The Poly towers work well because of how far the upper portion projects out from the back wall of the mount. Other mounts don't do this and require the tower to be tipped outward to allow the shock to clear the frame.
From what I gather, the Ford towers were only used on the first few outboards Blaine did 20+ years ago and were quickly abandoned after that for something better. It was just bad luck and timing that one of those very early outboards was captured on Stu's site for others to copy all these years after. The Muddy Beard guy on YouTube being an example of that.
Oh man. After cutting my lowers off today I couldn't imagine planning to cut them off and reuse them... Not to mention doing all the work with the springs in.
Center of the mounting bolt to the inner face of the back wall is fairly critical. That needs to be just about what you need without being too generous. If it is too generous, the top of the shock is pushed out too far and it makes it very hard to keep the tire off of the shock body without adding wheel spacers to anything with 4" of back spacing similar.
