Damn, most of us do the build to get the attractive blonde! You're starting ahead of a few of us I suspect...
These are just my 2 cents. I am not an engineer. I am a liberal arts grad. There are some here who've built several cars over the years, and done some amazing things -- I am not one of them. And, my girlfriend is a redhead.
smartin99 wrote:
I'm thinking of using 1.25 tube for extra support for the heavy motor. I have some 1" 11 gauge laying around that I could use too.
Well, we've kicked around the whole tube size/material/thickness thing around a whole lot here, and a few of us even got excited about it. There are people here who cite tables and such, and I can at least recite the issues they'll raise:
- Your motor isn't that heavy, at least not enough to justify the bigger tubes. If it is the Windsor, I figure about 470 pounds, which is what the old "Pinto" Lima 2.3 motor weighed. That Lima motor was used in quite a few builds back in the day.
- Your motor MIGHT have enough torque to justify heavier tubes (heavier than the 16 gauge 1" square tubes). Depends on the motor, tires, etc etc.
- I know there are several other 5.0 builds here in the past few years, and some of those were done by danged fine builders.
One notable (meaning a current, very active, well documented) build using a Ford 5.0 is
viewtopic.php?f=35&t=8526 JD is always very quick to answer email and posts. (EDIT -- and in fact, he answered your post before I got done writing!)
- The 11 gauge tube question came up here a couple of weeks ago. I think that the best answer was, if you have the 11 ga tubes, and you're not concerned too much about weight -- and given your motor, your chassis size, etc, I don't think you are -- then I'd say USE IT and spend the money on the attractive blonde lady. Or fancier seats, or something.
smartin99 wrote:
1. Is the 65" WMS to WMS rear axle too wide?
My +2 build is 62" outside edge of tire to outside edge of tire. My rear axle, off of an S10, is only 54" between WMS, but the S10 rims have a center mount, and the tires are roughly 8". If you use modern rims, with all of that offset to the inside of the car (the WMS is basically at the outside edge of the tire) then you're in the +4 ballpark.
smartin99 wrote:
2. Does it make sense or would it cause problems that I'm not thinking about, if I widdened the chassis by a couple of inches from the firewall to the rear of the frame? This may also make the wide rear axle work better too......
Or you could offset that motor/trans to the passenger's side by an inch or two (whatever you have room for in the chassis), and pick up that extra space. Bonus is that you have more room to run the steering column. Many passenger cars and trucks already have some offset for just that reason. I slid the front of my GM 3.4 over as far as could, and the rear of the T5 over maybe 1". The passenger will never notice it and I get about 2" at the pedals.
Seriously, I don't think that a +442 will present pedal space issues to you, unless you're driving in firefighter boots or something.
smartin99 wrote:
3. How wide should the track on the front wheels be with a 65" rear axle? Would this make my control arms too long??????
I'm sure that many here can do the fancy math, but having lurked here and on another forum for 7 years or so, I've never heard of the arms being too long. If you think it is too long, you can always change the rims, or use spacers or something.
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Other ideas --
- If you haven't made friends with Jack McCornack, I'd encourage you to do so. He's been very helpful for me, seemingly anticipating my next mistake. I'm building using his "Lalo" body.
- Resolve to have the thing on the road in 2 years from start of build. Life has a way of changing, and if you let it go longer than that, you'll get some significant disruption for sure.
- Do "something" every day. Don't try for big marathon sessions, but instead just try to spend an hour or so every day.