Jay, I just came back in from measuring under the hood of my 428 powered 78 Fairmont. I have 2 other FOX cars, my 85 Mustang Stocker, and a really nice stock 302 79 Zephyr Z7 coupe,which would be a bit easier to measure the actual chassis stuff, but I thought that giving you some numbers with the FE may help. First off, from the firewall to the rad support is 39" at the center. I have the 428 back about as far as it could go without hacking up the stock firewall. The drivers side valve cover is close enough that I can not stick a finger between the valve cover flange and the firewall. I use a normal Edelbrock water pump, and there is 6" between the water pump flange and the rad, which sits in the stock location. I use a normal flex fan with a 3 1/2" long stock Ford fan spacer (66 289 Galaxie, maybe?), and the fan has plenty of room from the fan. The top of the shock towers are a bit over 34"`s apart. Now, the following numbers may be of interest to Mario, Justin, or anybody else with a Fox FE body, as per my engines location in the engine bay. Using the carb air cleaner stud on my Holley 780, on a Sidewinder intake as a central point, it is 11 1/2" from the firewall, 27 1/2" from the rad support, 24 3/4" from the passenger fender top, and 24 5/8" from the drivers fender. This may lead one to think that the engine is centered side to side, but it is not. The Sidewinder is offset by at least 1 inch to the drivers side. From the top of the exh port casting of my CJ iron heads, to the top of the frame rails is 3 1/2", and there is 3" from the top of the casting to the pass. side shock tower, & 4 1/4" to the drivers side. This was measured using #2 exh. port on the pass. side, #6 on the drivers side. Unlike Mario, I did not move my steering column at all, #8 exh. port pretty much points straight at the steering shafts U joint, but TomP had enough room to put a nice curved tube on the #8 header pipe that clears nicely. I have no idea how the SOHC`s exh. layout would clear however. My engine sits low enough that with the Sidewinder and a 1" carb spacer, I COULD close the flat stock hood, but without enough room for a decent air cleaner. My car still has the stock front K member and steering rack location, which limited how low the engine could sit. As it is, we ground the ribs off the top of the factory manual rack, and used a 4x4 FE pickup rear sump oil pan, with a notch made from 2 1/2" exh. tubing that allows the oil pan to set down and wrap around the rack. The oil pump pickup tube barely clears the tubing notch. When we first did this swap in 1987, there were no aftermarket tubular K members available, using one would free up lots of room underneath, as the huge stock lower conrtol arms and their mounting sources eat up a lot of space. It would have made Tom`s job of building the headers MUCH easier. Some guys convert the front suspension of these FOX cars to front coil overs, but personally, I don`t like the idea of having all that weight placed on the top of the shock towers, which are quite thin, as opposed to the factories coil spring location between the lower control arms and the frame rails, especially on a nose heavy car that does some fairly tall wheelstands from time to time.
My Fairmont is the 2 door sedan body style, rather than the swoopier Futura/Z7 coupe like Marios. I origionaly was looking for a coupe, but this sedan came in as a trade in where I was working at the time, and now I really like the sedans "box top", but it is much harder to find a decent 2 dr sedan compared to a coupe. Having owned several examples of each, I would say the coupe is about 100 lbs heavier than a sedan, although the majority of that difference is the rear of the car, so at least it`s in the right place. I`m not exactly svelte, but with me behind the wheel, ready to run, the car is normally at 3100lbs, could be tad lighter or heavier depending on what I had for breakfast! My car has all it`s original steel body panels, factory aluminum bumpers (although the shock absorbing apparatus has been replaced with tubing), stock windows except for the door glass, which saved less than 20 lbs. It is all stock chassis and floor from the front bumper to just behind the "B" pillar area, where the roll bars main hoop is mounted, from there back is a 2x3" steel rear "back half"with a narrowed Dana 60 with Ladder bars, & a Morrison rear coil spring kit with shocks mounted inside (not a true coil over). The stock dash and interior panels are still there, with 2 plastic race seats and full carpeting.Since I don`t street drive the car, the is no heavy exhaust system after the headers collectors. In reality, I doubt that there is a lighter Ford body package that a FE fits into somewhat easily, that can normally be found quite cheaply than a FOX body, and despite having owned a few 85-86 Mustangs, I prefer the Fairmont Zephyr platform.
428 powered Fairmont drag car, Best ET:10.03@132.11MPH, best 60 ft: 1.29
59 Meteor 2 dr. sedan 332, Ford O Matic
74 F350 ramp truck 390 4speed
