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2005: FORD THROTTLE BODY CUSTOM LINKAGE FABRICATION & INSTALLATION
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Well it was both the Throttle cable and TV cable that had to be flopped from the driver side of the stock TB to the passenger side of the Ford TB.

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Throttle cable
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Ok so we had to install a new throttle cable. As I stated before, there was not enough length in the factory throttle cable to make the swap over to the passenger side. Instead, I purchased a LoKar adjustable throttle cable. Its designed to be measured and cut to the desired legth for custom applications!

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Removal of the stock throttle cable
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Well first off I had to remove the stock throttle cable...
The cable was first detached at the throttle linkage.

You can see the stock clip that held it in place on the original factory bracket. Removing the cable would then allow for enough slack in the line so the cable could be removed in the interior off the back of the gas petal.

Here you can see the rod with the cable free from it. The cable is held in place with a plastic clip that actually clips into the round hole you see in the rod.

To remove it you have to first squish the feet of the plastic piece and slide it forward, freeing it from the rod.

Then you simply lift the whole cable up thru the slit in the rod.

Now this plastic piece is assembled onto the factory cable. It does not come loose. The one I used in the above picture I got a spare from a junkyard car in case for some reason I had to go back stock. There is a small hole in the center of it large enough for the cable and then 2 stoppers on either side. The distance of these stoppers is key to the proper function of the cable.

Once the cable is detached from the rod, then you have to remove it from the firewall. Well this took some doing. there are little ears that have to be pressed in so the cable, sheath, and housing can be pushed back into the engine compartment. You can see how everything it flush on the engine bay side of the firewall.

Pics were difficult in this tight space, but here is the cable out of the car. You can see the ears I was describling...one on each side.

Here is how you dispress them. (though you have to do this to both sides)

I had to get in there on either side with 2 screw drivers to get them to depress simotaneously to allow the cable to come free. Now this is the hole you are left with in the interior...

Also here is the rubber insulator that had to be removed in order to free up the cable on the inside. It was in the the cars insulation

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Setting up the Lokar throttle cable
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The lokar throttle cable is designed for custom length applications. You can simply alter the length of the cable and sheath for your application.

Lets start with a basic overview of what is in the kit...
The cable

The cable & hollow sheath that it slides into...

You will notice that it has a nut with the tapered end on one side and a flat side on the other. You can see this tapered nut has a match on the sheath of the cable, but it has a hollow stud attached to it. The sheath goes on the engine side of the firewall. The hollow stud is designed to slip thru the firewall (thru a drilled hole) and into the passenger compartment. The tapered nut is then screwed on to the hollow stud to secure the shealth in place. The 2 flat sides of the nuts go against the firewall of the car to form a protective conduit thru the firewall. The cable once attached to the gas petal, is then slipped thru the entire thing. Being hollow the cable can slide freely inside without binding! The free cable end will pass thru the sheath and then hook up to the throttle linkage with this hardware...

The sheath is left off the linkage hardware, becasue you have to cut it to fit your appllication. Once you get it measured and cut you then slip the next piece of hardware over the sheath end. It is a hollow tube with a nut like the firewall end... it also has a hollow stud attached at the other end. on this hollow stud are 2 floating tapered nuts that will go flat side to flat side on the muonting hardware of your choice. This will hold the assembly in place and the cable will pass thru and go to the final piece. This final piece has a hole with a set screw for mounting you cable once you get it cut the desired length. The cable is then complete. It is mounted to your trottle linkage with a stud coming out at a 90 degree angle from the cable with a nut to secure it!

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Converting the cable for my application.
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Here is the universal gas petal attachment end that Lokar gives you.

Took the Lokar fittings off...

Bare cable...

This looks nothing like the version that my car came with...

The factory version has 2 stoppers with the plastic clip on piece between them. But you can see the Lokar piece at least has a stop on the end. This could be used to retro fit a factory platic clip end onto the Lokar cable. So the first thing to do was to go to the junkyard and retrieve another gas petal end off another Camaro or Firebird!

Now to figure out how to add the second stopper.... A trip to the hardware store and we came back with this....

This is a crimpable stopper... you line it up where you want and crimp it in place....

So I slipped on my replacement factory clip and new stopper on to the Lokar cable.

Then measured them against my stock cable (again a good reasone to not cut up YOUR factory one and get a donar from a junk yard!!!!

Once we were satified I crimped on my new stopper. Now I had the perfect replacement end!

Now to hook it up to the car...
Basically it goes on the reverse of how it came off... that part was easy... then I noticed the hole in the firewall.

The Lokar firewall nuts were too small and would pull thru. So I had to dig around and came up with some large washers with small holes....
This was the idea... (off the car for illustration).
One large washer on the passenger compartment side of the firewall...

And one on the engine bay side of the firewall...

Once it was painted black it would all blend with the rest of the bay!

So it was on to installing the unit in the car...

I had attached the cable to the gas petal in the reverse of how it came off. That was easy... Now the hard part...getting the darn sheath/washer/nut assembly screwed together in the dark in the cramped space. While I was fumbling to get the thing up to the hole and tightened down I about burned up the car and myself...

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Mishap while installing the Lokar Throttle cable.
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So I was trying to get the darn sheath, washer, and nut all lined up and installed... I had the cable laying loose from the contraption next to me till I was done. The bare end somehow managed to find its way into the drop light plug outlet, the other end on a piece of metal on the cars underside dash...

The whole cable heated up quick. The outer coating of plastic started to melt. It was so hot it started to burn the car and me. I had a cold and could smell nothing so I was unaware till I saw smoke. I jumped up and pulled the camera and droplight out. I thought the droplight was shorting on something. To see better thru the smoke and assess the damage I started pulling things out of the floor of the drivers side passenger compartment where I had been. Then I grabbed the Throttle cable and got a nice hot surprise with a burn about an inch long b/w my fingers. I threw it out of the car. The thing was a mess and way hot.

The car came out much less damaged then me in this instance. I looked around further to check for damage in the smoke filled car. Found a few spots....

Scorch marks on the upper knee panel plastic where it touched metal and sparked.

Then I looked down at the point the cable had been so hot on my hand. Saw the burn on my fingers & started to look for more. I never felt any pain per say. I think it was so hot it cauterized the wound completely. I got a nasty deep burn on both my forearm (1.5 inches long) & elbow (1 inch long). Looked alot like the burns on the kick panel! So Joe got to finish getting the line in for me. the elbow I burnt was the one I needed to lean on to install the darn cable! Took 2 weeks to heal up and now I have a nasty scar! The fun of doing your own work!

So now the sheath was installed nice and tight to the firewall. It was back to the cable. I had already attached it to the gas petal, now it was just a matter of fishing the free end back thru the sheath. Once the cable was out thru the sheath, a few rough ideas on where to run the line were tried.

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Working out the new throttle body linkage
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Well as a reminder... Due to the Ford TB design, my new TB linkage was now on the opposite side from factory. It was now on the passenger side.

Turns out the angle that the Ford TB throtle linkage rotated at was not on the same plane as my factory design. So to keep the lines simple and functioning near stock, Joe worked out a covnversion plate.

He used alot of the stock measurements I was showing you at the start of this build up. The length and angles from the factory linkage conections to the factory brackets. He took the stock one and made some further comparisons...

The bottom pin is where the throttle cable would normally attach. As you depress the gas petal, the throttle cable pulls this linkage and then the tv cable is pulled. Thus signaling the Transmission to the position of the throttle!

The angles have to be just right when it is swapped over to the other side. A slight miscalculation in distance, angle, or pitch and either a bind or too much slop could be introduced into the system. Then the tranny would not work in conjunction with the throttle position.

He even used this angle finder to be sure he got it all spot on!

Here he has it all marked up, clamped down and is working out the final details!

So Joe worked out a few different conversion brackets for the throttle cable. the Existing Ford throttle linkage was cut down to not over complicate the looks and the new linkage was simply bolted to the old piece. Pretty trick idea, eh??? Better then the mess we would ahve had trying to make the Ford version work.

Once this prototype was mocked up and the functionality tested out, he refined the design to a simpler and sleeker version...

As on the stock TB linkage... the throttle cable attaches at the bottom, the TV cable at the top! Remember the Lokar attachment had a stud and bolt to attach to the plate. That why there is only a hole in these pics!

Here we are adding some of the hardware to the bracket for test fitting

Now from here it was a matter of getting the length ironed out. Joe worked back from the linkage and determined how much play was needed in the line to allow it to function properly. Once he determined that he added an angle bracket off one of the intake's mounting studs. Then measured and marked the sheath for its cut. Before we cut it we had to pull the cable back out of the sheath to be sure we did not cut it. A dremel cut off wheel turned out to be the key. From there he added the Lokar pieces as I decribed earlier. Then the cable was slid back thru and a length for it to be cut at was determined. Again the dremel was the best cutting tool. Everything else just mangled the end! Once it was cut the end was simply slipped into the set screw and they were ready for a test run. Here they are run and connected...

We had perfect pull and return!

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Running the Factory TV cable...
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Well we already addressed the throttle cable... now here is what we did to get the factory TV cable to work. As I stated before the factory bacle was plenty long enough. It actually came from the passenger side of the tranny anyway.

Here is the factory original bracket that held both components.

We had to either make, buy, or cut up a bracket for the TV cable to connect to. The hole it mounted to is very specific. So we opted to cut and hack the original bracket to hook up the original TV cable.

Here you can see the cut bracket now attached with the TV cable and mounted to a lengthened TB stud...

It is not perfect yet, but it will work till we can get a new one or come up with a custom bracket of our own design, but at least this is a functional prototype that we only need to tweak.

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Final set up...
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With everything on the TB functional, now it was just the simple things, like hooking up the mass air and Ram Air box! I was worried with the TB neck being a touch longer then the stock set up that the mass air would not slip in between the Suncoast box and TB as it had before. Amazingly the mass air fits just perfect. Then we were worried about the mass air's inside diameter. Was it infact as large as the throttle body? I was originally afraid the mass air diameter would be a massive restriction for a 65MM TB, but it turned out the mass air inside diameter is about 65mm as well. So there would be no flow restriction at all! Now I just hope the Mass air can measure and translate the air flow and volume to the computer properly!

Now that I was going from a round TB to the round Mass Air it was not a big deal at all to get a good fitting coupler! I actually went over to Autozone and got one of their off the shelf black silicone intake step down coupler kits!

Here is the vacuum coupler for the new TB!

Here it is completed!

The BMR Strut tower brace even clears!

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How it sounds!
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This is footage of the newly installed Truleo intake (made for 3.4, 3.1 & 2.8L v-6s) as the car is idling and you can hear the air being sucked in the filter by the larger capacity intake manifold. Engine is a 3.4L v-6