Windage tray and oil pan

A windage tray is designed to keep oil from splashing up from the bottom of the pan and back onto the crank—, a condition that happens all too often in the rough conditions in racing. Here is a Canton windage tray bolted to new main bearing bolts supplied by Canton.

And the matching Canton road race oil pan. It holds 7 quarts and has kickouts on the side instead of just a deeper sump, this allows the engine to be placed lower in the chassis without ground clearance issues.

Here I am lifting up one of the one-way flaps built into the pan. They allow oil to move towards the pickup and not away from it.

Here is another picture of the hinged one-way flap-I'm impressed

Cleaning up the 5.0

The 1986 5.0 HO was pretty dirty so I stripped the brackets off of it and started cleaning.

It's pretty ugly

I soaked it in engine degreaser then used a wire brush on the end of a drill to get the thick stuff. Then I used a garden hose to rinse the engine off so I could take a closer look. If I found any more grime, I soaked that area with degreaser and scrubbed some more. After several cycles of degreaser-rinse-inspect I was able to go over the whole engine with brake cleaner to remove the film left by the degreaser.

Then I sprayed the whole thing with Ford Racing Blue engine paint by Duplicor

It should pretty sharp (from 10 feet away) once the shiny accessories are bolted back on.

Another engine purchased

As is typical for these kind of projects, the "free" engine I was given was actually going to be quite costly to put in the car. It came out of a truck and even though the Mustang and F150 5.0 were similar, they are not the same. The location of accessories, intake, compression ratio, camshaft, pistons, water pump and other tidbits are different so getting the same performance out of a truck engine is more costly and difficult. Fortunately, I found a complete and running Mustang 5.0 HO engine locally for $200.00 and it even includes headers. On the left is the High Output 5.0 and on the right is the F150 engine, notice that the water pumps spin in opposite directions:

First look at new engine

It took a few hours to take the V12 out of the MGB but it took a few days to take the V8 out of the vehicle it came in, I hope to never do that again. I still need to clean it up and add some bits but here is the engine that will be powering the car this season-a Ford 5.0 with a cam and ported heads.

Getting ready to pull the V12

I have considered my options for what to do now that the V12 is too damaged to use. I don't have the money to properly fix the Jag engine but I still want to compete at Nationals this year. A generous donor has offered me a modified Ford 5.0 V8 which will fit without too much trouble. It will bolt right up to the transmission I have, weighs 250 lbs less than the V12 and make similar power levels. But before I can install it, I have to remove the V12. When funding permits, I'll rebuild the V12.

All the things that get in the way of removing the engine have been removed

And the transmission tunnel was removed to allow access to the bolts holding it to the engine.

Taking out the V12

I went out before work today and started getting the car ready to remove the V12. I bolted the bearing caps and oil pan back on so I don't lose any of it. Down the road I can rebuild this engine and make it into a real screamer with high compression pistons and good camshafts. I removed the exhaust,bumper, spoiler, splitter and fenders today. I'm glad I made all this stuff fairly easy to remove.

It's ugly

I removed the oil pan to check the bearings and that half-moon shaped piece of metal was staring up at me. It's a thrust washer, which is used to adjust the amount of endplay in the crankshaft.

This is what the crank looks like when it has been pushed forward too much.  The crank got pushed into the bearing support so hard that the crank now has a groove where there's isn't supposed to be one. See that little bit of metal sticking out where the crank meets the support? That's what's left of a metal washer.

And here's a fuzzy picture of a main bearing-it's cooked. The connecting rod bearings look the same. What caused all this destruction is a transmssion shaft that is slightly too long and forced the cranshaft forward. This caused friction between the crank and bearing support. This may have caused the overheating and power loss.

Failure :(

I have bad news: I have done everything I can to cure the power and overheating problem with this V12. I have done all the recommended things to keep it cool and have tested or replaced all the things I can afford to do to make the power I need it to make. But after testing today, I realized that I have failed at both things. It still does not have the acceleration that 290 hp in a 2300 lb car should have and it reached 220 degrees on a cold morning and wouldn't cool off even with water sprayed on the rad. If it was powerful, I would invest in an oversized custom radiator and hopefully cure the problem. If it ran cool, I might invest in new cams/valve springs to get more power out of it. But as it is, throwing money at one problem to still have the other is more than I am willing to do right now.
So, I know there are thousands of people that follow the progress of this car, and many of you really want to see the Pink Panther at Nationals. To do this, I am going to need help. If anybody has a suitable replacement engine that they are willing to donate, lend or sell at a rock bottom price, I am willing to offer a co-drive at the 2011 Solo Nationals in exchange. A suitable engine would be another V12 (carbs or EFI), GM or Ford V8 that is known to be healthy and strong. I don't want to fabricate new mounts and exhaust, purchase a bellhousing, clutch and pressure plate just to find that an engine can barely wheeze out 200 hp at the wheels. A generous fan of the car has already offered a mildly modified Ford 5.0 for no cost, but I have my doubts that it will make the power I need. Nobody is more disappointed than I am that I can't run this engine in the car. I have been wanting to do something great with it for the last 26 years but that is just not going to happen.
If you are willing to help me get to Nationals, e-mail me marksawatsky at gmail dot com

 

Where the car will stay until a new engine can be found

 

Cooling system mods

The engine has been running a little warmer than I would like, even with the addition of an oil cooler and dual pass radiator. A Jaguar technician named Norman Lutz figured out that that coolant inside the V12's was not evenly distributed. He found a way of altering the flow using restrictors in the external coolant manifolds. I made the mods last night and now the temperature, at least when the car is idling, seems to stay under control. I can't say for sure if the mods are what did it because I also found an airlock in the cooling system and was able to add more coolant.

Here are the drivers side manifolds before the restrictors are put in place.

Here are the passenger side manifolds after the restrictors are pressed in place. The #1 restrictor is 1/8", #2 and #3 are 1/2" and there is no restrictor and the #4 coolant passage. The restrictors are made of aluminum and I drilled the appropriate size hole in some aluminum, cut out the rough size with a jigsaw and used a hand file to get the size and shape right. They are held in with friction.

Here are the passenger side manifolds with blue silicone hose between them. The car definitely runs cooler now (at idle) but when refilling the cooling system, I discovered an airlock and was able to add more coolant than I had before. I don't know for sure how what affect that had on the engines ability to stay cool.