Finally managed to get the motor in to the XR6. The bolt that was missing from the clutch was a shouldered bolt with a spacer, managed to find a picture of it in the factory Ford manual, there was no sign of it anywhere else. It is about 20mm long and cos $40 from Ford and they dont even have the spacer anymore, I had to make do with a washer

Anyway, once that was all in I bolted the gearbox up the the engine, and got the mounts on the head installed, then chained it up ready to lift in complete. It took a couple of tries to get the angle of the engine right, and had to jack the car up so that the gearbox could go down far enough under the car to get the engine in. Also had to take the rocker cover off for those couple of extra mm's. Its definitely a tight fit in the engine bay, but we got there in the end.

The car was down at my parent's place still, which made it a bit hard to work on. So now that the engine is in, it went on the trailer to come down here. Had to get a few other things sorted out, such as the extractors to hold the exhaust up so that it could get onto the trailer all-right, but in the end managed to get it on and bring it down.

Shes defiantly starting to look good, and now that its up here progress should be quite a bit faster. The main obstacles I can see still in the way is getting the alarm in, the dash in and finishing the panel-work. Once these are done it should be well on its way!

Few more little things to post up tonight. Managed to get some EF XR Vents for the bonnet. Ive always preferred the "cat scratch" vents over the EL ones, so managed to score a pair. I really like them in the yellow, contrasts well with the red, might leave them like that



Haha, just kidding. Also fitted up the BA/BF reservoir that I got for the car, I was surprised how well it fitted. It fitted straight up, there was even holes where the holes on the reservoir should go. All I had to do was run a tap through them to put some thread in there, and it was in business.



And finally, was looking everywhere for a wheel chock yesterday. Managed to find one in the end though

lookin good mate, need to give the extractors a coat of paint tho. cheers

Thanks mate, yeah you are definitely right there!!! I was going to get the Jet-Hot Coated, but I read a few people who did it before they got there car tuned, and apparently if it runs lean while on the dyno, it takes the finish off the coating, so I think I will wait till its tuned then get it done. Still tossing up between sterling or black.

Got bit more done yesterday, starting to look like an engine bay now!

Finally picked up the last part of my home-made brake upgrade kit today. Ive been tossing up for ages whether to go twin pots, but in the end I decided that the cost wasnt justified considering I've only pushed my brakes to fade a couple of times since I've had the car. So in the end I just went with an upgrade of the brakes I already have. Ive been slowly gathering parts over the last year ready for this. In the end this is the kit:

$100 Caliper rebuild x2
$170 PBR Braided Lines
$120 QFM A1RM Pads
$300 DBA Street Series Slotted Discs
$50 Koyo Front Wheel Bearings
$50 Penrite Synethic Brake Fluid

Hopefully that should be enought for everyday street dutires and the odd enthusiastic drive. After reading Data_mine's post the other day, I'm also considering running some piping from the front bar to help keep them cool

Progress has been a bit quicker now that New years/Christmas is out of the way. I've been so busy I havent had time to update this thread!



Mechanically the car is now finished, engine bay is pretty much complete and gearbox and tailshaft are all fitted up. I have been paranoid about the tailshaft on the car, as it was fitted with a steel tailshaft for some reason. Managed to score a NOS TE50 tailshaft. They are extactly the same length and bolted up no problems, and it looks like it should be able to handle some power!



After that I went onto the cosmetics, front bar is all fitted up, rear bar is finished and fitted up with the dual exhausts. The original exhaust is going to have to be cut and rewelded to match in with the other side, but I am not going to worry about that until it is all run in. Once the rear bumper was fitted I could finish off the boot install nice and neatly. Battery is in boot now, still troubleshootin the alarm though. And the boot definately needs a polish and/or a cout of paint!!

looking good man! carnt wait to see it finished

looks great !!

i would go a single oval tip on each side though, as a pet hate of mine is quad tips as it looks overdone, but thats just me

Thanks guys, yeah I can't wait to see it finished either!! Its been way too long, considering I initially wanted to have it done in 3 months I think its going to have to go to an autoelec next week, am running into some really wierd problems with the wiring, its going to need proffessional help I think

Yeah I agree about the quad tips as a general rule, but I really wanted them on this car. I stayed with 2.5" dumpies, to hopefully make it a little more subtle, but I love it the way it is now, makes all those hours of fibreglassing worth it!!

Got the rims back on it yesterday with the finished and painted front bar, its definately starting to come together! The front bar might be a bit of an opinion divider, but I wanted a completely debadged car. With an XR front, that presents a bit of a problem, and it was beyond my skill in glass. Luckily my best mate came to the rescue and glassed it up how I wanted it, then gave her a splash of paint. While he was at it he also slimmed down the front numberplate spot. Its a pet hate of mine when a slimline plate goes into a full size space. I have a spare boot here to fix the rear up as it annoys me the way it is now. Anyway, photos!

Bit of an update, not really a positive one though.

Finally gave up on the wiring and sent it to an auto elec to get the finishing touches done on it. The mate who did all the painting on it so far works about 100m from the auto elec, so he went to check on it. Arrived there just in time to see the apprentice reverse another car into my rear bumper. I havent seen it yet, but apparently it split the rear bar and cracked the lip spoiler

So all in all not the best outcome!!!

Still waiting to hear what will happen about it

Thats pretty low, you are dead right though, very lucky he saw it happen. In the end just got a quote on the repair, and they took the price off the bill at the end, worked out quite well. Still got to get it repaired thought, probably going to stay the way it is for quite a while now though

After many fixes and work, the car is finally running!! Drove the Great Ocean Road from end to end on the weekend, putting the engine through its paces, and clocked up the first 1000km relatively trouble free! Still cant beleive how good it is to be in a manual again

A couple of little things that are present though, car really struggles to idle anytime other than the first time its started each day. I have reset the ECU and tried to teach it multiple times now, but doesnt want a bar of it! Idles fine cold, turn the wheel or aircon on and it revs up a bit to compensate. Turn AC off or let go of the wheel and thats it, stall. Cleaned the ISC today which helped a bit.

The other problem feels like overfuelling. It has amazing pull from 3000rpm onwards at WOT, but WOT at any less than 3k is actually slower than feeding it throttle progressively. Starting to consider getting a J3 seeing as how cheap they are!!

Bloody Nice car mate, personally not a fan of venom kits but each to their own, Engine bay looks mint, just need to respray the extractors to make them suit the rest of the clean bay! Wheels suit it perfectly too, That stalling sounds like a bit of a problem though, need to get that sorted.

When you get the exhaust done chuck up a couple under car pictures of where the additional piping goes. When i had my EF I asked around in Adelaide and no one was interested in doing a dual exhaust because it was "too hard" because of the fuel tank...

Nice project mate

Cheers

Alan

Thanks heaps mate shes definately coming along now. Yeah the exhaust side of it is a bit of a bummer, but I wasnt that keen to have a hot exhaust that close to a plastic tank anyway. I really want to get a 40L tank made up to go under it, should give me enough clearance to get the pipes around it, plus save me a bit of weight.

Just a bit of an update while I'm here, got the gas put on thursday last week, had the mechanic have a bit of a look into the idle problem, and lack of low power. Got back to pick it up, all running nice and they bumped the idle up a bit. Idles quite well on gas, bit rough on petrol still, but nice rough instead of annoying rough.

However, the news about the running wasnt so good. Apparently the oxygen sensor is completerly dead, sending no signal whatsoever to the ECU. I had sort of guessed it was on its way out, explains why it only goes good as high revs, as its grabbing numbers straight from the ECU with no feedback at that point. However the other thing they told me was that it has an EL XR8 ECU in it. Which I though was very wierd, didnt even think it would run a 6! Apparently they checked the fault codes and it came back with an EGR code.

I pulled the ECU out this arvo and had a look, and the code on it is 6TAA, also has96DT-12C650-AA written on it. There is an EL XR6 Manual ECU on here for sale at the moment, and its pretty much identical to that, so I'm a bit sceptical about the V8 part of it, but defiantely need to get a new Oxy Sensor!!

Finally got around to putting an OXY sensor into the car, made a HUGE difference to the midrange. I think what was happening was it was running way too rich low in the rev range, and only coping with the fuel at higher revs.

So now my plan is to take it to the CVE dyno day on the 7th, do a couple of runs with AFR on them. Then I should be able to send the printouts away to TI Performance and get a nice J3 made up to make the most of everything so far.

6TAA is an EL XR6 Manual ECU. An early revision too.

Sounds like the workshop are idiots.

On a positive note, bloody nice job with the car mate. I normally hate any non-factory kits, but yours looks excellent. Engine bay looks great too.