I know the feeling about keeping it nice. I was rear ended, took ages to get it sorted, then 2 wks later my eb's front end was backed into by a 4x4 who drove off. ( car park incident ). I've gotta sort myself a new bonnet over my break from work.

Fordman351, i'd be careful about the rear bar, just because it doesn't look damaged ( aside the paint ), doesn't mean it's ok underneath. Get it checked out properly & make the other dude's insurance pay for a proper repair!

Cheers

ToranaGuy

well dude

if u read through the posts from start to end u will realsie it is not a cheap or quick exercise

Too bad about your strengthened auto but hey, she's up and running, you must be stoked. Congrats

yeh i was going to but yeh jsut wanted a rough estimate so i got the general idea of how much it cost, thinking of doing it for my next e series

The concern here is that workshops that do know how to go about conversions are keeping quiet about things - regardless if it is here in Vic or NSW or WA...places will charge by the hour and not by the job (especially for a relatively custom and quite involved project like this).

Everyone has slightly different cars and will source parts from different suppliers, therefore the initial purchase of running gear will vary from state to state and from wrecker to wrecker.

Workshops also charge ~$70 an hour as a rough estimate - then you have to add dyno tuning on top of that.

*AND THEN* this is providing everything goes to plan (READ - look at this thread from start to finish)...obviously all in due time, this conversion will become more and more common with curious persons figuring out what to do and how to do it, thus making it cheaper.

Same principle with most things - early adopters pay up, but are more often than not, the pioneers.

Look at how many people have got keen on this idea and have gone out and bought BA motors (for cheap)...and ended up selling them again when they couldn't get them running. Mind you there are a handful who have achieved success through various means too.

Horses for courses !

When building anything custom it should be noted that it won't be "cheap", but it all depends on what your looking to do & how radical it is. Like a BA engine into one of the e series is fairly radical, time consuming & expensive!

My hat goes off to the people who take the time & resources to build something different.

Cheers

ToranaGuy

Just a little correction Adrian, when in performance mode the auto will shift by its self into 4th once you go over 160km/h

This man speaks the truth.

How long did it take you? It's 38 now.

I think I started at 8.45 as I am freakin hanging out to get my s**t heap back from the paint and panel shop. Just to make sense of it all - NZ Time is ahead of you lot, so add an hour to whatever FordMods tells you I posted this.

By page 17 or thereabouts I was about to pick up the phone and start ringing that Barry prick from "rip off motors" or whatever and getting him to order $2 millions worth of bits for my car that would never, ever show up in his broken a*** slow coach place.

Early on in the bit there are FordMods members trying to say about the auto, and then he goes and tells our man some crap about his box and that it comes off his dyno in limp mode.

I ain't no mechanic, and I sure as hell aint no auto electrician. I ain't a painter, a beater or even a half decent root if you're interested, but

** I AIN'T GONNA TELL SOMEONE I'LL DO A JOB AND THEN CHARGE TWICE AS MUCH AND TAKE THREE PHUCKEN MONTHS **
(Although if you paid me for a root and it took three months, you'd better be bloody happy...)


Our manFord sounds like a saint to come back with positive findings and praise for this outfit. I would have just firebombed the place with my car in it and then sat outside with a few car loads of large Maori and Samoan boys and demanded $10k for my car on the bloody spot. He can sort it out with his own insurance. I'm taking my cash now and buying a new EL and a new trashed BA and taking the lot someplace else....

(Well, that's purely fantasy of course - Probably bought on by waiting for 2.5 weeks for my car that was meant to be 2 days... And I have not got a vehicle to get to jobs or anything... So I'm loosing a fear s**t myself....)

*I'd like to re-iterate that I don't know any large Maori, Samoan, White, Green, Yellow or even Grey people who drive upmarket cars and motorbikes and are good with their hands at anything other than woodworking*


Honestly Fordman, this is my first time reading this from the front to the back.... I've had my Fairmont EF Wagon head taken off, shaved, put back on with AU stuff etc etc. Cost over $2000 in the end and the mechanic blocked an oil gallery or something and the thing died big time in about 500 k's of getting it back. Also took two months, when was meant to be a "weekend" (or a "week at most...")

He (totally co-incidentally and nothing to do with me) had most of his tools removed, a lot of his other orders for parts went missing, and seemed to hide somewhere off the planet all at the same time. He must have d**k over a few other people, coz someone I sold some Cortina parts to said "hey - this has been modified like f**k to fit these huge brake rotors on - see...." And I was like, "yeah, and..." and he says "well, that's a bargain for $25..." And I'm like... "Yeah, I've never owned a Cortina, but they guy who loves them owes me a few of them..." And he says "Oh... That guy... Yeah, I was meant to buy this part off him for $200 but he left it in the back of a stationwagon.... Hey - you've got a white Fairmont wagon in that garage there.........."

"yeah, I do. What other Cortina parts do you want?..."



Anyway, I'm in New Zealand and although I would go to Perth to work on houses and the like, I hear you're struggling with the commodity prices falling.

All I can say is that I read this whole lot and got more than my bloody knickers in a twist.

Good on everybody for coming through in the end and all that - but WTF is THREE MONTHS to even get it turning over? I don't know much about running a business, time management, project management, quantity surveying, ethics or customer service. The guys who put the ECU and loom in may know car electronics and tuning, but they seem to know less about the other stuff mentioned than I do.

And I don't run a business, for the simple reason that I would take on too much work and start letting people down. That would suck....



Seems like an awesome car tho. That whole VCT thing sounds nice, but an AU with a lumpish cam and a blower is starting to seem reasonable!!!


Good on you for doing it, persevering for so long and finally getting it sorted back to the extent it can be a daily driver again.

I may have got tired and missed the bit where you sold the Nissan, but did the guy who wanted it way back in March / April end up with it?

Bloody hell Fiend, i only just noticed your post there, what a read haha!

Anyway, i thought i'd drag this back up the list and dust off the cobwebs and spiders. Not much has happened with the car over the last couple of months. The accessory drive belt is chewing itself out, i still need to get the transmission flushed, i have replaced a throttle body gasket and that's about it. The gear shifting issue under full throttle is still present, but i'll get that sorted when i get a full, proper tune. The car has been very reliable otherwise.

Now with the ever impending turbo install, stay tuned for another epic 38 pages! HAHAHAHAHA!

to touch on what matt REALLY means

thats the best sticker ever haha

hahah.... he must've chopped off the second part of it that reads, ".....by fat bogan chicks!!"

LOL ewww. you are looking in the wrong places

there is 1 shifter that has both linear manual shift an sequential sports mode...and that is the 01-02 model b4 liberty. dunno how it works exactly but it has up/down switches in manual mode and cable in linear