Ford Racing Peformance Parts Boss 302 Engine Install - Tedious Tribulations

We mounted the crank pulley spacer and crank pulley to the engine. There isn't much room to get anything but an Allen wrench in there to tighten the bolts, so we used the box end of a wrench to get enough leverage to tighten it properly.

Our boy Xenos did a great job with the powdercoating. March Performance provided us with a sparkling array of billet pulleys and beauty covers that not only look fantastic, but they save a bit of weight thanks to their aluminum construction.

The idler pulley on our billet Meziere water pump is slightly smaller in diameter than the March pulley. It's specially designed for the water pump, so we'll have to try out a few shorter serpentine belts to make sure the tensioner puts the proper amount of stress on the belt.

Here we have the entire serpentine belt setup installed. The tensioner should actually be pointing a good deal to the right, rather than down, so we'll need to shorten the belt length.

Stolen Goods' proposed goal of 400-425 crank horsepower doesn't necessarily require a ton of clamping force, but aggressive track use will require a stout piece. We opted for Centerforce's Light Metal Clutch assembly (PN LM161057) along with its aluminum flywheel. The LMC and flywheel together can reduce assembly weight by 5-10 pounds and should allow our Boss 347 to rev much faster than if it was equipped with a steel flywheel and standard pressure plate.

After applying thread locker to the flywheel bolts, we installed the flywheel, then cleaned it with some brake cleaner to remove the shipping coating that keeps the steel insert from rusting. We then installed the clutch disc using the supplied tool.

When installing the pressure plate, clean the contact surface with brake cleaner. Make sure you line up the reference marks before sliding it onto the dowel pins.

We ditched the stock bolts (of which we could locate only four of the six) and used these Centerforce fasteners (left).

With the clutch buttoned up, we installed the bellhousing. Nothing special here, just a factory 5.0L unit. Our previous request to MPS Auto Salvage netted us the proper fasteners.

To crank up the Boss engine's inner workings, Meziere sent us this wildly trick billet starter (PN TS408). It retails for $510 and features a proprietary drive design, not to mention a stout 2.2kw motor for faster, more reliable starting.

The billet mounting flange on the starter allows you to clock the starter for header clearance or any other fitment issue.

You can just about build an entire Mustang using Mustangs Unlimited. The company supplied Stolen Goods with numerous components, including O2 sensors, O2 sensor extensions, motor and transmission mounts, as well as an idle air-control valve and air-charge temp sensor.

With the clutch and bellhousing installed, we hoisted up SG's new Astro Performance A-5 gearbox and gently joined it with the powerplant. MPS Auto Salvage hooked us up with the factory fasteners. The urethane transmission mount went on next-that is, until the factory exhaust hanger bracket surfaced.

Using the engine hoist, we dropped the transmission/ motor assembly into the engine bay. The engine-tilting mechanism couldn't tilt enough to let the D.S.S. Racing oil pan get past the radiator-core support without gouging the firewall with the tailshaft of the transmis-sion, so we jacked up the back end of the car, which gave us the needed clearance.

D.S.S. Racing's Tom Naegele recommended that we install an adjustable clutch cable and quadrant to ensure accurate pressure-plate alignment and movement. We had our good friends at Ford Racing Performance Parts send us a few of their trick parts, including a double hook clutch quadrant (PN M-7583-A), a Topside adjuster (PN M7554-A), a clutch cable (PN M-7553-C302), and a roller pilot bearing (PN M-7600-A). If the clutch engagement is not properly set, you can burn up the clutch and possibly cause thrust bearing failure.

Now that the Boss 347 has found its new place of employment, we reinstalled the Black Magic Extreme cooling system. The unit fits like factory and looks a heck of a lot better, not to mention it should keep the coiling beast cool, whether during on-track exploits or sitting in traffic.

We found an interference issue with the factory throttle-cable bracket and the Cobra valve cover we were using. Here, you can see we tried a chrome plated, stock-style FRPP piece. We even went so far as to try a stock stamped-steel part, but that wouldn't clear the rockers. After some research, we may have solved the problem by using a thinner EGR delete spacer. The current piece that we sourced from Accufab is more than 2 inches thick, while the new one we just ordered is just 3/8 inch thick. This should move the bracket inward and out of range of the valve cover.

Though we're not quite ready to fire up our D.S.S. bullet, the engine bay is shaping up as we hoped. Next month we plan to detail all of our fixes for the more finicky portions of the engine installation and bring you some real road testing of Project Stolen Goods.