Hey guys I've been thinking about this problem and may have come up with a few ideas. 1. Tower brace: GS did you say you were making an aftermarket set up from a Mustang fit? But you said it wouldn't clear the booster? Am I correct? Did it clear the intake? 2. Would it be possible to use a smaller booster off a different car? Would something like this work: http://www.ultrastang.com/Ultrainfo.asp?Page_ID=16 3. What about moving the booster inside the firewall? I know people do it on hotrods and customs to clean up the firewall. I don't know what it looks like under the dash on the Mav and I can't get my doors open right now because its close to the wall and dads 42 Willys Jeep is on the other side. Maybe someone could check it out? Just a few ideas, Let me know what you think.
There are a few things you can do while still keeping the stock booster set up ... 1) Use the intake from a mid 90's F-150 ... Its turned the other way, You would prolly have to use an edlebrock throttle body adapter for extra clearence . It turns the throttle body on a 45 degree towards the front of the motor ... its listed in the PAW catalog ... 2) Comp Cams makes an aftermarket upper intake for a 5.0 thats much smaller than stock ... It should work fine with the tower support ... Its listed in the Jeggs catalog ... It also bosts a 20 HP increase over stock but be prepared to drop $350.00 for it ...
You could use a much smaller booster like the Geo. Check out this link. One thing to remember, if you have the factory power booster, you will probably have to get a pedal set up from a non power unit. http://www.stuart.iit.edu/students/2112/restoration/powerbrakes.htm
Has anyone here tried the geo setup ? Thats an interesting idea... The auther of the article said the brakes had a "soft" feel and would lock up 5/8ths of the way down ... Couldnt be any worse than the mav stock setup ... The only mav with power brakes i ever drove was our 76 and it was very "Touchy" when we drove it home ... Actually i didnt like the feel of the power steering either ... Dont know how to explain it but it seemed too "sensitive" Mabey i was just use to a manual brake and steering mav ...
I bought a MPG adjustable end link brace kit for a Falcon & was told by MPG that it will also work on the Maverick, as well as clear the EFI upper intake. Well, they were correct except that I had power brakes. It isn't the booster that creates the clearance problem, it is the mastercylinder. I had a upper intake clearance issue with the booster (a seperate issue), which I resolved. The MPG shock tower bracket couldn't be bolted on as the mastercylinder interfered with it. And even if I could mount it, the brace from the firewall still hit the mastercylinder, but clears the upper intake. Yes, I've seen remote booster/mastercylinder setups before & I ran one on a race car I use to have, where it was mounted under the passenger side dash. I am eventually going to take the car to a fabricator who swears he can build one for. I do have the original looping circle brace that came on the car for power brake equipped Mavericks that we will probably use as a guide for the future one. The original one is the one that won't clear the upper intake. Installing a smaller booster will not resolve the issue.
Thank you very much for your reply and straightening me out on that. I thought it was the booster, you saved me alot of friggin around. Keep me updated on your ideas, and if I come up with something that "might" be useful I'll let you know. I have saved alot of Maverick pictures off the net for reference. I have quite a few and believe it or not yours is the only one with power brakes! I have a few of your car...really makes me want to get mine done!
I had the MPG shock tower brace completely bolted up to the passenger side & it cleared the EFI. I believe that the drivers side would have to, except that I had power brakes. Now, I didn't buy the Monte Carlo set up to complete the triangulation like you did, but yours appears to be the MPG setup as well. I also noticed that you installed your firewall bracket above the body mount holes rather than below, which meant that you had to grind the lip off at the body seam. I installed mine below the body mount holes. I did have to redrill two of those holes in the bracket so it would line up with the body mount holes, but that was it. Yours had to be simpler, with no powerbrakes. What else did you have to modify?
Power Brakes... ...All of the mid 70's Fords that I have driven with power assisted front disc brakes are a bit scary. I had a '78 Pinto and a '74 Mustang II with these and they would lock the wheels up and skid on dry pavement as well as wet. I have driven 2 Comets with manual front discs, they stopped fine without locking up the front wheels. If it is possible, I would lose the power booster. I don't know if the manual cylinder will bolt up to a firewall that was formerly a padb car. It probably is true that the brake pedal is different. This should eliminate your clearance issue and in my opinion would make the car much more driver friendly if they are anything like the other padb fords I have driven. Your EFI setup looks great. I did go over and see your pics of your modified boss 302 on boss302.com. I like that cross boss setup. Did you buy the NOS cross boss setup from e-bay that sold earlier this month for around $2,800 or so as a spare? I have read that that inline autolite setup was quite potent. How many cfm is that carb? What does it feel like when you punch it from a roll? Is it more of a top end power setup? I assume that it runs on all four barrels all the time? Good luck with your projects. Seth
I had to shorten all the rods, had a machinist take off about 1/4" off of each rod on each end. The rear mounting plate had to be shortened by approximately 1.5" and welded back together. I had to add mounting tabs to the shock tower plates to mount the Monte Carlo Bar, this was so it would clear the distributor and carburetor. It turned out to be a much bigger project then I had anticipated and since I don't have the equipment to weld aluminum or to machine the rods I had a profesional machinist/welder do it and all that work added about $150.00 on top of the cost of the kit. I haven't decided if I want to put the firewall mount on the bottom or the top, either way it still needs a little modification.
Interesting, I wonder if I received different rods than you? Was yours for a Mustang or the Falcon? As MPG did say that they were different. I bought my Cross Boss setup 10 years ago out of "Snake Bit", the SAAC publication, from a guy in Canada. I paid $2200 for the carb, intake & a set of Hooker Super Comps. It is the smaller, more streetable 875 cfm version, rather than the more common 1400 cfm version. Yes, all 4 barrels work together, so it makes for very smooth acceleration. Drawbacks: It doesn't like to hold a steady speed & it has a poor idle quality. It runs best wide open! LOL. Adding the intake & exhaust port plates really helped the driveability. There is also a slight hesitation from off to on the throttle which is inherant in this setup. During the initial testing of this setup in 1969 on the Trans Am Boss', Parnelli constantly complained that this upset the handling when applying the power off the corners. Even though the Cross Boss showed a horsepower increase on the dyno, it didn't show up in the lap times, because of this problem. So the Bud Moore team was actually relieved, that SCCA had outlawed the Cross Boss prior to the start of the season, despite all the money in R&D that Ford had put into it.
