The hubs come from Ford with the wrong size studs. I’m not sure why they couldn’t just use these, but the kit comes with smaller 1/2-20 studs. You can see the difference between the old (on the left) and the new on the right.

Installing this was much more of a pain than the instructions would have you believe. It’s pretty trivial to knock out the old studs with a hand sledge, but the instructions have you use a lug nut and washer to draw the new stud into the hub. The problem is that it takes substantially more force to turn the lug nut than I could apply (and I’m quite a bit stronger than the average person). With an unlubricated lug nut, I could easily reach the recommended torque (100 ft-lb) long before bottoming out the stud. I ended us lubricating the studs with ARP Assembly Lubricant and using an impact wrench to draw the stud into place before applying a final torque with a torque wrench. It was a little bit of a pain to clean all of the lubricant out of the threads, but it was worth it given how easily it set the studs. I probably should have taken these down to the TechShop and used their large arbor press to press them in, but it’s done now.

I stopped by BR Racing this morning to get our tires mounted. They have a really nice touchless mounting system that grips the wheels through the lug nut holes.

I picked up a tire pressure monitoring system and had BR Racing install the sensors inside the wheels. The system has a really small display that should be fairly discrete on the dash.

During the virtual engine build, I marked the head gaskets where they hung out beyond the block or the head. Tonight I finished trimming them to the lines I marked and then started getting the engine block ready for paint. I got about 2/3 of the block taped up before running out of steam; there are a ton of spots to mask on these blocks.

My dad stopped by this morning and we did what we’re calling a “virtual engine build”. We test fit most of the components and verified we had all of the right parts and the right bolts to fasten them on. We also confirmed we had the right sealants, tools and torque settings.

We got started on the bottom end, fitting the oil pump, oil pickup and oil pump driveshaft. We then fit the oil pan and confirmed we had the right clearance between the pickup and the bottom of the pan by taping over the oil pickup and using a small piece of modeling clay. The only issue we ran into was that one of the nuts in the ARP oil stud kit had the wrong thread pitch. I’ll have to call them on Monday and get a replacement.

We then fit the timing chain cover and water pump. Although the ARP bolt kit I ordered from Summit Racing said in contained both timing chain cover bolts and water pump bolts, there were a bunch of missing 5/16″x18 bolts: 2@1.5″, 2@2″, 1@2.75″, 1@3.5″ and 1@5″. ARP said to contact them if the bolt set didn’t contain everything we needed, so hopefully they’ll send these or sell them individually to us. We also confirmed there will be clearance between the harmonic balancer and the water pump. The only potential issue we may have is that I purchased a timing pointer that mounts at the 2 o’clock position which is right under the water pump inlet. I *think* we’ll still be able to read the timing marks after the harmonic balancer is installed, but I may have to purchase one that mounts at the 11 o’clock position.

Finally, we mounted the heads and intake manifold. I’m trying to use all ARP 12pt stainless hardware for this engine build, but unfortunately, ARP doesn’t make stainless head bolts or studs for the 351W. They do for other engines, but apparently there hasn’t been much demand for them with this engine. They do may black oxide bolts and studs, but mostly with hex heads. The only option for 12pt hardware is studs. Given how far back the engine sits in the Cobra, the only disadvantage to studs is that I won’t be able to remove the heads with the engine installed in the car since the heads have to slide straight out until they can clear the studs. I really don’t think that will be an issue. I really like the studs though since they allow full thread engagement in the block and the thread bearings surface will the fine-pitch threads on the studs instead of course-pitch threads in the block.

One issue we ran into a couple of weeks ago was the rocker alignment on the valve stem. With the stock guide plates, the rockers were not perfectly aligned with the ends of the valve stems but were hanging somewhat off to one side. I purchased a set of AFR adjustable guide plates which gave me the ability to independently adjust the alignment of the intake and exhaust rockers. You can see the difference between them in the picture below. With these, I was able to adjust the rockers to be perfectly in the center of the valve stems.

I didn’t have too much time to work in the garage tonight, but I have been wanting to degree the cam before any more work happens on the engine. I started by attaching the degree wheel to the crankshaft and fashioning a pointer from a piece of safety wire attached to a bolt.

I fastened a dial caliper to the block so that I could determine TDC on the #1 cylinder. I found the dwell point at TDC at zeroed out the indicator. I then read the angle off of the degree wheel at 0.050″ before and after TDC.

After splitting the difference, I adjusted the degree wheel TDC.

I then installed a dial indicator in the lifter bore for the #1 intake valve.

I rotated the crankshaft until I got the lifter onto the base circle of the cam lobe then rotated the crankshaft further to determine the angle at 0.050″ of lift on the opening and closing side of lobe. I also determined the lobe centerline using a similar technique.

I then moved the indicator to the exhaust lifter bore and repeated the process.

I jotted down the values I read off of the dial indicator. The centerline was right on at 111º on the intake valve and 121º on the exhaust valve, so I know the cam is degreed correctly. I’m seeing a 6-7º greater duration at 0.050″ though. This could be due to a larger radius on the dial indicator ball end than the lifter roller, but I’m happy with the numbers.

Despite a warning on the side of the transmission shipping box, FedEx had it standing on its end when I picked it up. A note inside the box indicated that this can cause the transmission to lock up. Sure enough, I couldn’t rotate the input shaft; it would just rock back and forth but was clearly binding. Fortunately, there are instructions on their side about how to fix this.

I started by removing the center cover. This was stuck down with gasket maker and it was a pain to get off and clean up the excess sealant. Once the cover was off, it was obvious what the problem was. Despite the gearshift lever being in neutral, one of the shifter linkages was engaged. You can see the top linkage is closer to the forward (left) face of the cavity.

Popping this back freed up the transmission and the input shaft could now rotate freely.

I reapplied some gasket maker and reattached the cover. There is a good chance I’m going to take this off again anyway since we’re mostly likely going to move to the mid-shift position.

One of the goals for today was to measure for the pushrods so we have time to order them before assembling the engine in early July. After thoroughly cleaning the cam, we covered it with assembly lube and very gently slid it into the block. You can see the long bolt (wrapped in electrical tape) that we used to manipulate the cam.

After installing the cam thrust plate, we installed the timing set straight up. The cam has 5º of advance already ground into it, so we don’t need any further advance in the valve train. I didn’t get any pictures of the rest of the process, but we swapped a pair of valve springs for low-tension checking springs and used a Comp Cams length checker to determine the length. We determined that we need a 7.800″ pushrod and that results in a centered pattern on the valve stem tip that is about 0.050″ wide.