Yes, I too wish all the best news regarding your health.

Get better, then finish the car.

BenJ

Thanks for the well wishes but unfortunately I ended up back in hospital last saturday. They did more tests and came up with no answers. So I have been getting strength back in my right side slowly but not yet 100% but well enough to come home. So hopefully I can get stuck into the car and finish it as soon as possible because they have said not knowing the cause of my stroke like symptoms its likely to happen again

Today I had a chance to try work on the car by doing some lite exhaust work. I manged to fit 1 of the 2 FPV style tips to the drivers side as well as making 2 heat shield that bolt to the exhaust which will work with the sheet metal shield that I have to cover the fuel filler and fuel lines.

I have also got the tail pipe welded together ready to jion to the existing tail pipe once I can remove the lock nuts on the rear wheels. So hopefully by mid this week the twin pipes will be on and finished and ready to be tested on a drive to Grafton with the Northern Rivers ford club next Sunday.

Also in the couple of weeks the factory bonney latch is going to be removed along with a little bit of sheet metal attatched to it to allow extra flow into the radiator from the upper grill. The bonnet is going to be secured with atleast a pair of lockable bonnet pins

Re the bonnet latch, you will have to check re the ADR compliance for road worthy.

I all honesty, you will gain nothing measurable by removing it, and bonnet pins are actually not that easy to fit on an E Series.

I look forward to seeing pics of the twin exhaust and how you route it.

Cheers
BenJ

you would be better off buying a good quality radiator over cutting metal. and being N/a you wont make any real gains by doing it

I have a brand new radiator in the car and the car only just gets into normal range anyways. The latch removal is more for looks as I prefer the look of no grill but with it off all you see is the latch.
I am also planning on removing the bulk of the aircon gear in the engine bay except for the compressor until I locate the pulley replacement

As for the exhaust, it will join the original style tail pipe above the diff and run across the car almost inline with the diff with only 2 bends at the moment for the whole second tail pipe. Once I have it all on I can add a 'S' bend near the rear of the passengers side wheel if clearence will be a problem. My biggest concern with the twin tail pipes is going to be the noise and note as I was originally planning on doing the tail pipes in either 2 or 2.25 inch pipe.

Here are 2 quick pics of the back of the car and as you can see the tips I bought off this site are near perfect match for the openings I had made. Please note that the drivers side of the rear bar looks a little funny as I managed to break the side mounts when driving the car off the ramps.

Well today was a great day except for burning my hand on the exhaust tip. I Have fitted up the passengers side tail pipe and got it all solid with no clearance or heat issues so far. The note and volume of the exhaust have surprisingly mellowed a bit so it has worked out well so far.

Also 4 large but extremely lite parcels turned up today curtiousy of a member of AFF, so I finally have my own set of 16 inch 3-piece BBS wheels which hopefully will be heading to the USA shortly to be completely over hauled with new inner and outter rims and all new bolts and possibley a colour change for the centers.

Anyways here are some pictures

Turns of these wheels are only 15inch, not the 16 inch I was told. On a good not after multiple phone calls and emails I can confirm that in theory these wheels will bolt on with no clearance issues at all, but to confirm I am fitting a spare tire I have that is the right size but wrong load rating so that I can fit a wheel and check everything out right.

Once I have done the physical checks I will then decide if I keep them like this and just pull them to pieces and check everything or re3place the outter rims to get a deeper dish

Well just got home from my trip to Grafton. Did over 400km's today and the car was almost faultless. The only issue was a plug came loose which stopped the car from idling. To my suprise I just worked out what my approx L/100km's were and got 10.1L/100km's. Now seeing that is the first run with the intak and exhaust I think that was rather good and if I had been a good boy all day It would have gone in to the mid 9L/100km's.

One thing I do need to check is the temperature. I know the sensor and the gauge are fine but at normal driving the temp does not get in to the normal range at all and when cruising at 100km/h the temp sits half way between normal and cold. Is this going to be an issue in the long run?

sound like u got a thermo with lower temp setting, not a prob just go through coolant little quicker then normal... no big thing

This morning I had to drop the family off and on the way home I thought I would go try get some pictures of the car in the heavy fog. Unfortunately when I got to where I thought would be a good spot the fog had moved on, but still tried to get a couple of pictures and hopefully when the car is done I will get up to the same spot when the fog is around again. Please excuse the state of the car as it is not painted and a little damaged and dirty from all the driving I did over the weekend

Bonnet pins installed. It has taken me most of the day to finish (had to keep stopping due to my health) although the actual fitting of these bonnets pins was rather easy. I have taken the car for a drive with the factory latch removed and the pins seem to hold the bonnet more securerly.



Tomorrow I will see how I am feeling and possibley look at what I will do with the area where the factory latch bolts to the radiator support panel

Yesterday I took the car for a drive to Warwick for a hospital appointment but managed to find out some info while I was out there. Firstly I will be getting the new outer rims for the BBS wheels with a 3- 3.5 inch dish, I was hoping to try get 4.5 - 5 inch lip but trying to find tires was going to be almost impossible and upto almost 2 grand for 4 tires.

I also spoke to a performance shop who can supply with a tickford head that is able to flow up to 400hp which could be an option along with custom extractors. If I go that way I would need to work out what cam, chip and injectors would be needed and then most likely having to change my gear box as well.

On the way home though there was a couple of little issues with the car. Firstly my rear bar is broken. I had to drive a little off road on the wrong side of the road to avoid a semi cutting a corner and the rear end of the bar hooked on a tree stump and all the mounts on the right hand side and one of the main mounts as well. It also manage to break the passengers side tail pipe so that is now off.

After all that I was able to get the rear bar partly attatched so I could get home only to loose the power steering 15mins later. After about 10 minutes of trying to drive bumpy very twisty mountain roads I was able to find a place to pull over to have a look. I found that fluid had come out of the top of the pump but the cap was still tight and in place and after removing the car I found that the pump was still full of fluid. So I continued on and after another 5-10 mins later when the road got flatter the power steering returned.

So now the the fun of trying to work out if I continue with the rear bar and twin exhaust or try something else and trying to work out what the problem is with my P/S

Over the last couple of days I have been able to do some little stuff done on the car. Firstly the rear bar is off and to my suprise it feels lighter then a standard EF front bar. I also did some work in the engine bay and radiator support panel.

Almost the entire mount for the factory bonnet latch is gone so now air can flow from the grille opening and threw the radiator. I am also going to be removing all the aircon parts except the compressor. I also decided that the neatest and best looking colour scheme for the engine bay would be similar to stock. So the tappet cover is now cherry red with some chrome specs, the belt cover and intake manifold are a dark charcoal colour and the windscreen washer bottle, fuel rail and heat shield are now a high temp chrome paint.

I also did a little trimming of the TAXI sign to fit the shape of the roof better. tomorrow i hope to do some more to the sign as well as fixing a leaky fuel injector and if I get time I will remove the dash facia, shifter surrond, steer colum shroud and cup holders and smooth them prior to painting them metalic charcoal

Today I tried to finsh off the engine bay by having everything painted and besides a nother couple of coats and some hoses for the washer jets I have finished the engine bay but while I had the head lights out I decided to put my own twist on Daytime Running Lights/ Angel Eyes with some stuff I had laying around. I call mine Road Rage Eyes although I doubt that they would be bright enough to be seen durring the day and the switch for them is located in the engine bay so I couldnt use them in anger

Anyways here are the pictures




The last picture shows the lights at half there normal brightnest. I havent deecided if I like them but they are almost invisable when off so they could stay but may not be connected