308 V12 conversion begins

I decided I should shift gears a little tonight and do another test fit in the car before going any further with the bellhousing. Over all I guess it looks pretty good but there are a few areas of concern.

The width of the thing without the bellhousing is just over the width of the opening in the engine bay, with the bellhousing it's about 3 inches over. I'll pull it with the bellhousing on and see how that goes....if I have to I could always install the bellhousing after dropping it in and before it's sitting down on the mounts.

The flywheel to frame clearance I was so worried about is easily over 3/16", nothing to worry about there

The drop gear case is well clear of the gas tank and the tire so that's good however it appears there may be a problem with the lower A-arm. I'll need to pull the spring and stroke the suspension and see what I have, I may need to alter the A-arm.

The silly long damp only misses the tire by maybe 1/16" so that needs attention. I may make a whole new one with a fluid filled damper but it looks like just removing the outside pulley will solve the problem and I could also remove the inner most pulley and shorten the hub to get a little more room.

I'm also back to pondering the drysump return pump location as it is clearly not going on the end of the crank. I've got a couple ideas.

1. I could just live with it being belt driven and mount it to the side of the engine. I think this would be the easiest, but I don't love the way it would look, I don't like the belt, and I don't like how high I would have to mount it.

2. I could probably pull the waterpump and stick the oil pump in its place. I'd have to belt drive the new water pump but that would be a v or serpentine belt, not a toothed belt like I'd need for the oil pump.

3. I could make a way cool custom pump that arranges the pump gear sets radialy instead of axially….this one would fit neatly but it sure seems like a lot of bother.
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An electric water pump means a bigger alternator, but it's doable. I didn't realize anyone was running them as OEM....that makes in more appealing knowing someone has done the work to prove it works in all conditions like the mechanical pumps do.

I took a few minutes tonight and held a 360 pump that's sitting here for the moment in place to see if there was room...and there is assuming it's the return pump only and I keep the original pressure pump because the whole pump is too long so that can be done.

While looking at the waterpump spot it occured to me that I could also mount it right on the bottom and leave the water pump alone.....we might have a winner here.
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Today's thought is the ideal return pump is 3 stages to give me 1 pick up on each side of the sump and 1 in the timing cover since it's so far to the right and probably won't drain right in hard cornering. The 360 pump (which isn't mine anyway, although I can probably hunt one up) is 2 stage....but it fits pretty well. I like the idea of using the 3650 pump because I know I can alway get another one if it ever fails vs an after market thing that could be hard to find again. More to think about.

 

Today's first task was to pick up the shop a bit....so 3 hours later I finally got some work done.

The engine came out...barely. It will be a lot tighter with the heads on but I think it's possible.

I hit the bellhousing with medium then fine scotchbrite and it looks pretty good I think.

Then back to the bellhousing. I cut the housing down to make room for the flange and cut off the unneeded clutch lever boss off. Spent some time doing a little more bending on the flange, trimmed it and tacked it on. I want to double check the measurements before full welding it, maybe tomorrow.
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The flange did pucker and twist when I bent it. I think I've left it proud by about 1/8" (that's the main thing I want to confirm befroe I finish weld it) so there is plenty to cut off after welding to clean it up and also make it flat and square to the clutch shaft. The clutch shaft bearing is the only feature I'm not planning to remachine, the plan is to use that as ther reference and cut everything else to match it.

I will probably do some cutter on the back side to to remove some extra material. I need the thickness for the bolts, but in between I don't and I plan on removing it.

 

Thanks.

I will dyno it but probably not until it's in the car. Chassis dynos are much easier to find and set up on and I'd like to have time the break it in slowly, get it tuned well, and generally make sure everything is working right. Until dyno day the answer is "Oh it's well over 800 hp"

 

Thanks.

I'm thinking more and more replacing the stock oil pump with the dry sump pump then do what you did and put an electric water pump up front. There are a lot of options, I'm thinking something like this:
http://www.hrpworld.com/index.cfm?tpc=EWP_Electric_Water_Pump_Kits&form_prod_id=747,587_3529&action=product

with the optional electronic controler probably:
http://www.hrpworld.com/index.cfm?form_prod_id=747,52,363_4363&action=product

 

I'm starting to wonder if buying a TR was the better answer

 

I wasn't happy with the way the flange was sitting so I cut it off and repositioned it, much better this time. It's full welded now and seems good. The one picture shows the 1/8" gap caused by the flange sitting proud to allow me to machine the face to final position. Now I just need to fill up a few holes here and there and weld in a new boss for the idler gear that has to move about 3/16" becasuse of the gear swap then I'm ready to machine it.

The flange looks a bit...well bad right now but I'm pretty sure that once I do the machine work and final clean up it will look like it belongs there.
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Tell me about it

 

I hate dealing with ribs, they are a bugger to weld around and not burn away.