I need to swap the distributor gear to be compatible with the cam gear. After driving the roll pin out, I used the TechShop’s arbor press to press the gear off.

I had to use some scrap metal to shim the bolster plate up high enough to give me clearance to press the shaft down. I also had to remove the rotor and upper housing to allow the distributor to fit between the legs of the press.

With the old gear pressed off, I needed to drill the new gear to match. I set up a duplicating rig on the mill.

Four clamps around the side precisely locate a v-block in the vise.

The shaft of the gear sits in the groove of the v-block and is clamped against the forward face of the vise using a couple of clamping nuts. The critical reference measurement on the gear placement is from the lower face of the gear (the one clamped to the forward face of the vice), so this arrangement will make the hole the exact same distance from that face. I adjusted the table so that the 1/8″ bit would slide all the way through the old hole without any side load. I then loosened the vise and swapped in the new gear.

The new gear is on the right and the hole turned out perfect. All that’s left is to press the new gear onto the shaft and somehow figure out how to align the holes. If I can’t get the holes aligned, I can always press it on 90º off from the existing hole and drill a new hole through the shaft.

Next up is to trim the ignition coil mounting plate. After cutting it to rough size on the band saw, I mounted it in the milling machine vise. I used some shims to mount it at an angle since the mounting legs are asymmetric.

After machining and some finish sanding, I polished it up a bit on the scotchbrite wheel. After I drill the mounting holes and confirm the fit, I’ll polish this until it’s as shiny as the water pump.

Finally, I cut the electric power steering mount apart so that I can reweld it at the proper angle.

I sanded off all of the welds and cleaned up the edges.

The channel hung over the 3/4″ tubing by just over 1/8″, so I machined off the flanges to align with the face of the 3/4″ tubing when welded.

The first step in installing the electric power steering (EPS) system is to cut the steering shaft. I ended up moving the electric motor back almost as far as it could go and then taking some measurements from the engine mount to ensure I’ll have plenty of clearance.

I just started with a single cut in the shaft because this would let me adjust the motor up or down from there, but it looks like this spot will work absolutely perfectly. I really can’t go back any further because I’d hit the steering shaft u-joint and I’d interfere with the exhaust headers which exit just aft of here.

After determining everything will fit nicely, I cut the other end of the shaft and test fit everything.

The bracket that came with the system isn’t welded at the right angle to allow the motor bracket to bolt up to it. I’ll let Erik know, but I’ll probably just cut and reweld this myself.

The motor clears the F panel by over 1/8″. This bracket isn’t used in this application, so I may just cut it off.

After hunting around for a good place to mount the EPS controller, I decided to mount it to the 3/4″ tubing behind the steering shaft. There’s nearly 1/4″ of clearance between the shaft and the controller, and it’s really out of the way here. The challenge is that there are only two threaded bosses on the EPS controller and they’re at an odd angle. I need to be able to access the screws later in case the controller needs to come out. Mounting it here lets me fabricate a simple bent steel bracket and easily access the mounting screws if necessary.

I ended up deciding to mount the ignition coil to a custom bracket that will bolt to the front of the water pump. I had a piece of scrap aluminum angle, so I took some measurements and laid out the shape of the bracket.

Once I cut out the bracket, it will bolt to the front of the water pump using these two bolts. This should clear everything around it and provide a nice, short run from the coil to the distributor.

I needed to make custom length spacers for the struts and alternator mount, so I stopped by the TechShop after dinner to turn them on the lathe. I ordered a 2″ spacer from March Performance that is already powdercoated, so I wrapped it with some tape to protect the finish. I turned this down to 1.745″

I need spacers of a bunch of different lengths for the struts. I picked up some 0.509″ ID tubing with 0.058″ wall thickness from McMaster Carr and rough cut them on the chop saw about 0.100″ long. I then turned down each end to make them perfectly square and the right length.

Trimming the spacers leaves a burr on the inner edge, so I repositioned the cutter and trimmed it off of each end of all of the spacers.

Here are the finished spacers. I’ll powdercoat these when the car comes completely apart for chassis finishing, but for now I’m going to install these bare.

Afer I got home, I installed the alternator spacer.

I installed it along with the oil dipstick tube. The bottom of the tube is installed with a little bit of black RTV to prevent oil leaks.

I talked to FFR this morning and they confirmed that I could use either the upper or lower strut mounting positions. They offer two because the single and double adjustable shocks they include in the kit aren’t the same length. With the chassis at ride height, I measured the resting length for the front and rear struts using both the upper and lower mounting positions. I also measured the strut and spindle mounting distances on the lower control arms to compute the motion ratio. This gives me all of the information I need to compute the correct strut length, but I still need to decide on spring rates. FFR recommends 500lbs in the front and 350lbs in the rear, but from what I can tell, part of the reason for such high rates is that the Koni struts they include in the kit have very little remaining travel at the normal ride height and the high spring rates help prevent the struts from bottoming out. The QA1 struts have a greater range of travel, so I shouldn’t need quite as high spring rates. After a bunch of research, we decided that we’d start with 400lbs in the front and 250lbs in the rear. I’m assuming we’ll end up ordering additional springs when we’re dialing in the suspension down the road.

I spoke with one of the engineers at QA1 and gave him the dimensions I measured and spring rates. He recommended the following items:

• D4501 quad-adjustable shocks, front and back. These have a travel of 11.625” – 16.875”.
• 10HT400 springs, front. These are 10″ long; 12″ long springs would work, but they would put the ride height adjustment nut at the very bottom.
• 10HT250 springs, rear.

He also recommended using the lower mounting holes on the front and the upper on the back which only have a 1/8″ difference in resting length. These items are all on order, so I should be able to confirm they fit some time next week.

With the measurements complete, I put the chassis back on the dolly.

One last thing I’ve been wanted to do before engine assembly is to paint the engravings at the end of the cylinder heads. I tried this earlier and ended up wiping off the paint because it wasn’t looking great. I tried a new technique tonight which worked much better. I cleaned the engravings thoroughly and then used a q-tip to apply paint over the engravings thick enough that I couldn’t see them. I then let the paint set up for a couple of hours and then used some solvent to remove everything on the surface. You can still see a haze of paint around the engravings, but that should come off with some more solvent. I didn’t want to go further tonight though since it would be easy to go too far and have the solvent remove the paint from the engravings. I made sure I did opposite ends on the cylinder heads so that if this doesn’t turn out well, I can just put these at the back of the engine and no one will ever see them.