Project COBRA'33 Project COBRA'33
Mounting the Engine
Getting everything in the right place
Mounting the engine turned out to be more involved then I had thought (sound familiar?). We had placed the frame up on our welding table to keep everything level and square, but our welding table is quite a bit higher then the normal surface plate or frame welding fixture. Just getting the engine high enough to clear the frame was a task all in if self.
This Ford modular 4.6L engine is heavy, it looks heavy with it's wide fat valve covers, but you don't think it will be with all the aluminum surrounding it. Man handling it when we were hooking it up to the lift and also trying to get the transmission hung, you really get a since of just how heavy this engine is. I left the torque converter off and a few other components, to save some weight. Bolting the two units up it was immediately visible that the Lokar transmission dip stick which mounted to the block between the transmission and engine wouldn't work. It was just to crowded with the headers and where it would come out on the body. Looks like the Lokar dipstick with the firewall mounting will work much better.
This is a shot of the lift we made to help load and unload heavy pieces. It uses a I-beam across the top along with two (2) trolly's that each have a 1300lb. lift attached to it.
We used the lift that we made earlier, and seen right away that we needed to modify the attachment point where the lift bracket attachés to the trolley. The way we had it, the lift assemblies would tilt to much, causing them to bind up on the heavy lifts. While I was at it, I changed the mounting to use a 1/2" pin and got rid of the 1/2" bolt. Now removing either lift is a snap. The only other problems we had was that the front casters (tires) were very hard to turn under the full weight of the engine and transmission. I would suggest that anyone else building a lift similar to ours should use solid 5-6" wheels on there casters.
The engine just cleared the frame. I had to climb up onto the frame and guide the engine over the front cross member and around some of the structure. Once positioned, it was very obvious that the oil cooler/filter assembly I had doubts about and wanted to save would have to be removed. There was just know way that engine would work with that frame while the oil cooler/filter was present. The filter would not be removable if left on, and that is of coarse unacceptable. We did manage to get the engine down into the frame rails pretty far. The two items that kept the engine from dropping down any further was the AC compressor and the alternator. With the super charger, you are limited as to what you can move, and with this configuration there is no option for re-mounting the two pieces. We kept the engine up so that the alternator and AC compressor were about 1-1/2" up off the frame rails. To make the engine work with out the oil cooler/filter assembly supplied by the Ford factory, I purchased an adapter plate from Moroso, part number 23681. This adapter allows us to discard the several brackets Ford used, and provides us a spot where we can hook on to both the in and out oil passages, as well as tie into the engine coolant system. You see the old assembly not only filtered the oil, but it cooled it using the engine coolant, so we need to access all three very important engine functions.
Moroso 4.6L oil filter relocation mounting bracket part number 23681. They did a very good job designing this piece, it's CNC machined and blue anodized. It uses huge 12-AN O-ring ports for the oil system both in and out,and a 16-an O-ring port for the engine coolant.
By using the Moroso adapter plate, it really cleans-up what would other wise be a very busy area. I also have to re-locate the engine oil pressure senders for the engine management system and for the Dakota Digital system. While this isn't the easiest task to do, it is still much better then leaving the original factory bracket in place and dealing with that can of worms. Since we now also need a quality remote oil filter bracket. I turned to Moroso again for there beautifully machined and very stout oil filter mount, part number 23766. This part also uses the huge 12-AN O-ring oil openings, so all the oil lines will be AN-12, even where it inters the oil cooler which is only a 1/2" NPT fitting. I will be using B&M coolers on Project COBRA'33. I have used them in the past and have a great respect for the way they build them. In all there Will be three (3) B&M Hy-Tek cooler used, one each for the Engine oil, Transmission oil and Inter-cooler Water. All will be independently operated by it's own thermostat and electric cooling fan.
Moroso remote oil filter bracket, part number 23766 and the engine oil cooler from B&M.
With the above described pieces removed and out of the way, the engine was carefully positioned and centered. We wanted to get the engine as far back as possible to aid in our front/rear weight bias. The front body mount was crucial, it had to have enough room to make it's attachment point. We could cut the firewall, but that front body mount was non-negotiable, it had to clear. We also decided to mount up the radiator. Wow what a heavy thing that was! It's a Walker "Cobra" Z series radiator with extra heavy duty cooling, a automatic transmission cooler and a evaporator built in. Now with the radiator mounted, you really get a feel for how everything will look. We have plenty of clearance in front of the radiator, or at least it seems so. And behind it we moved the engine to where we felt comfortable. Were not running a engine fan, it's going to be an electric unit, but we still left plenty of free space in front of the engine and behind the radiator. With the engine in position and the radiator there as well, you really start getting a feeling of we are making progress. It's good to see some light in our tunnel!
This is a shot of the front of Project COBRA'33. Though still in the beginning stages, you can now start to see how everything will fit together. The Walker radiator, front cross-member and Ford 4.6L "Terminator" engine are all mounted and take-up a huge amount of room.
For the front engine mounts, I used a 1-3/4" bushing assembly from Karteck Off-Road, part number AFB-BA175, as it's anchor. These assemblies are very strong and the Durlin bushings will help isolate any engine noise or vibrations. From there I fab'd a right and left side frame mount that will hold the bushing in place. These were simple mounts made from 1/8" steel and cut into a triangle that was 3" x 3" on two of the sides. Both right and left motor mounts are the same so I just cut four (4) of these pieces to go with the two (2) Durlin bushing assemblies. This got us firmly mounted to the frame, and we now needed to turn our attention to the engine part of the mount. We used Energy Suspension's Polyurethane engine mounts for a 4.6l Ford engine. These are very nice units that will offer great strength while still eliminating much of the vibration. We bolted the engine mounts to the block of our engine and worked from there to the frame mounted bushings. These particular engine mounts bolt to the block with 3-bolts and have one large centered bolt to attach to, this is where we will start. The face of the motor mounts have a large stud and along side it a small locating tit. I cut a piece of 1/4" thick steel plate roughly 4" x 6" and drilled a hole for the stud and drilled a small indentation for the locating tit. I suppose they use this to keep the plate intact, and not allowing it to move? Now with the plate attached and secured by the stud, all I had to do was measure the distance from the frame mounted bushing assembly to the plate I just secured to the engine mount. I used three pieces of 1" round tubing to bridge the gap between the two (2) units. One (1) piece of tubing running from under the bushing down to the middle bottom edge of the plate, and two (2) pieces of 1" tubing running from the top far sides of the bushing running to the top out side edges of the plate. So if you looked at it the top two (2) pieces would form a Y, running from the center of the bushing out to the right and left side of the plate.
Shown is the Energy Suspension engine and transmission mounts we used on Project COBRA'33.
This is one of the 1-3/4" bushing assemblies I used to make up the motor supports.
This is a drawing of the engine mount we had to fabricate for Project COBRA'33.
Both side were the same but mirror of each other, so I could duplicate all the pieces and then simply tack-weld them in place. The longest part was the notching of all the tubing for a tight fit. Once that was done, the mounts were tack-welded in position and the front of the engine was now located, thou still supported by the lift. We moved to the back of the transmission, were we had plenty of work to do. First, the tail shaft was interfering with the first cross-member, so we cut it out. I bent-up a piece of 1-1/2" round tubbing in the shape of a U and trimmed it to fit. When everything was ready to tack-weld in, it was down to just a small curved piece connecting the two (2) cross-member ends. Really it looked nice, and gave plenty of support and clearance. The transmission was already centered and leveled when we built the front engine supports, so all that was left was to come-up with a suitable rear support for the transmission. The mount had to be removable in-case the transmission had to be serviced, yet it needed to be strong. We decided to bend-up another U-shaped piece of 1-1/2" DOM tubing. This time the tubing would be mounted under the cross member and support the transmission with a removable transmission cradle. So if need be, the transmission support and or cradle could be removed. We cut four (4) pieces of 1/4" thick steel and marked and drilled them for 3/8' bolts, each plate had four (4) holes. Then we tack-welded on plate to the bottom of the front cross member, where all the tubes meet and another plate to the end of the support, so it would bolt up to the plate under the cross member and form the support the transmission needed. There was one plate on each side of the transmission under the cross-member, and one plate welded to each side of the support. This allowed the support, which was bent into a U-shape, to attach to the bottom of the front cross member, one on each side of the transmission. With this support hanging down, the transmission mount from Energy Suspension could then be bolted on and the other end to the transmission, forming a secure and isolated rear transmission mount.
Here you can see the rear transmission mount and how we had to cut the front cross member to make way for the transmission. You can also see how we fashioned the rear transmission support and how it is attached to the cross member.
Once everything was in position and we were sure it would all work together, I removed the engine mounts and finish welded them. They formed a very stout and compact unit, that will hold our engine in place. Latter when it came time to correct the headers which were interfering with the transmission, we were assured just how strong the engine mounts were. We had to use a Port-a-Power to bend the headers back out of the way of the transmission, and while doing this the engine never moved, it stayed perfectly straight and in-line. We got the headers corrected without incident, which is the way we like it.
Tools used in this section:
MIG Welder
Tubbing Notcher
Hydraulic Bender
Belt Sander
Drill Press