Hey guys

Been trawling this site for a while just taking in info and i thought i would make a build thread on my XR6 as it is going to be having a few things done on it in the near future. I was looking on and off for this car for nearly a year. I wanted an ELXR 96 or 97 so no hybrid, in red or white (or gunmetal, hard to find!), 5 speed manual, (preferably) under 200,000ks and no more performance modifications than extractors and exhuast (as i was hoping this would mean it was less thrashed than my first car)

I bought it about a year and half ago with 235,000k's on the clock. Its a 1997 EL XR6 in Hot Chilli Red. It was on gas when i got it, with an IMPCO system. It was a Ford Demo car for the first few years of its life, it has 4 electric windows from the factory! This is how she looked when i got her home the first time (ignore the spares car in the background








Around Christmas, a kangaroo decided to remodel the LHS of the car, so the front half has been resprayed (you can see the difference front front to rear doors sometimes) and the venom front bar went on.

Current list of specifications is:

Pacemaker 4480
2.5" Mandrel Bent Exhaust with Twin Tips
Hi-Flow Cat
5 Speed Manual (Factory)
Pedders Sport Ryder Shocks (lowered platform)
Pedders Springs (low i think)
Slotted Rotors all round
Bendix Ultimate on front, General CT on rear
Kumho KU31 Front, KU25 Rear
All new bushes in front
Camber Kit
Venom Front Bar
Arctic Blue Headlights
Sony GT550 Headunit
Pioneer 6" fronts
Twin JL Audio 12" subs


This is how she looks now
















Already lined up are a set of mags, coming very soon, almost finished paying them off. Best part is a havent seen them on any other car on fordmods, theres on BA/BF on fordforums with them in 18's though.

Just this week I ticked over to 290,000k's, and shes starting to get a bit tired, and use a bit of oil (5 litres/10,000k's) so next big project is going to be a rebuild of bottom end. Its partly for the challenge of doing it as much as because the motor is tired though. Im going to do as much of it myself as i can, barring machining etc. I have been planning it for a while, pedal box is badly bent so the dash has to come out so the plan is to take the car off the road for a while and sort motor and dash out in one hit. I just got an ED fairmont to driver in the meantime.

So while the car is off the road the plan is:
Rebuild bottom end of motor with ACL 20thou over kit (il give more details on this, i dont have the spec sheet
Strip engine bay and paint black( in preparation for full spray), hide wiring, neaten up, polish what needs to be polished etc
Relocate battery to boot
Paint dash black
Install climate control
Fix pedal box!!!
Relocate converter and use spring kit to make it feed GRA TB
Fit GRA TB (440 or 480 i think) with boxed pod on RHS of car, fed from bumper and grille


After that is done a have a few more ideas of things to do. The main aims of the build tho are to keep things perfectly legal. I live in castlemaine/Bendigo and the cops there are out to get you!! when i got my licence i got 15k's from vicroads before i got pulled over!!!
So main aim is 100% legal, but pushing the boundaries as much as possible
Making it look as aggressive as possible.

So after i get it back on the road (and the wallet recovers):
CMS Stage 3 Head and 2A Cam to go with bottom end
EF XR6 bonnet vents
Whiteline adjustable swaybars
Black respray

Last edited by rainoffire on Sun Oct 13, 2013 8:53 pm, edited 10 times in total.

Did your pacies blow a hole too?

nice car front bar looks tough.

with the images to appear in the thread paste the IMG code may also need to resize them

havok i wasnt sure what u meant for a second when i read that. Im assuming you meant the stuff wrapped around the extractors? its that heatproof tape stuff, on one of the tubes that runs near the gas converter. It was like that when i got it, although ive never had it off, so you have me worried now

Thanks XD VAN 82
I resized the first image to 700 pixels wide and put in the middle of the IMG symbols, didnt work at first, but i got it in the end at 1 in the morning lol, thanks for ur help

This is the engine rebuild quote i got, let me know if theres anything else that would be a good idea to do at the same time. This setup is to get the motor nice and tight for a CMS3+3 setup. Just want to make sure im getting a nice bulletproof base to start with. Im going to be doing all the assembly myself, which is the main reason for the project

$88 Clean block
$198 Bore and Hone "020
$250 Grind and Cracktest Crank
$111 DAA Rods
$135 Resize Rods
$330 Balance
$534 ACL "020 rebuild kit
$122 Oil Pump
$85 Water Pump
$15 Welch Plugs
$125 Ford Timing Kit
$33 Head bolts
$2026 Total

Good luck mate, lookin good with that front bar.

Thanks mate

Finally snapped the clutch pedal completely off the pedal box, cant weld it back on so thats it for now, the build can actually start

Spent the last 2 weeks getting the ED fairmont roadworthy and registered to drive around in the mean time, and lowered it on the standard XR6 springs out of the EL. Its a horrible downgrade, first car ive ever had thats auto, has no LSD and no extractors. I may donate the EL ones to it while im doing the build, just to give it a bit more poke, plus ive got all the resistors and wiring for the DIY shift kit, does anyone know for 100% sure what number the wires are for an ED?

Im also going to post this in the "How to build a Tough I6 Motor" thread, but what else apart from what ive got there should be done while the motor is out? I would like to be able to raise the limiter another 1000rpm once it has the CMS kit on it, so i want to make sure the motor can definately take it. From the I6 thread, im assuming a new harmonic balance, and im going to do the oil sender unit, and belt tensioner too, as i get a bearing noise every now and then. Which are the big end bolts?

I'm thinking of only going 020" oversize atm, just incase i ever need to rebuild the motor again, ive still got some meat left in the block. I dont think the extra cc's the the 040" kit would make that much difference.

Any thoughts on the above would be welcome. probably wont start for another couple of weeks, clean the shed up to get the car in there then start. One last thing i need to do is get a gas line run down the other side of the car to change the gas converter to the other side, might have to take the car to my mechanic doing the old clutchless shifts the whole way there tho should definately be interesting!

nice car, just came off australian ford fourms and found this build, if you want to check it out, ill get the vid off it for you as well , in my OP its tuff http://s649.photobucket.com/albums/uu21 ... V00875.flv

Thats just like my XR, colour and all. Except i dont have venom front bar. Good luck with the build, i shal watch with interest

hi matt/torana04! Good to have you back spreading s**t.

rainoffire, pounds awesome, good luck with the build, appears to be a good starting point!

Thanks guys, good to have some support, ill try to update as often as i can, with plenty of pics too.

Went down to HV Pearce Engineering, the guys who are doing the motor on my car today. Wanted to make sure they could get the parts before i went to all the trouble of pulling the motor out. Found out some brilliant news....not. What are the odds, the exact day i need my engine parts, ACL goes into voluntary liquidation

http://inpitlane.com/archives/11536

Managed to source a full race series rebuild kit in 020" from them, apparently one of the last, ordered two sets of bearing, standard and 010" undersize, so im covered no matter what i have to do to the crank. The set didnt include rings, but another engine reco joint in bendigo had them, so all together i have a full kit. Looks like i only just scraped in with that one!!

Apparently the kit i priced in the quote wasnt race series tho, so that raised the price from $534 too $755, im not fussed tho, just glad i could get one!!

Also finished the quote off with the following:
Harmonic Balance: $87
Oil Sender Unit: 13 (sounds too cheap?)
Rod Bolts: $100
Shot Peen Rods: $160

im thinking the rods is a bit overkill, so prob wont go down that road, but rod bolts could be good insurance. Anyone else added them in a rebuild before?

Next update!!

It went a bit slow to begin with, i spent the first couple of weeks just cleaning up the shed enough to get the car in there!! Its been a big week for cars this week though!!!

Finally picked up the mags on Wednesday, they look awesome on the car, il post pics up next week when i roll the car back out of the shed, as they don't do them justice in the dark shed at night.

Bought an old R31 skyline as a track car, a mate and i went halves in it as a bit of a project, RB30 5 speed manual, whiteline swaybars and springs, bucket seats, silhouette interior, LSD.

Got stuck into the car, got up the point of being ready to pull the engine out tonight!!! No real dramas up until this point.







I also got a couple of nice suprises during the work. The car actually has a high flow cat in it, i was a little bit suspicious that high flow meant "crap knocked out of it" but its actually a proper cat.

I was going to change the gas converter across to the other side of the car, and i thought i was going to have to trailer the car in to get a new line run, but when i pulled it out, i realized that the gas line comes up the passenger side, then swaps over, which should make my life much easier!! Im going to try and hide it where Flash did, this page my inspiration at the moment, plus it will be in a nice place if and when i get around to putting a GRA TB on it.

Just after a bit of advice however. I'm at the point of that last photo, everything is out of the way and clear of the engine, the only thing that is still attached is the gearbox. Last time i pulled an engine out, i dropped the tailshaft, took the gearbox off the bellhousing, then removed the block and bellhousing together. Is this the best way to go, or am i better off trying to unbolt the bellhousing of the block now, and pull the engine out on its own? i have heard of it being a pain in the a** to get at the top bolts of the gearbox, how have most people here done it?

Last edited by rainoffire on Sun Sep 27, 2009 10:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I myself prefer to pull the box and donk out together as one unit.

Each to there own I guess.

BenJ

Nice xr mate good luck with the engine work any pics of the new wheels yet

Okay motor is out, stripped down and taken to the shop to have the work done to it!!! I ended up unbolting the bellhousing from the gearbox and lifting it out on its own, took a bit of mucking around but i got it in the end. Was working on it most of the second half of the week, took some time off uni to get it done, just wanted it to happen and it was taking too long for me!!! These ones are from thursday nite











I called it quits for the arvo at that point. I think the motor was definately churning through the oil by the tops of those pistons!! when i did the headgasket at 240k, it had a thin carbon flakes on the tops of the pistons, which i was told was normal. Shes definately gone downhill since then, not sure if those pics do it justice, but there was a lot of carbon buildup on the piston tops!!!



Finished disassembling the engine friday, managed to borrow a harmonic balance puller, then loaded the ed up with the block, crank, pistons and rods, and took the whole lot up saturday morning to get the project started. Next stage will be starting on the dash, getting it out to get stuck into the pedal box and climate control conversion, before starting on cleaning up the engine bay. I have the next week of uni, so hopefully can make a bit of a dent in the work left to do!!

I also took the chance to roll the car out of the shed and get some snaps with the new mags on, i rekn they definately suit the car, cant wait to see how they look when the engine's back in and the car comes down a few more inches shes definaly running at full 4wd height atm!!! Really hope noone comments that it needs to be lowered more They do make the standard brakes look tiny though! let me know what ya rekn