What did you do this weekend?

Cleaned the house after a week of having people hunker down here to survive the Texas Snowpocalypse. Had some much needed "us time" with my wife as a week of forced social interaction drained us. We're not anti-social by any stretch, but our house is usually a quiet place with just the two of us and the manimals so a solid week of uninvited unplanned and ill prepared guests took its toll.

Sunday was downright pleasant outside so I did some measuring, staring, and thinking about the 7AGE project in regards to hood clearance. I am pretty dedicated to the idea of not modifying the hood to clear the engine and the previous thought (while the total height was unknown) was to shim down the crossmember to clear, but mere shims aren't going to work in this case. The top of the valve covers sits about 2.3" above the hood line while the intake manifold sits about 3.125" above the hood line. So my options at present are a 3" body lift to clear the engine and I fabricate a custom intake manifold or a 4" body lift and I use the factory intake manifold.

A body lift is pretty much what it sounds like, it is lifting the body of the car higher, but not the frame/crossmembers. A frame is the structural part of a vehicle to which all critical components (engine, transmission, suspension, etc.) are attached. In ye olden tymes practically all vehicles were built with a body on top of a frame and the two were then bolted together. Trucks are still built this way, but cars now have a unibody with the body and frame as a single piece. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, but no need to get into that here. On a vehicle with a frame a body lift is pretty simple, you just find all the places where the body attaches to the frame and you put in a spacer (along with longer bolts) for however much higher you want the body to sit. Since the all the critical components are attached the the frame they stay where they are while the body itself is lifted higher.

With a unibody, such as my Tercel, there isn't a frame, so I'll have to do the body lift by fabricating and placing spacers between the body and front crossmember (the engine and lower suspension points mount to the crossmember), struts, rear springs, transmission mount, carrier bearing, rear axle, create new linkages for the rear suspension, anti-roll bars, and lengthening the steering shaft (and possibly the shifter as well as the brake lines).