Hey,
I'm swapping the engine & 5spd out of my '89 into my '69 Mach 1. Not here to argue the value, suffice to say I like the 20 MPG I get with the bird better than the 8 MPG with the 351W in the Stang, not to mention I'm tired of messing with the carburator!
Anyway, as part of the swap, I'm having to build a front sump oil pan and I'm wondering about the fact that the 5spd bellhousing bolts to the stock oil pan. Does anyone know if the integral bellhousing is just weak, thereby requiring the added rigidity from the oil pan? I've found that the bold pattern for the tranny perfectly matches the standard smallblock pattern (my '69 4spd looks like it would bolt right up, including the input shaft length), expect for the fact that the 3.8 uses 6 smaller bolts (including the 2 in the oil pan) rather than the 4 larger bolts on a smallblock.
My concern is whether to risk running with just 4 bolts or if I should build brackets onto my fabbed steel pan to carry the extra 2 bolts. Of course, doing so is going to cause some additional problems for the power steering slave cylinder.
Any thoughts, or does anyone have any ideas on digging up additional info?
Thanks a bunch!
Corbin
I'm swapping the engine & 5spd out of my '89 into my '69 Mach 1. Not here to argue the value, suffice to say I like the 20 MPG I get with the bird better than the 8 MPG with the 351W in the Stang, not to mention I'm tired of messing with the carburator!
Anyway, as part of the swap, I'm having to build a front sump oil pan and I'm wondering about the fact that the 5spd bellhousing bolts to the stock oil pan. Does anyone know if the integral bellhousing is just weak, thereby requiring the added rigidity from the oil pan? I've found that the bold pattern for the tranny perfectly matches the standard smallblock pattern (my '69 4spd looks like it would bolt right up, including the input shaft length), expect for the fact that the 3.8 uses 6 smaller bolts (including the 2 in the oil pan) rather than the 4 larger bolts on a smallblock.
My concern is whether to risk running with just 4 bolts or if I should build brackets onto my fabbed steel pan to carry the extra 2 bolts. Of course, doing so is going to cause some additional problems for the power steering slave cylinder.
Any thoughts, or does anyone have any ideas on digging up additional info?
Thanks a bunch!
Corbin