I thought its about time I do a build thread for my car. I currently own an ED XR6 Turbo. Before I get into this though, I want to pay a small tribute to my previous car.

I have owned many many falcons (like most of you on this site) but the dearest to me is the boxcar. My first falcon was an EB Series 2 GLI factory manual. Since then I have owned many EF’s, EL’s and BA’s but I always knew I wanted another boxcar, an ED XR6 manual to be specific.

In my hunt for a clean ED XR6 manual, I found it impossible to find a clean manual for a reasonable price. I came across an EB SXR6 auto locally with very low kms on the clock. The car was surprisingly clean and only suffered from a stretched accelerator cable and worn gear level bushes.

Had extractors but was stock as apart from this. The speedo read 140,000kms (this was in Sept 2009) BUT the cog was broken. I used this in my favour to bargain the price and picked it up for $2,000.

The things I did to the car where:
ED XR front with bottom lip and ED XR Badges and boot garnish
Manual Conversion
Thermo fan and Serpentine belt conversion
Lowered on Super lows with 17” AU XR wheels
Tinted Windows
Rear headrests

The things I had planned for this car were a sunroof (I had two at the time), Cruise control, power window conversion and then just have a nice cruiser that would be driven very rarely.

BUT then I went for a drive in a friend’s 10sec turbo charged FE LTD with an AU 6 in it and I needed turbo. So the intentions were to turbo charge my car. After thinking it through I didn’t want anything to wild, I would have been happy with about 220rwkw. But getting someone to build it would have cost too much and finding the time was impossible.

So I shelved the idea for a while, and then I came across an ED XR6 that had all the hard work done. (and is fully engineered). Now don’t get me wrong I know the pride you get in building your own car, but who cares I wanted boost!


Some picks of the EB and will continue the thread...:

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Last edited by BOSXR8 on Tue Mar 27, 2012 9:22 am, edited 8 times in total.

So back to the ED. The car is a genuine 2nd owner with only 70,000kms on the clock. The guy I bought it off did all the work in 2005 and never drove it.

The specs of the car as purchased were as follows:
Head: Ported and Polished standard head, 351 inlet valves, l34 exhaust valves, double valve springs. crow billet cam

Block: O-ringed block, ross forged pistons, eagle h-beam rods, hi volume oil pump, performance bearings, balanced crank, rollmaster timing chain and gear set, stud kit

Gearbox: 2 speed power glide, 3500 stally, trans brake with launch switch on B&M pro stick shifter, scatter shield

Turbo: T4 high flowed water and oil cooled, custom 4” thick front mount, custom manifold made by Profab.

Ignition and Fuel- Bosch 044 pump, surge tank, microtech LT10s, larger fuel lines.

Body: Cobalt blue stock as a rock, except for the massive front mount hanging out of the front bar and super lows in the back only.

Now the car had a lot of work done to it, BUT it was all pretty messy in the engine bay and as you can tell this thing had been built pretty much for the drags, these were never my intentions but I couldn’t pass it by!

My main concern was street drivability with the 2 speed and this was the biggest thing that was going to make or break the deal, to my surprise it drove really nice with the box and was really smooth and revs are not too bad on freeway driving.

This thing had a dozen dyno sheets with it and what some may call a 'Dyno Queen', from 12psi at about 290rwkw (current tune) to 25psi with 400rwkw. But it was NEVER run down the strip. I mean this thing came with 3 different bolt on exhaust set up (sleeper exhaust, no muffler exhaust and strip exhaust). The strip exhaust was never used!

Some piks from the ad when i bought it:

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Continued on, I picked it up for a fair price considering all the money that had been poured into it.

I sold my EB to a good friend of mine (I know I will end up buying this thing back one day).
The intention was to neaten up the bay put the bigger injectors in it (that were supplied), increase the boost and see what power she can put out safely, and then run it a few times to prove the dyno figures.

First thing I did was remove the mudflaps, then a week after driving it I over revved it and broke some rocker arms.

This was a big excitement crusher and meant pulling the head off and replacing the broken rockers. While I was at it I neatened up the bay by hiding some looms, chromed up a few things, ceramic coated the headers and got the head serviced and replaced the lifters. And most importantly painted the intercooler black! I also through in some Superlows in the front.

So I got the car started and so far so good! I also got my brothers father in law to make me a new header tank because I didn’t want to pay $400 a aluminium one.

So now I want to get it tuned in the very near future (make sure I get a rev limiter put into it this time!)

Future plans are rear head rests, bigger wheels (don’t we all want FR19s??), tinted windows and that’s it!

some more piks.

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more pics

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looking immaculate. when do i drive her?

very nice... good to see there is another turbo ed in sydney...

I think I just jizzed....

Thanks guys! Yes we need more here in NSW. All the good falcons are usually in Melbourne!

Ok so i have come across some issues. After changing the head gasket, I forgot to get the plugs off the engine builder who serviced the head. When I contacted him he had thrown them out so I used the original spec plugs.

After driving the car around for about 30km’s, the car started missing and backfiring. I pulled the plugs out to see plug on Cylinder 3 had come into contact with something.

I searched through the receipts I got with the car and found the part number for a spark plug (BKR7EKC). It’s a twin electrode plug and I couldn’t find anyone that stocked it locally that didn’t want to charge me over $20 per plug. So I ordered them through a site from o.s and got them a week later.

These plugs were much shorter, I put these plugs in, the car drove fine for about 5km, I then gave it a bit of a hit, as soon as boost came on SAME problem again, missing and backfiring, pull plug 3 out and it was bent on the end.

Now I have no idea why its doing this. It had a copper head gasket (which is 1.6mm thick) and I now have a AU MLS gasket (thinner than the copper one not sure on exact thickness though). And the head got a very light skim just to clean it up. So I started thinking maybe with the difference in thickness the plug is hitting the piston, BUT why would it just be one plug and not all of them?.

So then I thought maybe the valve is fowling the plug, as it has huge valves in it… but then again it wasn’t doing this before I pulled the head off… so at this point in time I am stumped as to what the problem is. I spoke to the guy that serviced the head, he wasn’t sure either, im going in after work today to see him with the plugs and have a chat to him.

Any ideas would be much appreciated, attached are some pics of both bent plugs.

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sounds like you now have a clearence issue, the std au mls head gasket is only aprox .6mm/25 thou.. your old one was 1.6mm.. so you have lost about 1mm of piston to head clearence..
you also will have raised the compression a bit, this may give you detonation issues aswell..

you might be able to get away with using a ngk bp7es these are a bit shorter

i dont get why its just the one plug though... thats a big difference between the gaskets too...

That plug you mentioned is available at normal autostores so its worth trying before i start pulling the head off...

Thanks for your help mate.

yes they should be available from peps or bursons..
thats what im running in my au engine..
i would suggest taking one of your ones with you to compare electrode length with.

Looks really good mate, I always wanted a ed xr6 since I was a teenager. Never got one but considered getting one a few years back. The mrs liked the el better so I got one of them. Keep up the good work. IMO FTR wheels look fantastic on these.

BKR7EKC have a reach of 25mm, the BP7ES ones you mention are only 19mm, so there is a big difference there. Couldnt find info on the electrodes online, so will def. take one with me.

Have you considered using the iridium ones?

i was running iridiums originally but i had issues with the 7 heat range fouling if i drove for long periods off boost and i was getting some detonation with the 6 range when i gave it a hard time..

my tuner reccomended not to use iridiums in turbo cars tuned for performance, so i trusted his word and i have no fouling or detonation using the std 7 heat range plugs..