SLO247 - Hahaha, I know the feeling mate! s**t gets even worse when funds are low

Troy - Lol, mate, I'd love to chuck it into the EF aye, but it probably wouldn't take long to kill myself with a decent amount of grunt under the hood

I just found a few scans of some of the Ford's my Dad used to have back when we lived in Sydney, jeez I miss the days when we used to just cruise in these bad boys.. Bit of trip back in time for me now haha

This was the first V8 my Dad built, ZH Fairlane. Had a heavily worked 460bb and had receipts that tallied up a ridiculous amount of money for the engine work alone . Apparently it was completely useless on the street and would just overheat all the time lol..


This was his ZD, his/my favourite. 351 4V clevo, C4 auto, 4.11:1 9 inch LSD, custom headers, dual 2.5" system into 3.5" drop pipes dumping behind the rear wheel either side. Used to go like the clappers and pulled some epic burnouts.. I remember it most for it's exhaust note though and the amount of times neighbours would visit us to complain about it



This was the ZC my Mum used to drive as a daily.. Was just a mild 302, but was a really nice car.



Dad had this XD, which was also one of my fav's. Was only a fairly mild 351, cammed, shaved and ported heads, headers and dual 2.5" into single 3" exhaust, manual trans. Apparently this had a freaking tight LSD under it and was quite lethal, used to want to do 360's as soon as it broke loose (I remember this very well since I was in the car many times when it would happen lol). He sold it to one of his apprentices who wrote it off on the same night he bought it lol


We also had this sitting in our drive way for a long time - XB JGS (probably a replica though). A good family friend left it with Dad to build a motor for.



He had a couple of other sweet Ford's, can't seem to find any pictures of them in our photo albums though. I must say it was pretty awesome being brought up around Ford's for a good half of my life

Last edited by KWIKXR on Sun Oct 30, 2011 9:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

you an aussie or a kiwi? lol. looks like you got ford v8 in the blood, wtf you doing in a 4L falcon haha

Haha your family album reads similar too mine

Originally from Invercargill, we have Ford V8's in the blood!!

Nice too see those old fairlanes, some of my favs

Hahahaha, hopefully one day I'll have a V8 to drive around in myself... For now, the i6 will have to make do

Got a little more work done today, nothing huge, just removed the remaining LTD shifter surround and rear vent surround woodgrain items and modded some stocko items to fit in with the interior a bit better.

Went to pick a part the other day and there was NF Fairlane sitting in the yard. Needless to say, I raped it of all it's goodies pretty well . Mostly just for spares, but also scored a mint chrome shifter shaft and a normal plastic shifter surround for modding. Managed to get those put in today and it turned out decent.

Pulled the shifter surround to bits and gave it a good clean. I've never liked the look of the ECON button especially since the car has no relation to economy, so I pulled the switch apart and wrapped the button in some left over carbon fiber vinyl. Did the same with the shifter slide cover thing. Sprayed the surround housing in satin black to match the interior and then re-assembled it ready to put back in.. Removed the LTD shifter surround, removed the 17mm nut holding the shifter shaft in place, and swapped over the shaft to the chrome item - looks much better now!




Shifter shaft swap




Also removed the leather handbrake cover I dyed satin black as it got scratched up pretty easily. Put my old normal one back on, but not before getting the satin black treatment. Seems the rubber material takes to the satin black paint quite well and is quite durable. Will probably keep it as is for now, maybe drop the leather cover off to a trimmer to redo in black leather perhaps..



Put my old rear vent surround piece back in too. The vent insert also got the satin black treatment to eliminate the only part of the interior that still had the darker shade of brown in the interior. Fitted my 16x SMD led panel in place of the T10 led that was in there, much brighter now.


Have struck a slight issue with the carbon fiber'd door spears now though.. Was quite a hot day today and it seems the heat has affected the adhesive ability of the mould tape. The driver's side front spear has started to lift away from the door trim ever so slightly, but the other 3 seem to be still alright. Will probably just take them all off, run a bead of some sikaflex or something then stick them back on to make sure none of them decide to lift up again.

Looking good mate. I don't get why people don't like the Cappa, looks great. The satin black actually works with it too, unlike the grey.

With the handbrake handle, perhaps get one from an AU? They fit perfectly, I had an AU one in my NF. Just get it from an AU Ghia with the black leather. They must know you by name at the wreckers!

Those Fairlanes look great too, I love the white ZC, all class!

Cheers mate . I reckon black and cappa goes quite well together too, much better than the darker shade of brown at least.

I'll definitely keen an eye out on any AU Ghia's at Pick a Part for sure. The black leather handbrake boot was out of an NU Fairlane at Pick a Part, someone had beaten me to the handle and the chrome button though - gotta be bloody quick to get all the goodies before they are gone haha.

Got home from work today and stripped the head down. Spent about 15mins or so filing down the nasty casting dags all around the outside of the head just so it's a little nicer to handle lol, the 91AA head carved my hands up quite well so I'm not going through that again.




So far everything looks all good . I'll drop it down to the cyl head shop tomorrow morning if he's open and get him to wash the head down and blast the chambers and ports to get rid of the epic amount of carbon build up so I can see what needs to be done.

Also received my AU momo wheel. It's a little rough, but nothing a decent leather repair/restoration kit won't fix up. I'll probably have the blue grips re-dyed black and then I'm definitely putting this wheel in the Fairmont - it's 11ty million more times nicer to hold than the B-series wheel and feels much more chunky around the blue grips.. plus it has MOMO on it so it's just better aye

Not much more progress on the Fairmont, but here's a little run-down on what's been happening..

Went to Pick a Part the other day and scored a Fairlane interior dome light for pretty damn cheap, will do the grey surround in satin black and then look at fitting it. Apparently the map lights on these are brilliant, not that I ever use them anyways lol.. Not sure what's involved with fitting it so I just grabbed all mounting hardware with the connector plug and a short run of the loom just incase. Should be fairly straight forward nonetheless..



Dropped the head off last weekend to get cleaned up and have guides replaced. Had a talk with the machinist and he suggested to shorten the intake guides a good 8mm or so with a very light taper. The guides are long enough that they won't really wear any quicker having that much taken off them. He talked me out of tapering them too much because of a bad previous experience he had with one of his engines, so he put a steep chamfer on the top half of the protruding end. Should work to the same effect as shortening the guide by a less amount and applying a taper to increase area. For what I'm using it for it won't matter much anyway.




Exhaust guides were renewed and went in as is. Was advised to just die-grind it down flat with the port as that's what he used to do with all of the e-series heads he used to work on for stockcar racing before rules changed..

Still need to clean up the exhaust ports, but the chemical bath has pretty much hardened the carbon to a state where it just flakes off, so I'll attack it with a wire wheel and then get stuck into porting this thing.

Went out yesterday to pick up a little something that me and the old man have been wanting badly

This is where boot install's become a fail. There was absolutely no way in hell this box was going to fit.. Managed to get it in the back seat and had to recline the front seat back to hold it still


Got it home and unpacked it quicker than a kid with his presents on Christmas Day lol, was pretty bloody happy. That's basically most of the top half of the motor sorted out now, no more worrying about getting the old cast iron DO0E heads reco'd, ported, new seats and guides, screw in studs, guide plates, larger valves fitted etc. I think we'll probably end up selling them off with the valve springs I bought a few weeks ago to recoup some of the $$


So obviously it's the Edelbrock 2092 top end kit. Supposedly rated to 400hp at the flywheel..
- Edelbrock Performer RPM alloy cylinder heads (fully assembled, one piece stainless 2.02" in. valves, 1.6" ex valves, uprated valve spring/retainer/lock kit, bronze valve guides, screw in rocker studs, pushrod guide plates, f**k gorgeous!
- Edelbrock Performer RPM Airgap intake manifold
- Edelbrock Performer RPM cam and lifter kit
- Edelbrock Performer Link timing kit
- Edelbrock gasket kit, bolts etc

Not sure how well the cam will go, as I've heard/read that Edelbrock cam's are quite average compared to a lot of other offerings on the market from the likes of Comp Cams etc. I guess we'll use it for now and see how it goes.

Also picked up some polished Ford Racing valve covers to top it off. Just need to save up for a carby, roller rockers, pushrods, dizzy etc and then the rings, bearings, rod bolts, oil pump etc for the bottom end, along with a million other accessories we are missing at the moment

Will probably do a quick dummy fit of the kit on the 351 later on for a bit of motivation

ohhh very nice

To much good stuff to look at lol

What made you change the woodgrain in the mont, and what did you do with it

Hahaha, too bad all the V8 related parts aren't going towards the EF..

As for the woodgrain, it's all getting stashed away safely.. just incase

All those nice goodies It is great when you have all that motoring goodness to fit.
I have a heap of goodies like that for Suspension and brakes for Lucifa...

Looking good Nathan, love that feeling when a massive stack of engine parts arrives. Constantly have to be buying from the US just to get that hit!

Found a car for the engine yet?

Sure is George, its an awesome feeling having lots of goodies awaiting to be put to use. Not an awesome feeling looking at the bank account balance though


Hahaha, yep for sure Mason. It ends up being a very expensive hobby in the end, well worth it as always but . I managed to get this from STA Parts up here in Auckland, was the last kit on the shelf and managed to get my mate there to give me his price which seemed quite reasonable. I think for anything else, I'll need to be looking at bringing it in from the US as prices are starting to go up now

Nah, still haven't found a car yet.. I have spotted a few nice candidates on Trade Me (latest was a fairly straight XC ute, lowered, 14x8 12 slotters, but with the 4.1 6cyl donk) which would make a decent project for something under 5k or there-abouts, but just don't have the money for it now, lol.

Missed out on a good gearbox for the 351w earlier in the week too.. A C6 auto with bellhousing and converter, apparently was running behind a mild 351w and it coped pretty wel, sold for $500 and was local too

I'll just have to keep saving and grab bits and pieces when I can

Sup KWIKXR, after viewing your lengthy and very detailed build thread I thought I would leave a message and pay a little homage to your sick Fairmont - respect man, obviously a lot of time and effort has gone in and it shows for sure.

Was actually the reason I registered here, well that and I just got myself a 95 EL Giha 5L V8.
Will endeavor to start my own thread when I start modding her - by the looks of things, I may just be pinching an idea or two of yours hah.

Cheers bud

Fed.

Hey Fed,

Thanks mate, appreciate it . Will be keeping an eye out for a thread on your V8 Ghia, will be good to see some more Aucklander's modding their e-series Fords