Engine mouunting

[SSTigerMerc]

I was wondering that when mounting a sbc 350 into a land cruiser should there be a pitch from front to rear of the motor or should it be dead horizontal and level. I am using the downey off road conversion booklet and it does not help with this situation. I was also wondering that it says to place the engine as far into the firewall as I can and modification may be neccessary to fit it with this in mind does the distributor become problematic since it is inherently shoved into the fire wall. Also is there a distance from intake to hood inside that is considered when welding in motor mounts for the height of the engine in the compartment.

Thanks in advance,
S. Scigo

 

[Bret]

The carb flange should be close to level, the output flanges on your transfer case should be close to verticle. Engine placement is affected by many factors, What transmission? What power steering? what kind of exhaust? etc. Do a search on "350 conversion" and look in the FAQ section. You will likely have plenty of room above the engine for any "normal" intake.

https://forum.ih8mud.com/40-55-seri...uestions-***-f-q-***-updated-08-oct-08-a.html

There will be lot's of information on the questions you have asked, as well as answers to questions you may not have realized yet. The Advanced Adapter book may be helpful as well.

 

[muleymike]

No you do not want engine level. It should have a 3 to 5 degree angle. I used the advanced adapter catalog to get alot of good info on v8 conversions.

 

[fieldsken1]

a 3 to 5 degree angle or you will get into trouble

 

[Bret]

How does that effect the angles in the drive train? Seems like like if you had 5 deg pitch at the heads then you would need the rear pinion pointing up 5 deg and the front pointing down 5 deg? What problem does it create?

OK here is what I have found. Most intakes have approx 3 degrees built in, so if you go level at the carb flange then you should be about 3 deg down on the engine centerline. So it would depend on where you measured from. Still curious as to why though... I leveled mine at the manifold and under it own weight the pinion angles were w/in 1 degree.

Measure at least twice, weld/cut once

 

[DomSmith]

DO NOT jam the damn thing too far back. My old motor was done that way and it was a pain in the ass.

Like Bret said there are a lot of factors involved. What exhaust are you running? There are quite a few different setups out there that will affect placement. Headers? Which kind? Ram's Horns? I bought a cruiser that the PO had to smash the firewall with a hammer to get the headers to fit. I'd suggest avoiding this.

Drive shaft length can affect it as well depending on your tranny/tcase selection.

Good Luck.

 

[SSTigerMerc]

I am using a sbc 350 with the sm420 tranny a plate adapter and the stock 3 speed case. I am planning on using the ram horn manifolds if i cannot find short block hugging headers. Through this I plan on going inside the frame rails. I also plan on reataining the stock steering setup as I have rebuild the box and it works well. The problems I ran into on the FAQ is no one would give a definite answer. Even if I take the averages of what people told me to do I end up with a 3 to 7 inch le way so to speak. I plan on using a fan off the water pump so this spacing is interesting but as pushing it forward increases the stick of the sm420 become even closer to the heater as well as the stock drive shaft for the front is aslready too long and the bell housing is already 1 inch away from the firewall. Any help is greatly appreciated. I understand the the FAQ is there and I have read but no one give the best solution so to speak IH*mud say one downey another and advanced is different from the first two.

Thanks in advance.
S. Scigo

 

[orangefj45]

i like running the engine further forward to get the longest rear driveline possible.
i also like running clutch fans. usually, i'll mock up the engine with the fan in place and give myself about 2" of room between the rad and the fan. you will have to bend the shifter to clear the heater box and you'll have to modify the trans tunnel for the shifter.

the carb base should be level which will make the engine sit at 3 to 5 degs as mentioned earlier.

 

[Alz Toy]

Get a Downey Catalog

I have the same exact engine/tranny/tcase combo as you. Mine uses an old school front cradle mount, that uses the stock frame mounts to position the motor. Gives plenty of clearance at the firewall to pull an HEI dist, no problem. If your using a side mount setup for the engine, you could probley eyeball the frame mount/front of engine ( where the holes in the block next to the timing cover are ) and come pretty close to where you need to be. I know the Downey catalog lists how far over to the drivers side ( 1" ? ), how far back from front xmember, and shifter measurement for bending to clear the heater. If nothing else, PM " Downey " ( Jim Sickles OF Downey Toyota ) , and get it straight from the sorce. He gave me some good advice on my 1st Cruiser back in the 70's when I still lived out there.There catalog has some good info in it and its free. Good luck, Al

 

[SSTigerMerc]

I have the book from downey. It says nothing about offsetting the motor unless you hit the steering setup and I cleared it. It says to mount the motor 19 and 1/2 inches back from the last frame rivet of the front cross member of the stock frame. With this the motor is a good 9-12 inches from the back of the radiator and this seems to far for a fan to be affective. I do not want to run a electric fan because the system already has enough on it. Looking at pictures online I can see that alot of the motors are offset quite a bit from the radiator.

 

[Bret]

When I did mine the first time I mocked up the motor and tranny between the frame rails with jack stands to get an idea of where everything would fit. There prolly isn't a "definate" rule. Just what works for what you are doing. You would want to look for obvious stuff like exhaust manifold clearance to the steering box, clearance for the HEI, mechanical fuel pump (if applicable), shift tower location, interference with the heater (if installed), clutch arm clearance, etc. etc. I know I'm forgetting some stuff but others may mention important parts I missed.

I'm sure I screwed it up but I ran a string from the front diff flange to the rear diff flange and ran 2 plumb bobs from the transfer case flanges to try to line up for the driveshafts, the front to rear was a compromise of heater clearance (I removed mine) and HEI clearance. I think mine ended up being offset to the drivers side maybe 1/2". You may not want to put the most weight on modifying the driveshafts if it causes other problems (chronic overheating??) Have you had any luck finding pictures of similar drivetrains for reference.

The radiator is pretty easy to move back but you can only move it so far forward, the rear crossmember can prevent you from moving too far back and still be able to get the E_brake drum off.