The throttle and linkage always seemed a bit sketchy to me, as originally configured. At first, I used a Lokar pedal and the throttle linkage that came from F5 but the setup didn’t seem quite right. I swapped the Lokar pedal for one from Russ Thompson as it is more robust and provides for a better placement in the footbox. I’ve got large feet and the Lokar pedal was not positioned well for me. I also purchased a 36″ Lokar throttle cable and throttle linkage. As such, I needed to modify the Russ Thompson pedal’s attachment to the throttle cable so that the action was smooth. The Lokar throttle linkage, as seen below, has an arm that attaches at 90 deg. to the direction of the throttle cable, It worked ‘OK’ but the arm was always moving slightly with the throttle action. A set screw pressing against the body of the Holly assembly kept the throttle bracket from rotating but I was concerned about it loosening and work-hardening of the arm from the constant moving back and forth with the throttle action.
Several members of the F5 forum suggested using a FAST 304147 EZ EFI throttle bracket. An advantage is that the bracket is configured so that the bracket ‘resistance’ to the throttle action is parallel to the throttle movement, not perpendicular as in the case of the Lokar bracket.
The swapping of the throttle brackets was straightforward except for something that had nothing to do with the brackets, themselves.
The throttle cable is attached to the throttle via the linkage seen in the above photo. The throttle cable is atttached to the FAST throttle bracket by two throttle cable ferrules that screw together to hold the cable in a ring (above center in the above photo). To get the throttle cable through the ferrels, the throttle cable linkage needs to be removed from the throttle cable. The problem was that the cable strands had frayed and I could not get the cable back into the small hole of the linkage so that it could be held in place with a set screw. In the end, I used heat shrink tubing to hold the strands together and enlarged the bore of the linkage to allow the cable and heat-shrink tubing to be inserted into the linkage.
Another improvement I made was in securing the Earl’s Vapor Guard hose after the NiCopp hard line and before it is attached to the Holly EFI. I used Earl’s hose clamps to secure the two fuel hoses that are attached to the EFI, one a fuel supply, the other fuel return, to each other, but I felt that the hoses still wobbled too much.
To secure the hose assembly mid-span I took advantage of a threaded hole that had been drilled into the engine block for attaching lifting plates and fabricated a small bracket to secure the Earl’s tubing clamps to the engine.
The bracket now secures the hose clamp to the engine:
Finally, I tested my first ‘accessory’ using the battery for power rather than my DC voltage generator.
The power from the battery runs to a master switch that is located on the firewall. The starter, etc., are energized by first switching the master to ‘on’, and the ignition and some downstream functions are ‘keyed’. These go through the main fuse box.
For some non-keyed accessories, I have a power line running from the battery-side of the master switch to a secondary ‘non-keyed’ fuse box that serves the fresh-air blowers, trunk light, rain light and a few other low Amp devices (below).
In the photo above you can see the functioning of the non-switched power distribution box. The red wire on the right side comes form the battery side of the master switch. On the left side, with the yellow connector plastic, is the ground distribution. The six silver terminals on the left feed the ground. The power distribution lines are adjacent to the fuses. The two 4 amp fuses are for the lines going to the footbox blowers. The white wire that is not yet fused goes to the trunk light.
The above photos show the main power cable, from the battery, attached to one lug of the master cut-off switch and the ‘tributary’ power cable running from that lug to the ‘non-switched’ fuse box. You can see the other end of the tributary power line in the photo of the fuse box, above. The black wire loom houses both the 4 ga. power line and two grounds that go from a primary frame ground to other points on the chassis. Once I’m certain that the power and grounds are all the wires that I want in the loom, I’ll seal the ends with the red heat shrink tubing. Once again the loom insertion tool (photo below) has come in handy!
