Intakes- About that Firewall to Engine Clearance Issue

So - as I mentioned earlier, the firewall is REALLY close to the engine.  So much so- that the original Mark VIII intake with throttle body at the rear, sits two to three inches behind the cylinder heads.

This means to use it, I need to mod the mounts to move the engine forward.  Or mod the firewall..which I'm already doing - but afraid to what extent it will impact my HVAC needs in the car... or try to find another intake that would work.

So - I landed here:

Casey Likey.

Fitting the Engine - Continued

As with almost everything in this project, as I modify things the lord of the domino effect comes a calling and costs me time and money.

This is no exception.

The 69 Mustang in my case came with a nice clean 302 with a C4 transmission.  I've altered this to be a 4.6 (280 ci- but larger spatially) with T3650 transmission.  The motor mounts- also changed-  are for the 4.6/5.4/5.0 Coyote... and they sit the engine VERY close to the firewall.

As you can see, there's not a lot of room there.  This amplifies the size of the transmission as it relates to the floor of the car - with the wider section of the bell housing coming in contact with the transmission/driveshaft tunnel.

THUS - I must pay in time and fab.... to open this area up a bit.

From the front...

From the drivers perspetive.

So I proceed to cut, put engine in, need more room, remove engine... and repeat... probably 8 or 9 times.  I honestly just lost track after a while.

Here's what the tunnel looked like after all the cutting was done.

As you can see- I really opened up things a lot.But - it all fits, and has at least a half inch of play around it for flex/etc to make sure we're not hitting anything while driving.

Next steps - fabricating up the skeleton for structure to enhance the rigidity of the floor and the tunnel.  I don't plan to close it up until I have all my driveline angles worked out.