Engine Clearance Way To Tight Need Advise
 

Greetings friends. Man O Man, I'd like to get this done, before I die. The car is a 66 Le Mans. 1970 455, with Round port E-heads, and Ram Air Restorations Round port RA exhaust manifolds. ANyway, on the right side, the exhaust manifolds, are way to close to everything. About, 3/16". It's touching the new lines, and almost touching the steering shaft. The engine is now a 471 so any movement of the engine at all, will cause all kinds of bad stuff. I understood the changes needed before doing this, and thought I did them all. I believe, if I could move the engine back about 1/2" max, it would be ok, if I secured the block to the frame with a brace. So, I'm asking for suggestions of what I may have missed. Or, if there was something I never knew to begin with.

I'm using a TH400, if that makes a diff. I did learn one very important thing trying to get the Le Monster finished. Never, decide to use 1/2" fuel and return lines, once the body is mounted on the frame. The hours spent trying to get it to feed from back to front, is what my nightmares are about. Of course, when I placed my order with In line Tube, they said it's a little time consuming but you can do it. Three months later,and either they are wrong, or I'm ready for the old folks home. Actually, that isn't such a bad place to live out my days. Thanks for any help my friends. Best wishes to you, and your families. Mike

There where no round port Exh manifolds in 66 so the engineers did not have to deal with them and there clearance issues.

Other can confirm this but it think you would be better off with 1 3/4" headers to solve this?

Engine Clearance Way To Tight Need Advise
 

Use a set of Doug's D567's then the clearance issues go away!!

Thanks for the help my friends. I wish I knew this before I had the exhaust manifolds ported and coated. Oh well, It is what it is. It's not like this is the first time I've had to make changes. :) Mike

If you haven't already done so, new engine mounts might do the job.

How much additional clearance do you need? If it's not a lot, and if the flange on the manifold is thick enough, you could have the flange (where it mounts to the cylinder head) milled down a bit. If that would work, it would be fairly simple, too.

Gotta start by busting your chops for calling the driver's side of the car the right side. Standard convention is to call the driver's side the left side of the car as if you were sitting in the driver's seat and looking out the windshield at the engine bay.

We installed a 3/8" stainless fuel line on a friend's '66 GTO and used the old 5/16" line as the return for the mechanical pump. Took us all day with the car on the lift, and we had to separate the one long tube into two pieces to successfully thread it between the body and frame in the front and rear. I'd say you are correct that installing 1/2" line where the original fuel lines went with the car together is nothing more than an exercise in frustration.

On all the other cars we cheated and simply ran 1/2" aluminum line down the passenger side of the frame rail and placed it where it was the easiest to run.

Engine basically moves up under acceleration and really no sideways movement, so additional clearance to the side isn't needed except for heat isolation. I've run D-port cast iron RA manifolds and round port headers, but haven't run round port RA manifolds so can't comment on how much room there is. Could you post photos of some of the tight spots? That might help in determining what solutions are available.

Would milling the manifolds at a slight angle help. A couple degrees at the head end multiplies pretty quickly.

The manifold clearance is fine on that car, really need a smaller brake booster with the tall valve covers