1965 Clark Cortez

I guess you can run the sniper at any angle, so you could just replace a throttle body on a efi manifold with it?

Thank you all for the positive comments! We're really looking forward to getting this all installed. We've still got alot of cleaning and painting to get done first - I have next friday off work so I'm hoping to get alot done... Weather permitting.

We're not going to change the intake manifold for two main reasons.

Clearence. With the V8 fitted we lost A LOT of engine bay space in every direction, this includes the original engine covers been but with the air intake pipe originally coming into the cabin - I'm not kidding, it was a right state (I'll try and find a photo). There's no way we'd be able to fit that Dakota manifold without creating a massive hump in the cabin.

Our gearbox is the other reason. Our rarer than rare gearbox is a known weakspot on the Cortez, and when considering that it originally only had to deal with a 225 inline-6 and now is been driven by a 360 V8 we don't want to push 'too' much torque through it.

Thanks!
Andy & L

I have the performer for my Rover and PhilA is right there is negligible difference in height and there will be a huge savings in weight in your case as I can't imagine that Mopar block is running an aluminium intake.

If O'Reilly's doesn't have them in stock they are available at Amazon.

For now I think we're going to leave the intake manifold. the $300 to $400 one would cost us would be better spent else where.

I had today off while L was working. I took the engine from this



To this



I then spent the rest of the day cleaning, derusting and painting everything that was removed. Besides the AC and Powersteering pump, they're sundays job!



-

Still lots more cleaning of the block to do along with the engine bay but at least when it's done we'll know everything is in good working order. Wjile the engine is this broken down I want to get the water pump and timing chain changed for good measure too. I have no real concern over their current state but at least if we do it know we should be for got the forseaable future!

I also want to look into the engine mounts. The current ones are some obscure truck mounts and the only replacements I can find are over $500 for NOS ones. There's plenty of different LA series mounts around so I'm positive I can make more readily (and cheaper) available ones work.

Andy

Odd, given the amount of off-the-shelf oily bits they fitted.

Yea tell me about it! Clark really wanted the Cortez to be FWD and I think they used their own transmission because nothing "off the shelf" would work.



Thank you so much for your kind words! We really appreciate it!

Andy & L

what, no Mopar orange?

It's starting to come together. I didn't realize it's FWD, that's utterly bizarre for what in most aspects is a rather conventional vehicle.

Had a few hours on the Cortez yesterday. Not as long as we planned but that was due to my Golf playing silly buggers!

Noticed recently that the gear change wasn't as tight and firm as it was and on the way to the Cortez it honestly felt terrible - Couldn't tell if I was in neutral or even in gear! Anyway, on the way I lost 2nd, 4th and 6th - It's fine I thought, just need to get to the farm. Then I had a little play with a modified Hyundia Genesis using the only three gears I had and then proceeded to lose all my gears! Pulled over and besides burning my arm on the engine a couple of times, and having literally zero tools (they're at the RV) I noticed that the nut securing the selector was super loose so tried tightening it... That literally locked the gearstick in place so more faffing and me and L managed to get it into 3rd and only third. A rather noisey 5 mile drive later we got to the farm where I actually lost 3rd as I pulled into the farm.

So instead of working on the RV, the Golf got some attention.



Fortuantly, with a couple of tools I got the intake out of the way and had time to let everything cool a little. When I'd tightened the nut on the roadside it appears the selector (thingy) ended up on't-curse word which caused it to lock so I simply loosened the nut, seated the selector and tightened the nut back up. The result... I got my gears back and everything feels great!



So, back to the Cortez.

We started here.



and finished here.



Now, I'll be the first to admit, I did a terrible job of pulling it all apart! I just went for it, didn't photo anything, write anything down, bag up parts or do anything sensible of the sort! I just kept pulling brackets, spacers, nuts and bolts out till there was nothing left. I rather naively just thought "I can remember this!". Turns out... I couldn't remember sh*t, so reassembly took a while with lots of bolting down, removing, swapping, reintalling.

For whatever reason, whoever did the engine swap decided to make their own backets for the AC, power-steering and alternator so there's no guide! They also used a mixture of fine and course threaded bolts, 3/8" thick steel, did a combination of welded nuts or tapped holes and randomly cut curves and coners into the brackets, there's also a nifty sliding section for tensioning the power steering pump - Which is actaully quite clever! We could probably redo all the brackets, save some weight (ha ha!) and make things a little simpler and tidy but honeslty, it all works, we've got bigger jobs to get one with so for now... It's all staying!

Andy&L

That looks great.