North Florida 289 Build, #10306

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Originally Posted by Chainsaw

So we pulled to body back off and I went to work. I cut as much of the trunk sheet floor metal as I though I could get away with, about 0.5"+ and trimmed the front edge of the cockpit (1/4"). I also rehung the top of the radiator from the back of the 3/4" tube to move the radiator back some and I moved the breeze lower mount around to let the radiator shroud rest on it.
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This put the radiator back to 41 degrees but it's still sitting proud of the quick jack mount and I think the radiator is still sitting too low. I'm still sorting out ideas for raising the radiator a bit as there's an inch+ that I can move it up & back. Assuming the quick jack holes are in the right place (see lasse2's post above), lower sheet metal that goes between the lower rad opening in the body and the radiator lower flange won't be in a good place, but maybe a workable place. We'll have to put the body back on to see.
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Just a quick note here. I did use the Breeze hinge at the top but I don't think the Breeze lower radiator bracket will work properly with the 289 body unless it has a large range of adjustment. The radiator needs to sit at a much shallower angle to line up with the body.

I had to trim a fair amount off the rear trunk aluminum to get the body to go forward. With the body on, I traced a line about 3/4" further forward. The line I traced wasn't parallel with the edge of the aluminum piece because the body is not perfectly symmetrical. I included space for the bulb seal in my math.

I removed as much of the rolled edge at the dash as I could and still maintain the full radius. I was worried about how it would look against the dash but it doesn't bother me at all. I think I mentioned it before but I had to shim the passenger door hinge back about a quarter inch and added a rounded notch in the body where the hinges make contact to get the doors to fully open. It looks fine now and I don't think about it.

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Originally Posted by lasse2

Just a quick note here. I did use the Breeze hinge at the top but I don't think the Breeze lower radiator bracket will work properly with the 289 body unless it has a large range of adjustment. The radiator needs to sit at a much shallower angle to line up with the body.

I had to trim a fair amount off the rear trunk aluminum to get the body to go forward. With the body on, I traced a line about 3/4" further forward. The line I traced wasn't parallel with the edge of the aluminum piece because the body is not perfectly symmetrical. I included space for the bulb seal in my math.

I removed as much of the rolled edge at the dash as I could and still maintain the full radius. I was worried about how it would look against the dash but it doesn't bother me at all. I think I mentioned it before but I had to shim the passenger door hinge back about a quarter inch and added a rounded notch in the body where the hinges make contact to get the doors to fully open. It looks fine now and I don't think about it.

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Thank you for the info and copy all. I'm expecting to do additional trimming on the front cockpit lip. I took off what "looked" right, but understand it may not be enough. I need to get the body back on again to see if and how much more needs to be cut.
And I don't have the Breeze lower mount attached per Mark's instructions for it. More correctly, the lower bracket isn't attached to the radiator at all. I pulled the Breeze lower mount up as tight to the chassis tubing as possible and canted to the rear of the car. The radiator shroud is sitting on the bar. The weight of the radiator, the bar, and the stiff lower radiator flex tube I'm using have the radiator pretty snug.

Also, I may have to follow your lead on the door hinges. I hope to find out tomorrow when we put the body on again.

Thursday we installed the body.

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It certainly wasn’t as hard as the last time, I still need to trim the rear cockpit lip as there a little bit of interference there. The front sits a little low and I had to lift it up to get the quick jack bolts in. The radiator needs to be pulled up and back a little and I think I have a way to do that.

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The bigger issues seem to be the DS body at the rear seems to be about 1/4”-1/2” farther out than it should be. Not sure how to squeeze it in. I may need to open up the rear QJ holes a little to give me some wiggle room on the rear body L/R balance.

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Also, I believe I’ll have to cut away a little bit of the body to allow the exhaust pipes to pass underneath. I moved the DS header as much as I could, but the DS pipe definitely won’t fit right now and I’m not sure if the PS pipe will either. The cubby back wall is not interfering with the body. The wheel arches look pretty good, but a little off on the DS.

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I also cut the hole and temporarily mounted the Le Mans gas cap. It sits a little farther forward than the info I received from other builders who had factory cut outs, but the cubby wall forced my hand on the current location. I still have room for the Acton wind deflector.

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Also, as lasse2 mentioned re: his build, my door hinges won’t fully open but the body won’t move farther forward as the rear of the body is right up against the Kleiner mod couplers. I’ll have to shim them to the rear or trim some of the door opening lip (last resort). I’ll have to get the doors out of the attic and see how they fit before I do anything there.

We dropped the hood on just to see how it fits and it almost dropped in; however, it’s slightly long and I’ll need to trim/sand off the back edge to get it to sit down all the way.

After taking a week off to travel back to see our moms, I got the hood installed as well fitting the exhaust pipes. I had to trim the body a small amount to allow the DS side pipe and header to fit in the right place. Getting the hood installed was a bit harder than I expected, but it’s on.

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Put the quick jacks on to hold the body, not that it can move very much.

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I also sanded out some of the mold lines in the door and trunk openings so I can fit those next.

Working on trunk fitment, but is the trunk lip supposed to look like this?

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The bulb seal won’t work this way, so I guess I’ll be breaking out the air saw again to do some significant trimming later.

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Originally Posted by Chainsaw

Working on trunk fitment, but is the trunk lip supposed to look like this?

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The bulb seal won’t work this way, so I guess I’ll be breaking out the air saw again to do some significant trimming later.

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I trimmed the extra lip off leaving a surface parallel to the body so the bulb seal would fit. I also ended up going with a taller bulb seal because the one provided by FFR let the trunk lid drop too low relative to the body.

I ordered bulb seal from Amazon with the following dimensions: Height: 16.5 M.M Width: 14 M.M Edge thickness: 3.5 M.M Grip range: 1.0 : 3.0 M.M. This seal is a little tall at first but after compressing fits perfectly.

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Originally Posted by lasse2

I trimmed the extra lip off leaving a surface parallel to the body so the bulb seal would fit. I also ended up going with a taller bulb seal because the one provided by FFR let the trunk lid drop too low relative to the body.

I ordered bulb seal from Amazon with the following dimensions: Height: 16.5 M.M Width: 14 M.M Edge thickness: 3.5 M.M Grip range: 1.0 : 3.0 M.M. This seal is a little tall at first but after compressing fits perfectly.

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Copy that and thanks for your seal specs. That trimming job was my next major task. Did you use an air saw or a cutoff wheel to trim the lip?

WRT my trunk latch hole location, I suppose I’ll just use the template for the license plate holder and drill those holes, test fit a license plate and go from there. I have a rough location from JeffP down the street. I’ll see how that works with the license plate test fit.

Also, my trunk shape is off, so I put some heavy stuff on it and maybe it’ll relax into the proper or, least closer, profile.

I did get the roll bar temporarily installed today. I had to hog out the outboard hole in the body to get the hoop to line up with the stubs. I had scrubbed off some of the powder coat on the lower bracket and the Petty bar stub on the hoop to get those to fit. Got all of the holes drilled and a hole punched in the floor. I’ll add the pucky at a later date then things are more finalized. There are a few flaws in the powder coat on those three hoop parts, so I’m going to get those redone locally.

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Originally Posted by Chainsaw

Copy that and thanks for your seal specs. That trimming job was my next major task. Did you use an air saw or a cutoff wheel to trim the lip?

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I used an air saw, 2" disc grinder and sanding block to finish it up.

Got the trunk lip trimmed with my air saw (quite tedious) and did a rough touch up with my dremel tool and the rotary sanding attachment. I'll hit it with the mouse sander later to get it smoothed out better.

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I also added the license plate holder and stuck an old license plate on to locate the latch. Seems like it will work, but installing the latch pin through the trunk may require some extra articulation of my elbows and wrists. Waiting to do all of that until after I get the bulb seal installed.

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Much like Lars (lasse2), I think I'm going to need a larger seal than that provided by FFR. Not a big deal overall.

Got the new bulb seal in and installed and reinstalled the trunk lid.

Due to the way I’ve hung my radiator, I will need to make 2 new radiator aluminum side panels as the 2 delivered panels are too small. I made 2 templates based on the standard panels and received a sheet of .050 6061 today. A guy in the neighborhood has a metal break so I can bend them appropriately.

I also received the new extra wide oil cooler from Earl’s and the new nose floor piece should be shipped from FFR day now. (I screwed up the original one trying to make the smaller cooler work.) I now have a Mocal 13-row cooler for sale if anyone needs one.

Before I got the body on, I took my grandson for a ride around the block; my first passenger.

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I made the 2 panels after I bought a Harbor Freight metal break. I'm glad I did some test runs on scrap aluminum to get the set up and bend location sorted out. I got the panels fitted in and drilled.

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Then I added the foot box air snorkels installed with some minor mods due to the lack of space in the panels. I would not have had room for the snorkels with the original panels.

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Yesterday, I added the 3" tubing from the inlets to the blowers. I will remove the 2 forward tube sections prior to paint when I remove the radiator side panels before sending off to paint (which will apparently be a while).

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After all that, I received my new radiator floor and drilled the holes for the extra wide oil cooler. I'll try to fit all that up in the nose later today. The radiator sits lower than normal, so it might take some custom bending of the nose floor panel to make it look right.

I also received the correct strikers that didn't come with my original kit.

Did the fit check with the oil cooler and and my modified nose floor as well as making the connections for the attachment of the nose floor with the 2 aluminum sides. I was hoping to use #6 screws to hold things together, but there's just not much room to get the nylocks installed. I probably have to wind up riveting the pieces in of using rivnuts on them (which means I'd have to buy the rivnuts and rivnut tool for #6 screws.

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I also installed the front attachment bar just to get the holes drilled.

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I also tore down the body buck that has co-occupied the 289's garage space for almost 3 years now. It was starting to get pretty rickety and I didn't want to put the body back on there with the hood/trunk/doors installed now. As a friend said, I'm committed now.

Time to drive the beast around the neighborhood for a couple of weeks to see if the body settles out any more. Then I'll take the body off to trim some more body work, add seals, and locate the Forte windshield QDs.

I has able to get fasteners in that area. Helped quite a bit with the body work allowing easier body installation and removal.

Let me know if you need some pictures.

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Originally Posted by cnutting

I has able to get fasteners in that area. Helped quite a bit with the body work allowing easier body installation and removal.

Let me know if you need some pictures.

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I’d love some pictures. Thanks!

My set up is pretty much like Chris (@cnutting) has except I have 5x fasteners vs his 4x, plus I have the 2x on each side to connect the floor to the side panels. Ordered some 6-32 aluminum rivnuts and a 6-32 rivnut mandrel to make the nose floor fasteners work. There’s no way to squeeze my fingers through the gap between the body and the oil cooler to get a nut on the screws.

Sooo, I have a plan and the plan is the plan until the plan changes.

After making the mods, using only 3ea #6 screws appear to keep things stiff enough when the nose floor is attached to the side panels.

Temp installed the windshield yesterday. Had to open up the holes in the body a fair amount to make it work, but I didn’t have to trim much from the arms. I wound up only angling the bottom edges at 37 degrees. I marked the arm locations as best as possible so I can install the Forte QD sleeves when I take the body off.

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Still searching for the cause of the miss. Did a resistance check of all the plug wires. All seemed reasonable except the #8 wire which was 3x more than the next highest resistance wire, #4 (3kohm vs 1kohm). I’m not sure that’s enough to inhibit the spark, but I bought some new wires just to check. I’ll get those installed soon and hope that fixes it.

The Moroso wires I got were too short and made to be routed over the valve covers. No bueno. I’m returning those and I ordered a new set of Blueprint Engines wires. I didn’t know they sold those. They should be direct replacement for what I have installed today.

Checking out my new video specs. Car seems to run okay with the new plug wires, but the engine still seems to have an irregular miss. Had a backfire at the end of the video and the tach seems to go a little nuts when I blip the throttle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln4gbjPa4Wg

Took the car out for 3 separate drives today; once just around our little part of the development and twice out into the new sections. Ambient temp was 93F with a heat index of 107F. The car still isn't running quite right at lower speeds, but seems generally okay above 2000 rpm and never seemed like it was going to die on me. Idle is better, imo. Lots of backfiring from the DS pipe on the early drives, but it got a little better. I'm assuming the PF4 ECU is learning and correcting things. Overall, I'm pretty stoked about this. Water temp gauge still isn't working, but the oil temp seems to be even if it seems a bit low. I have to get used to the clutch and shifter as they're quite different that my Z (as expected). I've got to look at the brakes, too. Maybe i need a larger MCs. They do stop but require a lot of travel and I need to get the f/r bias dialed in first.

This video is from the 3rd drive.

https://youtu.be/JBLSuDk6vhY

Ran the car a little bit yesterday to bleed the cooling system. The engine idled fine, but there's still a lot of backfiring in the DS exhaust. Not sure what to do with it.

Brief clip from my drive around today. It was the longest single drive so far. Nothing exciting, just trying to get some miles on the car. The 3500 rpm rev limiter is a bit annoying, but part of the process. The engine still stumbles below 2500 and backfires a lot until it warms up. I have an idea what what the issue might be, but I'll discuss it with Edelbrock on Monday. I think the 35 lb/hr injectors are just not right for this engine. We'll see.

https://youtu.be/2OKIzcJa2qA

As I was digitizing my old 35mm slides the other day, I happened across this old pic from 1985. The car was at a vintage racing event at the then St. Louis International Raceway. I'm not sure what organization was sanctioning it. I already was a Cobra fan, but maybe this planted a seed in the ol' melon that led me here.

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Some good news today. After talking to Edelbrock about the on-going engine miss, I was changing the #8 cylinder fuel injector for the #7 injector as the #8 appeared to be the one that was misfiring.

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However, when I pulled the electrical connector from the #8 injector, it came off way too easy. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t fully seated. After switching the injectors, reattaching the fuel rail to the manifold, and properly reconnecting the harness to the injectors, I fired the car up. Voila, no missing and verified by the thermal image.

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Just a brief check today, but the engine didn’t stumble when I blipped the throttle a few times. Feels good to get rid of that issue.

Took it for a short spin today around the development today. Much better. No missing, no stumbling on acceleration, a little hiccup-y when I come full off of the throttle on occasion.

Love the videos.........sounds fantastic. Toasty weather for driving too. Well done. No mirrors yet? No problem! I find the mirrors in the kit are pretty marginal anyway making backing up difficult especially into a parking space.

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Originally Posted by FRM

Love the videos.........sounds fantastic. Toasty weather for driving too. Well done. No mirrors yet? No problem! I find the mirrors in the kit are pretty marginal anyway making backing up difficult especially into a parking space.

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No mirrors yet. I'm going to attempt to pull the body off this week and do some seal/insulation installation and trim a couple of things on the body. I've marked the locations of the two fasteners I need for the Acton review mirror "diving board" and I'll drill those when the body is off. I also need to install the Forte windshield quick disconnects. Hopefully I can get this thing licensed before the fall driving season.

We pulled the body off yesterday and I did some other work. Got the windshield roughly mounted, but I decided against using the Forte QDs, at least for now. Had to drill out a bunch of rivets from the DS foot box so I could open up panels some to be able to mark the windshield posts correctly. I also prepped the trunk latch post area for a rivnut install. I also drilled and temp mounted the rear view mirror “diving board” and added the bulb seals to the elephant ears. No work on it today other than doing continuity checks to see why my H2O temp gauge isn’t working. No faults found yet.

Got the rear of the cockpit trimmed up last Friday. Installed the 10-32 rivnut for the trunk latch post. Re-riveted up the DS foot box.

Spent a couple of hours this morning trying to troubleshoot the water temp anomaly. Everything I checked seemed okay with good continuity and the gauge went full scale high when i shunted the wires running from the back of the gauge itself. I did shorten the provided shielded cable for the sensor. Gauge still doesn't work. My last thing to check is the connector coming from the back of the gauge. I'm not sure the internal connectors are making good contact. My shorting wire was definitely making good contact. I have nothing else to check.

Changed the wire-to-gauge connectors with weatherpak connectors. Did a little more troubleshooting with the gauge to no avail. Sensor is showing variable resistance as the water temperature changes, but the gauge is not responding. Wires check out okay and the gauge does a full sweep when I short across the connector. I'm stumped and waiting for a response from Speed Hut.

Got the body back on today.

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Still several things to do to get back to where I had it prior to taking the body off this last time (windshield, some radiator sheet metal, side pipes, etc.) I did get the front brake ducts temporarily installed and "permanently" installed the gas cap.

Good work. You have accomplished a lot. Did you mount the gas cap to the body?

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Originally Posted by FRM

Good work. You have accomplished a lot. Did you mount the gas cap to the body?

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Yes, I did, for 2 reasons. I didn't like the "open hole" attachment method, but more importantly, because I put in the Breeze cubby wall I couldn't fit in the 2nd gas cap bracket. I also located the Acton splash guard, but I didn't install it yet.

The brake ducts took more time than it should have as I was overthinking the location. I eventually just found where they fit best that looked like they were near the right place and went for it. I didn't rivet them in yet (used 2 hex head screws and nylocks each) to make it easier for the future painter. I didn't plan well enough so the forward body attachment bracket bolts also go through the ducts, but it makes them really solidly mounted.

Shots of the brake duct installations

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Body on with roll bar installed.

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My attempt at safety wiring the hub spinners.

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I reinstalled the side pipes, but I don’t like the way they’re hanging and I may have to re-hang the PS pipe. :(

Got on-board with Hagerty today for insurance. Will try to go to the DMV tomorrow or Wednesday after I get the final approval from the Hagerty folks. Sent them the pics they asked for.
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I still have some minor stuff to finish on the car, but nothing that should stop getting it registered with FL.

Got several small things done yesterday, but still have to deal with the PS fiberglass location which will probably force me to move my side pipe hanger a little. I have some work to do to sort out the oil cooler installation as I can’t preassembly the rad floor and the cooler. The cooler must be inserted first which makes it impossible to install the nuts on the 4.5” bolts clamping the cooler together. I ordered some nut plates so I can install to bolts thru the lower flanges. The big thing now is to install the rear splash guards and waiting on some more bulb seal material to complete that.

I did get my insurance card from Hagerty today. As soon as my schedule clears up, I’ll make a run to the DMV to see how that process goes.