Projects Track Roadster 16 yrs in the making

LB+1 and others,


Brett has made fantastic progress. Best guess is that the wiring installation portion of the job is about 90 percent complete. There is a medium-sized fly in the ointment; namely, the shaft length on the newly fabricated distributor is incorrect, the shaft being approximately 1/4 inch too short. Bummer.

I sent a package to Mason Racing Ignition containing three items: the new incorrect “Vertex” distributor, the existing Mopar distributor we just removed from the TR, and the intermediate gear that drives the distributor off the oil pump. Mason Ignition will have all components needed to make the correct length distributor drive shaft for the D500. My guess is they used the shaft length specs for the low deck Dodge Hemi (241/270 cu in). The upshot of all this is that the project will be delayed until we get the distributor back to KC in proper working order.

Until we mocked-up the new distributor, and discovered the problem, we were thinking (dreaming) that we might have a chance to get the engine started on Saturday — alas, this was not to be. Brett worked for three days from morning until about 9:00 at night…he is a trooper. I watched while he terminated (threaded, crimped, soldered and shrink-wrapped) cables one tiny wire and one tiny pin at time. The word tedious doesn’t quite cover it.

Brett drilled a 2 inch hole in the trunk floor (ouch) and I helped fish the harness and various connectors through the big grommet and along the passenger side (inner) frame rails. We tried for about an hour to coerce one of the 02 sensor connectors through the maze of hosed and cables on the right-hand side of the bell housing area to no avail. Brett finally snipped off the eight (8) pin connector, and we then easily fished the remaining harness up to the firewall and valley pan area. We will get a new O2 connector while we wait for the distributor.

The first photo shows Brett holding the old EFI nozzle harness he just cut away from the valley area. It took about a half a day to remove the old harness in bits and pieces. The next shot is a wide view of the cabin looking from the driver’s side. The seat bottom has been flipped back out of the way. All the wiring and relays are for the seat bottom and seat back electric heaters…yeah I know…I’m a wimp. The other gizmo is the hydraulic lock for the rear wheel cylinders (parking brake). On the floor is the OLD EFI computer (the gold box).

Next is a close up of the Force Ignition control module, which will be mounted in approximately the same place as the old EFI computer, in front of the dash, up high near the top of the cowling. The mounting plate can be seen attached (red arrow). Two of the old mounting studs behind the dashboard were reused. Brett designed and fabricated the plate.

The next photo shows the floor of the trunk on the passenger side toward the very back. The gray surface at the top of the image is the gas tank. The red arrow points to were the two-inch hole will be drilled in the trunk floor pan. The green arrow points to the mounting pad Brett fabricated for a battery cable/power post assembly. In the foreground is the battery tray.

A wide view of the trunk shows the CPU and the 02 sensor mounted on some sturdy wood shelving material that is firmly anchored to the trunk floor pan. Off to the right of the photo at the bottom of the gas tank is where the harness, power cables and computer connections will be located. All this stuff is not pretty, but I will deal with aesthetics later. One decision has been made regarding appearance; my very close friend of 45 years, John Jordan, will make me a fake “tool box” housing to cover the not so lovely electronic modules.

Next is a close-up of the harness passing through a big grommet, out of the trunk, to the underside of the TR. The yellow arrow denotes a sleeve of shrink wrap, the red arrow denotes the EFI harness and green arrow points out the grommet. The blue arrow denotes the mounting plate for the battery/power cord post assembly. This is followed by a wide shot of the same area; for reference the green arrow points to the shrink wrap and the red arrow points to the rubber boot that covers the electrical posts. The battery tray is in the foreground and the connection to the O2 sensor module is seen at the left margin.

The harness emerging from the trunk area is shown in the next photo, the view is from below looking up to the trunk floor pan; this image is followed by a shot of Brett doin’ his thing. Some of the harness that will supply the EFI nozzles, sensors and so forth are hanging on the upper control arm. The blue tape indicates where various individual wires will branch off to their final terminals. The next photo is more of the same.

Here are Brett’s skilled hands holding the EFI nozzle harness prepared by Force Fuel Injection. The silver quilted stuff lying in the valley is a sheet of aluminum/ceramic heat shield. It’s about a quarter of an inch thick and made to be “crushable”. This is a new layer I am adding; mainly because in my opinion the fuel was getting overheated during the hot weather last summer…just a guess. In any case, a bit of insulation will not hurt; later that day I paint the upper surface of the heat shield with semi-gloss black rattle-can engine paint. The next image shows the brand new red-colored Ford Motorsports EFI nozzles (30lb/hr), which are a bit larger than the old nozzles; Brett tells me these nozzles should be good for about 450 HP, far more than the D500 will produce. The view is from the front looking back toward the firewall.

Finally a close-up of two of the new Ford Nozzles hooked up to the harness and mounted in the Hilborn bungs.

I will load the photos in three of four batches.

Whew.

Trakrodstr
aka charlie

 

Batch 2

 

Batch 3

 

Batch 4...ooops I reversed the order of the last two images.

 

The "Claw Hammer" plays what kind of function?
A+ on Sanitary Work - Brett's Talent at his Craft is
up there with the best of them - For Sure!!

 

Charlie, I admire your tenacity. Happy New Year my friend!

 

Can't wait to see the fuel rails that will connect all of those...
How are you planning on anchoring them?

 

Yeah, good question. Brett used this persuasion tool to wedge the bottom of the wood shelving between two cross members. Low tech is good.

Brett is really fun to watch work and to see how he thinks though a problem.

Happy New Year Doug,

charlie

Thanks Mike. Tenacity is a fitting word. I'm not too sure if this is the smartest thing I've ever done; but I sure hate the thought that the TR project is getting away from me.

Happy new year to you too. How's your project doing?

charlie

 

exwestracer,

VERY good question. You may not believe this...but...the weight of the fuel rail, the weight of the aluminum plate and the vacuum plenum, plus the tension provided by the two fuel lines (input and recirculation) keep all the stuff in place. That's the way it was before, and there were no problems. The fuel rail is bolted to the valley plate, which has very little room to move because it's captured by the Hilborn stacks preventing side-to-side motion while the fuel lines prevent forward and backward motion. I know it sounds crazy but it worked fine before. The only difference this time around is the addition of the alum/ceramic heat shield. This layer, I think, will add stability to the assembly as it will "cushion" the fuel rail from underneath.

I'll do a photo series showing how it all goes together when we assemble the fuel system. I know the first time I saw this arrangement I was skeptical.

Thanks for the sharp question.

charlie

 

A quick note.

I spoke with Pat Mason (Mason Racing Ignition) early today and he said the distributor will be shipped tomorrow Jan 17. Hooray!

Pat was a stand-up guy about the shaft length issue. His industry spec sheet for shaft lengths as in error (?) and he went by the spec sheet...

Pat declined to accept any additional funds for the work, but I will pay for the return shipping.

In short Pat is a an excellent craftsman and great person to deal with.

Now I hope Brett and I can work out a time so he can finish the brain transplant.

More soon I hope.

trakrodstr
aka charlie

 

I would be interested in knowing what length shaft you ended up with and where the error was. Also needs to be documented in the HAMB Hemi tech files. Thanks

 

brigrat,

OK, will do. I’ll get the length listed in Pat’s spec sheets and the correct lenghts.

Just for the heck of it I asked Pat to look up the spec length for the 241/270 Dodges on his sheet. Surprisingly, the value was not the (incorrect) value listed for the D500 315/325 blocks. I was guessing that the person who compiled the spec sheet had mistakenly substituted the low deck Dodge value for the high deck block...but not so.

As a point of interest, I know the distributor shaft length for a D500 series Dodge block is identical that for the Chrysler 354 and 331 blocks. This fact makes like a bit easier for D500 users.

Cheers,

trakrodstr
aka charlie

 

A brief update.

Pat Mason returned the distributor quickly, I received it last Thursday.

We are waiting on a 6 pin connector used for the O2 sensor. We had to cut the connector off to fish the cable through a bottleneck under the floor pan area. In any case, Brett was unable to contact Force Fuel Injection for a week. The upshot is that a connector will have to be ordered from Accel. Once we get that connector then Brett and I can schedule Round 2 of the computer/wiring harness transplant.

More soon, I hope.

trakrodstr
aka charlie

 

I have a picture in my mind of this being a Tesla project - Hope you and Brett stay grounded -

 

Charlie, TR is looking good and will be sounding better than before. Hope it is nothing but trouble free motoring from now on !

Oh, check out my thread on my '29 "A" Modifed. I am all spun up as Jim is doing work. It is pay as I can afford it but - at least it's progress !

Dave

 

Doug,

Ah yes, grounded, I get it...good play on words. I just hope we get moving before Brett’s busy season begins. Brett has stayed in touch, but there’s little either of us can do. As the song says: Waiting is the hardest part....

Dave,

I will go to your Modified A project as soon as I send this post. Good to hear that your new project is off the ground.

trakrodstr
aka charlie

 

Charlie, Nothing like having to wait for parts for TR. I know that your patience is tried but think about how good it will be to have a troublefree Hot Rod ! I know that the terms - "Hot Rod - and - "troublefree" are in no form or shape similar . . . You know what I mean. Keep on a rolling !

Dave

 

Dave, right you are — waiting ain’t fun. I did have a chance to check out your build thread and your A Modified is going to be terrific. I look forward to keeping up with your project.

BTW, Brett finally found a OEM source for the O2 connecter and ordered two (2) of them, he said that the parts will most likely arrive early next week.

I was hoping we could make some progress this weekend, but it’s not worth the effort without the right parts.

I may get ambitious and do a post with photos in which I mock-up the hardware for the fuel rail and valley cover...we’ll see.

Keep up the good work.

trakrodstr
aka charlie

 

Charlie, Thanks for the kind words. I am stoked that the car is being worked on. It's progress and a lot better than the year it sat down in Yucaipa. Then a second 8 months it sat in Apple Valley. It's in Victorville now and Jim is working away. The first money seems to be stretching quite well. Jim is also working on my buddy Carl's "T" touring with flattie power. Going to be one nice ride !

Dave

 

Update:

Brett received the O2 connector. So we hope to get back to work on the EFI system perhaps Friday evening, and certainly over the weekend.

With a bit of luck we may be able to test the new transplanted nervous system very soon.

Think good thoughts.

trakrodstr
aka charlie

 

Alright!

 

Thanks Jack, if you have time drive your roadster over and lend moral support.

charlie

 

Brief update, with more to follow.


Brett got an enormous amount of work done this weekend, but we did not get a chance to start the engine. We ran into a hardware problem that will require a bit of machine shop work, so we called it a day about 4:00p Sunday.

The roadster is completely wired and ready to go electronically. We had installed the fuel rails and pressurized the fuel system successfully. However when we proceeded to drop in the new distributor it would not clear the end of the fuel rail on the driver’s side. No way. Fortunately the driver-side fuel rail is about a half-inch longer than necessary (Whew!). So we removed the fuel rail and Brett will cut of about ⅜ inch off the end, and we should be good to go.

The interference was caused by the fact that a Vertex mag housing is much taller than the Mopar distributor housing; thus, the ”body" of the Vertex reaches much closer to the top of the engine block (i.e., the mounting shaft (housing) is much shorter on the Vertex). The bottom of the Vertex body landed smack on the end of the fuel rail, when we dropped the distributor into the block.

I’ll post more details of what Brett accomplished soon. It was encouraging to see all the EFI wires and gizmos installed and organized. Cool beans.

trakrodstr
aka charlie

 

Good luck with the fix Charlie - I hope it is all singing for the spring

 

Me too buddy, thanks for the good thoughts.

The moment of truth is drawing near.

By the way, where exactly in the middle of the middle of nowhere do you reside?

charlie

 

Here it the sequence or layers of gizmos and material hidden in the valley of the Dodge D500, 325 cu in Hemi. Most of this stuff is designed to disguise the fact that the Hilborn mechanical FI has been converted to EFI or to provide some of the data the EFI computer needs to control the air:fuel ratio.

This post will (sort of) answer the question posed in Post #759 by exwestracer.

PHOTOS:

1. Here is a stock Dodge sheet metal cover similar to the one that fills the bottom of the valley in my D500 engine. The sheet metal encloses a cavity that is about two inches thick from its lower surface to the upper surface. The hole at the right is the vent for the road draft tube.

2. Here is a photo of the upper surface of the motor, which I will designate — LAYER 1. The bronze-colored factory valley cover is evident and is identical to the cover in the first photo. For safety, there are rubber stoppers in each of the Hilborn stacks. The large black stopper (arrow) is plugging the distributor drive hole.

3. The next layer will be an aluminum-ceramic heat shield. It’s about 1/4 inch thick. The material is made for exhaust systems so it will be way more heat protection than I need. I sprayed the heat shield semi-gloss black.

4. The ceramic heat shield has been placed on the valley, LAYER 2, and covers the factory valley plate. The banjo fitting on the right, protruding through the heat shield, is the modified road draft tube that the builder, Jack Presse, fabricated years ago.

5. Here it the next level or LAYER 3, in which the wiring loom and the fuel nozzles are located.

6. The fuel rails are also housed in LAYER 3. Notice how far toward the firewall (left) the fuel rail (upper) gets to the rubber stopper (arrow). This will create a problem later; however, when I took this photo I was not aware this would present problems.

7. Next is LAYER 4 where an aluminum cover plate resides. The fuel rails are attached to the underside of this plate via the larger four counter-sunk holes in the middle. Two of the remaining holes are for fasteners that secure the vacuum plenum. The remaining two holes were used to mount the earlier (smaller) version of the vacuum plenum. There is one small hole (arrow) in the left bottom corner (and one hidden by stack #1) that serve as mounting points for a throttle cable bracket (see post below regarding the throttle linkage).

8. This is the uppermost LAYER 4, in which the vacuum plenum is placed. I have mocked-up four of the nine black vacuum tubes. This photo pretty much completes the list of EFI-related devices that are situated in the valley area. For this photo I attached an air horn to one of the stacks, and a second air horn is mounted on the rear stack of the opposite bank (arrows).

9. Here is a bigger field of view showing the Vertex “magneto” in position. The Vertex unit was made from salvaged parts and is actually an electronic distributor. This photo shows several of the sensors required to feed information to the EFI computer. There are two signal generators, or reluctors, housed in the Vertex unit. One signals the computer when cylinder #1 is at TDC on the power stroke, while the other reluctor signals the crankshaft potion of TDC on the power stroke for each of the 8 cylinders. The green arrow points to the sensor for ambient air temperature, this thermometer will read the temp of the air flowing through the air horn of cylinder #8. There is an engine water temperature sensor designated by the red arrow. The blue arrow indicates the throttle-position sensor. The nipple at the rear of the vacuum plenum (yellow arrow) will be connected, via a tube, to a vacuum sensor, which is mounted out-of-sight near the bell housing.

Unfortunately, none of the above verbiage answers Exwestracer’s question: “Can't wait to see the fuel rails that will connect all of those...[nozzles]... how are you planning on anchoring them?”

Well the hipbone’s connected to the…

The honest answer is that right now there are no rigid elements that locate any of the above. Indeed, Exwestracer has discovered a potential problem that none of us who worked on the Maserodi had thought of — namely, the bracket for throttle cable attaches to the aluminum cover plate, which raise the question as to whether the cover plate might move a bit as the throttle cables are exerting a torque on the throttle linkage….hummm. I don’t know the answer to that question, but we are going to be watching this very, very closely.

THANKS TO EXWESTRACER!

******* It may take several post to get all the photos to load ******
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Last three photos

 

I'm glad to see you getting it back together Charlie. I admire your tenacity!

 

Yes good catch on the lack of firm throttle mount. Can you attach a bracket to the bolts shown in Layer 1 pic that go thru all layers to hold things steady? You will have torque, vibration, bumps etc. so best prepare for it.

Also the foam may break down in time so prepare for that - maybe add some rubber pieces to keep it from collapsing too far if the foam fails.