reminds me alot of the interior in my car - tan interior with black dash - looks the goods
i'd say the arm rests would look good black, but you have the issue that they would wear too much..
definatly looks alot classier than the same job done on a gay, sorry i meen gray interior...

LOL funny you say that, i was so close to spraying the arm rests too, they really piss me off, the cappa colour on the arm rests tends to fade away and change colour and is a b**ch to clean.. As you said though, they would be quite prone to wear if they were sprayed.. Just have to start thinking about the seats to match it

some black velour seats? i woudlnt touch leather by fraud - number one reason i didnt buy an AU Fairlane...

Lol i cant stand leather seats either, black velour would be nice, with cappa stitching or something, dunno whether to just get my Fairmont seats retrimmed or mount BA XR seats up front and get the rear seat retrimmed to match.. Still a long way off though, will take me forever to save up for revamped seats

Right, firstly and lastly, I've had six by nines in the front doors of my E series for years. Works fine enough for me. And that's with the original door lining and everything - so, really, there is sweet stuff all to see (and be called a bogan over for crissakes...) Easy enough, and cheap mod to upgrade the original Ford Pioneer speakers. Especially in a wagon which is used for work, there are few options for a big sub etc etc etc.

Since I was upgrading the 6x9's in the boot, I moved the old Kenwoods into the front door to make way for the big a*** JVC's to take over the noises coming from the boot. The 6x9's have a good noise about them, were cheaper than comparably noised 6.5's and since they are three way splits themselves you get a good vibration.


SHIMS - - -

Franklin cams are taking an amount of metal off your cam with a regrind and they can't tell you how much you should add to your rocker at the valve end of the "see-saw"? Mate... You should try ringing them directly and asking... If there is one mm of metal missing off the cam, that may mean 2mm at the other end (or something...) without having a rocker sitting in front of me to very accurately measure it's impossible to say.

If you don't put enough shim in, you aren't going to have the complete valve lift and will shorten the duration of the opening slightly also.

If you had a mile too much shim your valves would be constantly open - but that would be a whole heap harder to achieve I'd suggest.... I have been wrong before mind.

The rocker see-saw is pivoting closer to the cam end - so there is MORE movement at the valve than at the cam.

Sounds about right having a 5mm hole in the middle, sure enough... If you're doing the cam swap yourself make sure to look carefully at the lifters hitting the top of the valves nice and smooth - Would suggest putting a bit socket on the crank and turning the engine over a few times before doing everything back up to proper torque settings and installing rocker cover...

Good luck mate... Take it easy, no hurry... Second or third time around you could do it in half an hour - But first time should take all afternoon and a bit of the evening...! Cheers!

Car is looking great mate, the interior is very cool and the mont grill wins hands down.. keep up the good work

Lol thats the exact same thought i had too fiend, when i asked them how much shim i would require to make up for the reduced base circle, their response was like, "it depends, we only take a small amount off so sometimes there is no need for extra shims, bleed the lifters of any oil first so that they are spongy and install them like that and check the clearances, if its excessive add the correct amount of shim and you should be sweet" or something like that .... bit slack in that regard aye, you'd think they would be able to tell you straight away how much shim you'll need for how much they have taken off like Wade does with needing an extra 1.9mm shim. They are quite knowledgable folks at Franklin cams, but when it comes to anything to do with shims they leave a lot to be desired.

Will see how it all pans out though, have bought a decent amount of 1mm thick shims which i got for free after buying some 316 stainless bolts which will be used to dress up the throttlebody and ISC a bit more. The place isnt open tomorrow so fingers crossed, the 1mm shims will cut it


Cheers mate, the interior is quite fancy even without the LTD door trims, cant wait till i have a bit of spare cash to snap them up so that i have more woodgrain and leather thrown in the mix. As for the grill, i like the Fairy one too, suits the black headlight covers better than the fairlane one does. Wont stay like that for long though, my EF grill (or my spare one at least) will be getting revamped and chucked on next week if it gets finished

hey do you find watching aussie tv shows weird because of the accents, im just watching this go girls show and im in stiches dont get that many NZ shows here, seen that orange roughies show though.

Most definately

Underbelly would be high on the list for an aussie show that cracks me up. Same goes for the aussie movies too like Two Hands and The Castle. Dunno if you guys have Outrageous Fortune over there but i can imagine that as being quite funny to the aussies

theres this single mum who works in a garage going to her kids school and abusing some kids because they where hassling her daughter. outrageous fortune, cant say i have seen that one.

Camshaft has been installed!!

Fitted it up first thing this morning and all i can say is WOW. Didnt think there would be so much difference with chucking in a fairly mild cam, boy was i wrong lol. Sounds like a mad C*** at idle, sounds nice and grunty and has a deep tone too it. Even has a very slight lope to it at idle. Love it

Picks up so much better now, snaps you back when it kicks back to second gear after putting the boot into it and has a very noticeable torque increase through out the midrange. Feels a bit snappier off idle, but once it hits 3k its all on. The exhaust tone has even changed when it starts picking up the revs and you can hear it sucking the air in which wasnt there before at all. Havent really gone full throttle yet so not sure where it starts dropping off, still pulls hard after 4500rpm though so should start to drop off just before 5500rpm. Now i know why people spend so much time mucking around with cam selection, it really changes everything and livens the car up. Id have to say this would be one the best mods i have done so far

Big public thank you going out to Franklin Cams, for an awesome custom grind you guys have done for my Fairmont

A few pics of the old cam vs the new cam..




And a quick photoshoot after testing out the cam on a few quiet factory back roads

Thats pretty awesome mate. I bet your itching to get your spare head sorted out asap after experiencing the change with your new cam.

Wow, the car is looking really good.

Hmm, so the cam is a good thing.

I guess that will be going on my short list of things to do to mine now.

Keep up the good work.

Cheers
BenJ

Cheers Josh, your right i cant wait to get the head done now, even got up early this morning to start getting back to work on it

I now have the original cam sitting here, so i may get that sent off to get a bigger grind put on it to go on with the new head when it does go on. I'll then start considering a slightly bigger stall converter to get it off the line better and a chip of some sort that the local tuner can custom tune for me while on the dyno. Will have to get it booked in for a dyno run with AFR to see how its running and how much its getting to the rear wheels. The fairmont feels quite lethal compared to before even though its probably not putting out a great deal of power . The ECU is still re-learning so its starting to feel stronger on every drive. Cant wait till i start working on the driveline to back it all up, should be getting the power to the ground a bit better with an LSD and shorter gears with a shiftkit and hi stall


Cheers BenJ, thanks for the kind words . A nice mild cam would go well in the wagon i reckon..

Still have a few things on my long list of things to do lol, hopefully i can start crossing a few of the smaller things off as i get them done over the next few weeks or so

Well heres this weekends effort, fitted up my freshly chromed EF Fairmont grill. f**k its shiney, set me back quite a bit of dosh but it was worth it

Was getting a bit tired of the dark front end look, especially with the silver rims i have, so ive gone for a bit more bling up front, just need a dumped a**, tints and nice set of dished rims to suit and it'll be sweet

What it looks like now..



Have a few things lined for her over next few weeks, will hopefully have an adjustable shiftkit and maybe a new o2 sensor chucked in. May also get it tinted cause it one thing that keeps slipping my mind. As of late i am now considering heatwrapping my extractors because the heat generated within the engine bay is a major f**k. I like the bare pipes cause it looks sex but the heat is quite bad at times and would be definately be f**k around with my intake temps a great deal. I swear its what is causing my car run like s**t sometimes on really warm days.. The joys of having chromed extractors, f**k.. Cant wait till i can afford a set of ceramic coated 4480's