bolts and fired up the plasma cutter. I left a one inch flange to attach the replacement dash to later.

http://i981.photobucket.com/albums/a...pssem8ihqu.jpg

http://i981.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps23n7xvbs.jpg


With the dash out it became very clear to me how the tunnel and firewall should be cut. I knew I wanted to push the engine back, I just didn't know how much.

http://i981.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps1yfaomjx.jpg

So I took some measurements and rigged up a floor mounted fixture to use as a guide with the plasma cutter and went to town.

http://i981.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps5pntcf7z.jpg

http://i981.photobucket.com/albums/a...psgtpuybwk.jpg

Once you exceed 3-4" of setback things start to get interesting (difficult). However, once you go beyond 3-4" it's not much different to go 10-12" vs. 6". In the position below the engine is back 10" from the factory location.

http://i981.photobucket.com/albums/a...psrqgxajzy.jpg

Wow! Might as well go mid-engine at this point, lol. Seriously, I dig the direction you're taking this.

Chad Ryker had a bad(good) idea on Instagram to make it awd.

Ditto! That is mid-engine as it sits--note the front axle centerline in relation to the heads. This truck is getting very cool.

Apologies for the ignorance. I know it's good to have the engine pushed back a ways rather than hanging way out in front of the vehicle, but is there extra benefit to having half of it inside the cab?

Excited to see the work on this truck!

You'd be surprised how little moving the engine back 3-4" effects weight distribution. At least with a lightweight LS based engine and a long wheelbase vehicle such as this. Moving a battery from the front to the back can have more an effect.


We have a few different sets of headers sitting around the shop we use for mock up. Of all the ones I tried our own off the shelf headers fit the best. Mainly because the rear cylinder primaries go forward slightly before going down. This actually allowed me to move the engine back another 2.5"(12.5" total) with relative ease. I had to raise the engine in order to keep the pans(engine & tranny) above the bottom of the frame anyway. It had to go up over an inch(too much) in order to keep the transmission tabs off the tunnel. Now I've got clearance issues with the intake manifold. Next week I'll trim the tunnel a little more where the tranny tabs are interfering so I can bring the engine down roughly 1/2". This may or may not be enough to clear the intake manifold again.

Needless to say if the engine stays this far back I will have a constant foot warmer.

http://i981.photobucket.com/albums/a...psqoejy1ep.jpg

http://i981.photobucket.com/albums/a...psmm8czukd.jpg