Seijirou's '94 GT "Faster than White's"

[seijirou]

Found a little bit of time in the shop this afternoon. New water pump will allegedly move more volume than the original design. The impeller is pretty anyway. A dry fit on the engine shows that the bottom most bolt stands proud of the harmonic balancer. That won't work because then the trigger wheel will hit. Fortunately it looks like there's plenty of material on the boss so I can take it down on the mill. On the original pump that boss wasn't so tall, and the low profile bolt I used would just barely clear. On this pump the boss is basically already even with the balancer.
This is why we dry fit new !

 

[seijirou]

I just got the mill and lathe recently and hadn't used kind of machine either before getting these mini ones. It's nice being able to handle little fitment issues for a change and I welcome the opportunity to get just a little more experience. This is on the 2nd time I've used the step blocks instead of the vice.

Pulled the water pump off and set it up in the mill and took the boss down to about where the casting web was between the boss and the pump inlet, about 0.200"







First test fit, using a normal bolt instead of the low profile allen head. Still needs a little more.





Took down about another 0.100



This is much better, but the bolt is now too long.



In fact I didn't like the feel of the one in front of it in the photo either so I decided to take them both down a quarter inch. I'm usually cutting delrin on the lathe; all the black crap is plastic I hadn't cleaned up yet.





Finished with a carbide tool to face them, beveled with a file and deburred on the wire wheel. The ends don't have black coating any more but you don't see that part anyway.

 

[seijirou]

Much better. Clears by something like 0.010 - 0.015.



Final test with the trigger wheel fitted back on. No problems.

 

[seijirou]

Speaking of the trigger wheel. The sensor to trigger wheel alignment has always been a bit off. It worked, but if you looked closely it would make you cringe. This is easier to get to and see from underneath.



Could use an alignment.



I didn't get a good pictures of how it mounts, but the bracket bolts to the timing cover with 2 bolts and uses a spacer on each. The length of the provided spacers stands the sensor a little farther out than I need it. 94/95 problems. I always just dealt with it because it worked anyway, but now's the time to make it right. I measured how much less height I wanted, and came up with dimensions for shorter spacers. I decided to make them from delrin until I'm happy with the dimensions, and then I'll make the final ones from aluminum as the original provided ones are or I may just cut those down to size since they're already fine in every dimension except length.





Problem. While the new spacers are only a little shorter, before the bracket can snug up the back of the bracket is making contact with a 3rd boss on the timing cover that I'm not using for anything.



Witness mark on the back of the bracket.



I see 3 options. Keep the misalignment and don't fix what isn't broken. Take off the timing cover and mill down the taller boss in the middle that is now interfering. Or, cut a relief in the back of the bracket.

I'm leaning towards cutting a relief in the bracket. It looks like 0.200 would be more than enough.

 

[lwarrior1016]

Man, those are some close tolerances right there. You better hope that balancer doesn’t ever start to wobble lol.

Really nice work with the lathe and mill. I need to check in to getting these tools.

For the timing cover deal, a relief in the bracket might be the best option that way if you ever have to replace the front cover for something, it won’t have to be modified. Plus, you don’t have to take everything back apart to make it all fit.

 

[seijirou]

Man, those are some close tolerances right there. You better hope that balancer doesn’t ever start to wobble lol.

Really nice work with the lathe and mill. I need to check in to getting these tools.

For the timing cover deal, a relief in the bracket might be the best option that way if you ever have to replace the front cover for something, it won’t have to be modified. Plus, you don’t have to take everything back apart to make it all fit.

I should have gotten them earlier. I'd occasionally find myself wishing I had one, but also always considered them a bit niche. They're more universally useful than I expected.

Agreed. I wanted to give it some time to sleep on but I'm still convinced clearancing the bracket is the way to go.

 

[lwarrior1016]

What machines did you get? If I may ask.

 

[seijirou]

What machines did you get? If I may ask.

Mill: https://littlemachineshop.com/products/product_view.php?ProductID=3990
Mill tooling: https://littlemachineshop.com/products/product_view.php?ProductID=4491

Lathe: https://littlemachineshop.com/products/product_view.php?ProductID=5100
Lathe tooling: https://littlemachineshop.com/products/product_view.php?ProductID=4116

 

[seijirou]

Clearancing the the bracket it is. Not the prettiest work but it's on the right side of ain't nobody gonna see it.



Figured out the correct spacer sizing in delrin and decided to make the permanent ones new from some aluminum bar rather than cutting down the ones I already had. If it all goes to hell at least I have a known working option. The only aluminum bar I had was 18" long and 1.5" in diameter. Too big to work with without trimming first. I don't have a band saw, or even a table saw. But I do have a sawzall...




Getting there...


After facing the bar I had to take it down to about 0.75" from 1.5" which was done with a lot of 0.005 passes. It was hot and tedious so I didn't get any more pictures of the process so please accept this narration.
The lathe goes brrrr, the chips are hot and fly everywhere, and after a lot of passes I have 2 new spacers.


I probably could have found them on Amazon or something damn close for not much $ but I enjoyed making them all the same. If I had to do it again though I'd probably be on Amazon, at least for some stock that's closer to the finished size.

That's better. There's a slight angle to it, so I went back and looked and saw the angle was there before too but I hadn't noticed it before. I'm not going to worry about it.


Next up is pulling the oil pan and getting a look at that oil pump drive shaft.

 

[seijirou]

Oil pan off.
This is actually the first time I've looked at the rotating assembly. I bought the car as an unfinished 393 + T56 swap, the engine was assembled by some shop in Maryland.
Apparently the crank is a Scat and pistons are Probe. Couldn't find any markings on the rods but I have it on good authority that this is probably a mid 2000's Coast High Performance rotating assembly which would make the rods RPM brand. (EDIT: I actually got confirmation from the original seller of the rotating assembly back in 2008, and a copy of the invoice lol. The rods are also Probe.) I'm pleased to find that the oil pump is is a standard volume Melling 10832.

I got a clear view of the oil pump driveshaft which is what I was after. It looks either the ford performance or ARP shaft to me. After some reading around on the draft shaft lengths vs distributor shaft lengths the consensus seemed to be that if you had one of this heavy duty oil pump driveshafts, you'd need to cut the longer EFI distributor shaft down to the shorter style. My Cam Sync is already the shorter length, so I think there's nothing more to do there.

 

[chrisp427]

Found a little bit of time in the shop this afternoon. New water pump will allegedly move more volume than the original design. The impeller is pretty anyway. A dry fit on the engine shows that the bottom most bolt stands proud of the harmonic balancer. That won't work because then the trigger wheel will hit. Fortunately it looks like there's plenty of material on the boss so I can take it down on the mill. On the original pump that boss wasn't so tall, and the low profile bolt I used would just barely clear. On this pump the boss is basically already even with the balancer.
This is why we dry fit new View attachment 17190 !

View attachment 17187

View attachment 17188

View attachment 17189

Just a quick question for myself and it may sound stupid but I’m having some overheating issues and your setup looks like mines. Your running a serpentine belt setup so your water pump will spin opposite of the crank. The blades on the water pump look like they’re facing the standard rotation direction(just like mine) I’m scratching my head as to how the wp will pump? I know the sn95 setup is like this I just don’t understand how it works.

 

[ttocs]

agreed keep it moving man!

 

[seijirou]

Just a quick question for myself and it may sound stupid but I’m having some overheating issues and your setup looks like mines. Your running a serpentine belt setup so your water pump will spin opposite of the crank. The blades on the water pump look like they’re facing the standard rotation direction(just like mine) I’m scratching my head as to how the wp will pump? I know the sn95 setup is like this I just don’t understand how it works.

So my setup uses an electric fan. If you have a mechanical fan then yes you need to make sure you have the pitch of the fan blades match the rotation so that it's drawing through.
Also shrouding is important for getting proper airflow through the radiator. Originally I had some cooling issues as well, but I was able to completely solve it by adding a gasket material to the edge of the shroud where it meets the radiator, making something of a seal when installed. Without that much of the air drawn by the fan was coming in the cracks between the shroud and the radiator and now actually drawn through the radiator. Even with a mechanical fan the same effect can happen.

 

[ttocs]

I am going go guess that you were using an aftermarket fan/shroud if you needed to put gasket material on it? If you or anyone is using the mishimoto fan and shroud, they suck. I had/have it and was having cooling issues after short drives on cool days. After a little research the mishi fan only pushes like 650 cfm and after replacing it with a 1800 cfm fan I have not had an issue(with heat anyway).

 

[seijirou]

I am going go guess that you were using an aftermarket fan/shroud if you needed to put gasket material on it? If you or anyone is using the mishimoto fan and shroud, they suck. I had/have it and was having cooling issues after short drives on cool days. After a little research the mishi fan only pushes like 650 cfm and after replacing it with a 1800 cfm fan I have not had an issue(with heat anyway).

SVE fan in the OEM style, but definitely not OEM. And the SVE aluminum radiator.

 

[chrisp427]

I am going go guess that you were using an aftermarket fan/shroud if you needed to put gasket material on it? If you or anyone is using the mishimoto fan and shroud, they suck. I had/have it and was having cooling issues after short drives on cool days. After a little research the mishi fan only pushes like 650 cfm and after replacing it with a 1800 cfm fan I have not had an issue(with heat anyway).

What fan is 1800 cfm?

 

[lwarrior1016]

What fan is 1800 cfm?

Not to derail the thread, but if you’re looking for a good fan check out Delta PAG. They move a ton of air, and they are brushless so it doesn’t pull much current. They are kind of pricey, but worth every penny. Got one in my car and just ordered a dual 16” for my f250.

 

[ttocs]

What fan is 1800 cfm?

sorry I was wrong, I thought it was higher but didn't want to put up a wrong number but this is what I went with. Same size, needed to make new mounting holes in the mishi shroud but no problems since.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073WM5RKH/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[Frank.JD.Perez]

someone has some cool toys in the shop

 

[chrisp427]

sorry I was wrong, I thought it was higher but didn't want to put up a wrong number but this is what I went with. Same size, needed to make new mounting holes in the mishi shroud but no problems since.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073WM5RKH/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Did it cool better than the factory fan. I want to upgrade but want to make sure it’s worth it. The factory fan keeps me at 190 degrees with a 180 thermostat