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  #431  
Old 07-18-2021, 08:02 PM
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heinke heinke is online now
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Post Chassis Wiring

While waiting for the header components to arrive, I decided to start figuring out some of the chassis wiring. I had prior purchased a wiring kit from Painless Performance that includes all the commonly used wiring circuits pre-terminated at a fuse block. So basically a fuse block with about a dozen bundles of wires of various lengths snaking out from it. The first step to install the wiring is then to find a suitable, central location where the fuse block can be mounted. I like to have the fuse block hidden from site but also easily accessible for troubleshooting and fuse replacement so I factor this in when evaluating potential locations.

The instruction book that came with the kit recommended laying the various wire bundles out on the chassis to position the fuse block such that the provided wires would be long enough to reach their end points. I did this and under the dash on the passenger side looked like the best location for the fuse block with adequate space and accessibility.



If the fuse block was mounted high under the dash, it would be out of sight but wouldn’t be easy to get to. So I decided to mount it on a hinge of sorts such that it could be stored up high for normal car use and lowered down for maintenance. I used a scrap of ¼” aluminum (lightened with holes) as a mount for the fuse block and a 5/16” bolt through the mounting plate with a nylon spacer behind to provide a pivot for the hinge.





The other big electrical pieces that needed a home are the controls for the Holley Terminator X engine/EFI system. Specifically there’s the ECU, Variable Valve Timing (VVT) controller, and two ignition/spark controllers (one for each bank of cylinders) and the maze of harness wiring connecting these boxes. While the EFI instructions said these controllers could be mounted in the engine compartment, my preference is to locate them somewhere they would stay dry and away from heat sources. The most logical space looks to be a cubby hole located behind the drivers seat and next to the engine compartment. I had prior cut some of the chassis metal away here to make room for the transaxle so it’s easy to pass the wiring harness through to test out various mounting options.



After trying a couple of alternatives, this vertical mounting scheme seems good. It enables good routing for the wiring harnesses and good access to the control boxes. There are four wiring harness bundles between the EFI and chassis wiring that needs chassis bulkhead pass through in this area. So I want to make more progress on figuring out what additional wiring is needed before I weld in the metal to re-seal the chassis here.
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  #432  
Old 07-28-2021, 12:26 AM
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Post Alternator Belt Routing

In working through wire harness routings, it became clear that I needed to figure out the placement and mounting for a central component of the electronic system, the alternator. The original Miura had a somewhat quirky, non-standard element to the alternator in that it used a toothed, Gilmer style belt to drive it. For my Miura, I have no choice but to go with something non-standard as there just isn’t any space to mount even the smallest of alternators in a standard arrangement. Given the EFI fuel pump, electric cooling fans, electric water pump, ECU/Ignition/VVT controllers and A/C, this configuration requires a high output alternator and thus the alternator itself will be decent size and need some mounting space.

I decided to start with the alternator that came with the Coyote engine from the Mustang GT. It’s a Nippondenso unit, put out 140 amps when tested and there’s a 200 amp version in the same case if the one I have doesn’t have quite enough output. Given the lack of space, the only choice is to mount and run the alternator backward so the first modification was to swap out the clutch drive pulley it had with a solid pulley so the alternator could be spun counter clockwise.

The Coyote engine is typically configured with 2 serpentine belts having the alternator located on left side which is the forward bank of cylinders. To fit the engine in the chassis, I had to remove the front belt drive off the crank damper pulley, so the engine is now only single belt capable. So to determine potential belt routings, I had to source a belt tensioner that fits on the right side of engine where the idler pulley needs to be right next to the engine front. I also had to add an extra idler pulley so the belt would clear the newly added belt tensioner.





It’s all very compact and tight with only one belt rubbing issue but I think it can be made to work (pulley at top is simulating the alternator pulley). Out of the two possible belt routings, this one seems to be best. The other potential routing has the belt going around the coolant intake neck. While that routing would enable placing the alternator higher (providing more clearance between it and chassis tube), I don’t like the notion of needing to dump coolant and removing a hose to do a belt change.

Here’s the rubbing issue.



The timing chain case drops down and touches the belt just upstream of the idler pulley. I removed just a bit of metal from the timing chain case where it rubs and ended up with a hole. The casting is maybe 1/8” thick where I thought given the shape it would be thicker. I put a cotton swab through the hole and poked it around. I felt only solid walls and it came out dry without any sign of oil on it. Best case, it’s only a hollow cavity and no repair is needed. Most probably, I’ll need to pull the timing chain cover off and weld some metal in behind it.

So question out to anyone who’s torn down a Coyote engine; what’s in that part of the timing chain cover? Is this a space that is somehow connected to the windage part of the engine?
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  #433  
Old 07-28-2021, 09:38 PM
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Post Alternator Mounting

So after figuring out a decent serpentine belt routing, it was time to fabricate alternator mounts. There are only M8 sized bolts on the engine top front, which aren’t all that big, so I had to figure out a mount that would include some bracing to spread the weight out between the few bolts located there. As a reminder, the alternator is being mounted with the pulley facing the engine as there isn’t room to mount it in a standard manner. Here’s what I came up with.



3/8” thick aluminum plates anchor to the engine with long mounts going out to alternator. The alternator only has two mounting lugs so triangulation is definitely required. An idler pulley mount on left side of engine provided a good downward triangulation point.







I had to use McMaster-Carr to source the long bolts used throughout this alternator mount. With the triangulation in place, the alternator is very solid showing no movement when I press on it.
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  #434  
Old 07-29-2021, 04:45 AM
cliffrod cliffrod is offline
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Thanks for posting this solution and process, Joel.
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  #435  
Old 07-29-2021, 10:17 AM
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Steve Hamilton Steve Hamilton is offline
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Hi Joel

two thought came to mind, but you probably already have already addressed them.
Is the cooling fan for the alternator rotating the correct direction?

Is there enough room around the fan to allow air to flow?

normal air flow for an alternator is in through the rear side and out through the fan.

steve
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  #436  
Old 07-31-2021, 06:24 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Hamilton View Post
Hi Joel

two thought came to mind, but you probably already have already addressed them.
Is the cooling fan for the alternator rotating the correct direction?

Is there enough room around the fan to allow air to flow?

normal air flow for an alternator is in through the rear side and out through the fan.

steve
Steve: Both valid concerns. The fan on this Denso alternator is embedded inside the case. It appears to have flat fan blades which I think are made that way to support bi-directional rotation. My alternator guy told me this unit should work fine running counter clockwise.

There should be plenty of room around the alternator for air flow. In fact, air flow should be much better with it mounted up top versus down low on engine. If the air flow is from alternator rear to front, then the backwards mounting should work fine as on the Miura, air flows in from the side vents behind the side windows and out via the louvers on the top back.
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  #437  
Old 08-06-2021, 10:14 PM
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Post Shift Linkage

Prior to fabricating the headers, I thought it smart to build out the shift linkage to ensure the space I had reserved for the linkage while mocking up the headers was actually going to be adequate. As a reminder, the custom transverse transaxle uses a Tremec TKO 5 speed transmission (which normally uses an integral H pattern shifter) and in this Miura application needs to be shifted via cables. I had already converted the transmission so it has a single horizontally placed shift shaft oriented to the passenger side of the chassis.

My original plan was to hook one shift cable to this shaft via a lever for the twist motion and the other shift cable directly to the shaft for the push/pull motion. After ordering up some custom made push/pull shift cables, I found a major flaw in the plan. There wasn’t enough room to route the cable to the end of the shift shaft without it rubbing on the passenger side rear tire.



Another wrinkle in that plan was that a non-standard shift pattern would result if the push/pull motion wasn’t reversed. In other words, I wanted first gear to be the leftmost and forward shifter position. First gear would be left and backwards on the shifter if the cable was run directly from the shifter to the shift shaft. To get the desired shift pattern, I’d need to reverse the push/pull motion with a set of levers. My original plan was to put the reversing lever adjacent to the shifter but with the lack of clearance between shift cable and rear tire, my original plan was out the window.

So I set about designing a shift cable mount on the engine that would also include a reversing lever for the cable with push/pull motion. First step was adding a shift shaft extension to get out of header heat zone and beyond the A/C compressor hose mounts. A linear bearing was integrated into the A/C compressor bracket to support the shift shaft extension.



Next, a direction reversing lever was built with a ½” shaft carried on pillow block bushings mounted on a stout piece of angle attached to the engine timing cover and A/C bracket.



The vertical lever gives a twist motion on the shift shaft and the push/pull direction reversing lever is connected to shift shaft via a pair of heim joints so the twist motion isn’t impaired.



A cable mount bracket fits snuggly between engine and chassis. It also provides triangulation for the other shift linkage bracket.



Some small notches were required in chassis gussets to provide clearance for cable connections to shift linkage levers.



My preferred design mantra is, “keep it simple”, but this shift linkage is very complicated, maybe overly complicated. There are 28 fasteners just within this shift linkage. It seems to work ok in some initial testing. I won’t really be able to test it until the transaxle is fully assembled and has been filled with oil.
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  #438  
Old 08-12-2021, 03:17 PM
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Post Shifter Installation

I had chosen a shifter made by Numeric Racing for use in the Miura. The shifter is designed for use in Porsches so there were a couple of quirks with the install involved in converting metric pickup points to standard threaded cables. The shifter itself is very well made with all pivot points supported by ball bearings. Compared to the shift linkage I had just completed, the shifter install felt very easy and straight forward.



The shift lever ends with a 10mm ball on the bottom. I couldn’t find any connectors that accepted a 10mm ball that didn’t also have metric threads. I did find however that gas strut ends are made to accept a 10mm ball stud. I found some nice ones made of stainless steel that were reasonably priced on eBay. They came with a M6 thread which I drilled out and added a heli-coil to get to the ¼-28 thread for the shift cable.



The pick-up point for the side to side motion is 12mm round by 13mm wide. Starting from a ½” thick scrap of aluminum, all it took was to drill a couple of holes and tap one out to adapt this for cable hookup.

I think this shifter setup will benefit from some sort of gated arrangement but I’ll hold off in doing that until I’ve been able to take a test drive to try it out.
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  #439  
Old 08-12-2021, 09:37 PM
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Simpler = better. Good to recognize it at this point in time and addressing it. It won't be a lot of fun to try and resolve in the far future. (or alongside the ride if something should not work correctly or fails)
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  #440  
Old 08-12-2021, 11:15 PM
Mr fixit Mr fixit is offline
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Hi Joel,

I truly can't wait for the next installment of your fantastic project. Thanks for all the pictures and documentation along with them.

I do have to ask, we haven't had a 30' view in a while to see how all the pieces have gone together. Would it be possible to add one the next time you are in the shop and have the camera out? Because I'm sure it's looking fantastic at the 30' level too, it certainly is at the 1' level with all the details and the hard work you have into this project.

Thanks for posting, it's a great pleasure to follow along.

TX
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