Hey Thomas,
Sorry to hear you are having challenges over there. Good to take your time on this one. We tunneled
out the cab floor to get our 351W/AOD combination to fit. Our's is tight up against the firewall
& we don't have enough room up front to run a proper mechanical fan so we have an electric one.
('50 F1, 351W, AOD, Mustang II IFS).

Good luck over there. You are welcome to come by to take a look at our set up if it would help.

Ben in Austin
1950 F1

 

Thomas I see the steering, so the cab is bolted to the frame?
A little harder to move the engine around but you can do it and you have more room between the frame rails(56v48-52) that will help the steering clearance
I would cut the cab where needed raise the engine some see how it fit and Ajust again if needed move the engine to the right for steering clearance if needed

 

Thanks everyone for the responses and pictures this is really helpful.

 

Looking at the postings it appears that cutting at the firewall and/or the cab floor is required to install a sbf with the Jag IFS is going to be required in essentially all of our year trucks. It looks like the sbf really wants a front mounted steering rack like the M2 type or the original front suspension.
Just for comparison my sbc (a stroked 350 or 383) with a 700R4 AOD and with the soft mounted Jag is installed with no cutting at the cab/stock floor or transmission cover and no engine/trans clearance issues. My engine is actually center mounted running a mechanical fan with the radiator mounted using the original V8 position holes (not the forward 6 cylinder holes). The only tight spot with the Jag/sbc installation is the steering shaft and the exhaust. After trying multiple different available headers I ended up with the angled back rams horns installed on several different factory cars/trucks.
I only provided the above information as input for future builders to consider in their IFS/engine choices.

 

I have not cut my cab a 49 but I did move the engine to the right of center about 3/8" inch and would like another 1/2" or so and yes it is very tight fit with sbf

 

With the right oil pan, the Ford engine will fit anywhere a Chevy does. It appears in this application, the center-back sump truck pan isn't the best choice.

 

It is a bit of a challenge to get a fit with the sbf and a rear steering rack like the jag because of the oil pump location which is in the front in the sbf vs the rear in the sbc. The only way that I know of to get the front of the pan to the same depth on the sbf as the sbc is using an external belt driven oil pump as done sometimes in race cars. The sbc pan depth in the front is 4" below the centerline of the crankshaft verses 6 3/4 inches in the sbf. You can't modify the pan (make it more shallow in the front) without removing the oil pump in the pan. That pan depth is set by the bottom of the pump. All of that means that with the jag in our trucks the sbf has to sit higher than the sbc unless the engine is moved back into the firewall.
All that I was saying in my previous posts is that the Jag/sbf is not as good a choice as the M2/sbf (or the original front axle).

 

Again, thanks everyone for the help. Through reading these posts I discovered one major newbie mistake. I wasn't resting the weight of the engine down on the chassis and hence not getting a real measurement. I also didn't the front/rear tires level. I'm a little embarrassed. I fixed these and have me a tiny bit more clearance at the trans tail. To show my final placement I made a video.

 

Hey Thomas,
Looking good over there! Nice job mocking it all up - that was a lot of work!

Ben in Austin
1950 F1

 

I used a kit from Jegs for my welded motor mounts for the 302/C6 I have in my '49 F1. I boxed the frame from radiator cross member to trans cross member. Had to do surgery on the fire wall to get the engine far enough back for the rear sump pan to clear the rack.

 

I know have the engine resting where it should go. I was struggling what exhaust route to go and the angled Fox body shorties looked the best (while viewing online). So I ordered a pair. My end result looks pretty similar to DougofM's.

As you can see in the pic the steering shaft is overlapping the header (or will be once the pipe is in place).

So here's my question. What's the best option for me to resolve this. I see two:
1) Move the engine towards the passenger. I know there is some availability to do this but i'm worried how much i'll need to do to get clearance. And will that look (and be) odd in the engine bay.
2) Route the steering shaft closer to the frame rail with another u-joint and a mount. I've seen others do this.

Recommendations?

 

I took my steering shaft over to the frame and then up to the steering column:


This allowed the angles to stay fairly below the maximum angle allowed.

 

As you can see, I used wooden dowels to get things in place BEFORE cutting any steel DD shaft.

 

If moving the engine an inch to the passenger side will do it, that is an easy solution given where you are at. IMHO 2 inches would be too much. I went with an engine driven fan so that was not an option for me, however with an electric fan, no problem.

 

I would try fenderwell headers, possibly BB chevy and change the flange to SB ford. BB chevy has equally spaced exhaust ports like the Ford.
Fenderwell headers just make it too easy to do the exhaust. You could even use these SB chevy headers and mod the two inner pipes to fit the Ford flange.