After having dealt with the electrical issues surrounding the fuel pump and the starting system it was back to the engine bay on the FMT. The first thing that I wanted to address was adding a smog pump. Originally, I was going to get a shorter belt and re-route it according to some testimonies from other people who chose to delete the smog pumps from their powerplants. Along with the belt suggestions also came a few caveats about possible belt throwing so I just said fuck it and decided to hit the junkyard to get another smog pump to replace the frozen unit that was on the FMT's old engine. At least for now this will work until I can get my hands on an idler pulley that is added in place of the smog pump, or even fabricate one from miscellaneous parts. The pump is held on with two bolts and is just a simple air pump that pumps air into the catalytic converter to help it convert unburned fuel and other gases into CO2 and H2O. With the pump in place, I was able to install the serpentine belt and take care of that little bit of business.
The next thing I did was install the heater hoses. One of the hoses was hooked up to a water port at the rear of the intake. Despite this slight relocation of the hose, I had to remove the original hose and replace it with one from our stock that was slightly longer. Luckily, I had some extra hoses in stock. As for the other hose, I had to actually take a piece of metal tubing around 5/8" diameter that was bent in different ways and trim it down so it could be tucked away in the small area between the port on the water pump and the area just above the alternator. I had to install a short piece of heater hose to the water pump to connect the bent metal tube, then hook up the regular heater hose from the HVAC box. I did have to trim that hose down a bit since I had some excess. The metal tube was necessary since the port on the water pump is in such a spot that without the metal tube, a rubber hose would be smashed against the accessory bracket. The hose could possibly be at risk of being cut by the serpentine belt that rides a mere 3/4" from the metal tube. I did use some heavy duty zip ties to hold the metal tube to the accessory bracket for extra measure. The next thing on the list was the removal of the right valve cover in order to expose the rocker arms. Intent here is to look at #1 cylinder so I could manually turn the engine over and get #1 cylinder to TDC in order to know where to set the wire for that cylinder after the distributor is installed. I had to replace the gaskets on the valve covers anyway so there was that, taking care of something that would've needed taking care of eventually. Now for the distributor. Since we've ventured way into uncharted territory on this build, we may as well include the choice of distributors in this as well. In this case, instead of using a Duraspark electronic ignition system as we've done in the past, I chose to go with one of the hybrid HEI distributors, just like the one we used on the Dodge's 318 engine. Of course, this distributor has the advantage of only needing one simple power wire going to the cap and if one is equipped, an extra wire for the tach. The Duraspark system needs one wire bundle going from the distributor to the module and another wire for power going to the module. It also needs an external coil with wires for power and ground/tach. An external ballast resistor is also needed and installed in line with the power feed to the coil. Compared to the HEI system, the Duraspark system is a more cluttered installation. There is a little thing that needs to be known about this type of installation. Since the HEI distributor is a wide unit, it is a tight fit. Tight enough, that it can only go in a certain way with only a small range of swing for timing adjustments. If you add an aftermarket intake, one of the intake runners might interfere with the body of the distributor. Conveniently the body is made with an indentation that covers about 45 degrees of the body underneath so when oriented properly, it will clear most things that might get in the way on the intake. In the case of our intake, a port on top of the intake runner got in the way of the distributor, even when properly placed. I took the die grinder and ground some of the metal away, clearing the area enough to seat the distributor all the way. After making the modifications, I was able to set the distributor down all the way. I did have to remove an extra water temperature sensor as it was completely in the way of the vacuum diaphragm on the distributor. I removed it and replaced it with a simple pipe plug. With the dizzy down, I installed the plug wires. As is the case with these commercial wire sets, the wires end up being way longer than is needed. It's fine but what this means is if I want the wires to be neat, I will have to shorten them. I'll be waiting to make sure everything is straight on the engine, that its running and tuned before I do anything with the plug wires. I would get some extra terminals and just take the wires and shorten them some based on their placement. Once the wires are shortened, I can neaten up with the zip tie wire retainer idea. Until then we will be sticking with the spaghetti bowl. With all this done, the next thing is bleeding the clutch master cylinder and adding fluids. From there, its a fresh battery and start up time!
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