Today wasn’t quite as productive as yesterday, but I got the gas pedal positioned and installed, and did some adjustments to the way the Wilwood pedals were installed to make it all work. I also got part of the drivers side footbox riveted up. As usual, read the rest of the post for pictures and more detail.

First things first, I decided to get the outboard panel of the drivers footbox installed. The upper panels have to be left off for access for a while, but the sides can be riveted in. This panel went on with very little drama, which is a nice change of pace.

I wanted to get the other panel installed, however I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to figure out a way to mount the gas pedal if it was installed and riveted. I did use a crimping/bending hand tool I bought yesterday to adjust the flange on the transmission tunnel and got the panel to fit better.

It still doesn’t fit perfectly, but is good enough.

The gas pedal I’m using is the Russ Thompson machined aluminum pedal. I had bought one from Mike Forte but was surprised to see it was really not a workable pedal. It was tiny, didn’t have much travel and had no way to get a reasonable pedal cover on it. The Russ Thompson pedal was pricey, but worth it.

However, what makes it easy to use with a FFR build — a nice C-clamp mounting design that goes onto the 3/4″ tube above the driver’s feet — makes it unworkable with the Wilwood pedal cluster mount that Mike Forte sells, as it rests on top of that square stock. One of the support members also blocks the movement of the pedal. There are a lot of various ways people have solved this problem.

I decided the best option was to cut a notch in the pedal cluster frame — the way it bolts, this won’t weaken it any. I also removed the middle support member on it, so the pedal would swing freely. Once that was done I resprayed the frame black and mounted it back in the car.

You can see here that the spacing is good with the pedals. I have covers that match the gas pedal that will be bolted to the Wilwood arms. The gas pedal is hanging straight down right now because there’s no throttle cable on it, however when pulled more inline, it really looks nice. The pedal is an inch shorter than the others, but I don’t think I’ll find that annoying to drive.