Stumps

Burn the commo and get a Falcon....just a thought...

I've been reading a lot of yank mustang forums lately and it's got me interested in the little fox mustangs from 1980-1982, the interesting part I have found is that these cars were available with a 3.3 litre inline six that is very close to our old pre crossflow sixes found in Falcons and Cortina's upto 1976. Surely one of these cars would be an awesome and different candidate for a crossflow conversion, given that the yanks do similar conversions on older mustangs. My understanding is the cars in question had a 3.3 litre with 66kw's and a C3 3 speed auto in them so a tranny change would be required as the aussie sixes had a different bolt pattern and starter location, but the rest should be fairly easy to achieve and given the low prices of the mustangs ($3K-$5k US) could be done on a reasonable budget. My thoughts are given that the V8's made a piss poor 120-140hp, that even a stock alloy head crossflow would match this so a worked crossy would be pretty wicked and considerably lighter than the US running gear. Any thoughts?

Oh and if i remember correctly the kits had the boost at 9 psi and 11 psi depending on the tune and if water methonal injection was installed.

Mike Vine turbos in QLD is the place you want to talk too. Mike Vine developed kits for six pack falcons during the late 70's and 80's based on the Garret Normalair kits with significant improvements for every day reliability. He did kits for the XE/XF EFI cars that went pretty well and made between 280hp and 350hp depending on the kit. I'm pretty sure the bosch jet-tronic was retained in the XE's with a piggyback ecu fitted to operate the additional injectors and a few other functions.

Thats some pretty cool stuff there, cant wait to see it finished. My plans are to start with a 3.3 probably an 81 as they seem to be the most common with the inline six. I want to minimise the amount of fabrication and mods, so i can focus on spending on the drivetrain and suspension. Probably wont work out like planned (it never does), but from my research the aussie block shares most of the same mounting points for the mounts and accessories, if i go an auto, a C4 should bolt up in place of the factory C3, the starter will be on the opposite side to the factory one but shouldn't be a challange. A cortina sump will solve the K frame issue (could just pull the entire crossy from my TE). Will need to fabricate some throttle linkages but i havent decided about carbs yet so that will go hand in hand. I reckon that i will come across plenty of other issues along the way but gotta clear the first hurdle, getting the car in the first place.

I have a question, are the engine bays the same for the v6 and inline 6?

Lol at least he didnt stack it like half the commo driving dickheads do out this way. Always fun to see a fresh set of skidmarks that end with chunks of bumper and glass....fuckin spastics

Yeah trying to make the mustang lighter not heavier, those big sixes are an interesting engine but limited in what you could actually use them for, not really my cup of tea.

I've always wondered about the big 240-300 cubed sixes the yanks play with, seem like big boat anchors in stock form but the americans seem to get big power from them.

For me it'd have to be a crossflow for the simple fact it'd practically be a bolt in fit with minimal modifactions to the car. Its the ease of it that makes it so appealing and why haven't people here in Australia done this yet.

I was thinking a blow thru carb turbo setup or something based on a mike vine turbo kit. Or living the dream and selling some of my kids and going triple DCOE webers or go a bit crazy and do what some of the six pack guys in the US do with their muzzies and go ford tri power style. Would need to get a log style manifold made up and i'd use 3 34mm ICH webers but i dont think that setup would make 350hp as the carbs only make a smidge over 400cfm, and then it would be real fun to keep in tune, but it would be chubby inducing to look at. Like i said, i got ideas everywhere constantly filling my thoughts and just got to sift through them to something that resembles are realistic build so im happy to hear everyones ideas.

Been watching some of the old ATCC footage from the mid 80's and i must say Dick's mustang certainly handled well, shame it was down on power compared to the previous falcons he raced. But it did get me thinking that it wouldn't be a huge ask to get 340-350hp from a crossflow which would match the power outputs of the Palmer ford mustangs. Would be pretty cool i think, and looking at what i am planning on spending ,absolutely no more than $45k but would like to sit around $25k-$35k but i am realistic and know budgets always get blown away, it should be doable once i find the right stang. Maybe a trip to the US might be on the cards. Just gotta decide do i want a 3 door coupe or a 2 door notch back. So many things to figure out, my head hurts.....

I've been talking to a few friends about this who think that a crossflow is a stupid idea, their logic is if i'm going to the trouble of importing a car I might as well go the whole hog and fit a barra/orion or a ls1, and I get that but when I look at the idea, the simple fact that a crossy is almost a bolt in fit compared to the changes required to fit the later engines makes the crossflow conversion appealing...the simple ease of the whole thing and then just bolt in some US aftermarket goodies for the suspension etc and wham...a different kind of street car for our local roads...

I've already got a good rebuildable crossflow in my flog about 86 XF falcon and I had thought of fixing up the XF , as it only has 102 thousand kays on the clock and is pretty straight and tidy expect for some bad rust and a dodgy bog job in the rear passenger quarter panel, but after the difficulty I had in getting someone to do the suspension in it in august last year and the complete lack of interest in anyone wanting to do any panel/paint work, I'm thinking of parting it out when it runs out of rego in August. I do look at it sometimes and think hmmm a decent paint job and 50 more killerwasps and that car would be pretty cool, but then I see the boring front end and think why bother spending $25k or $30k on an XF that no one wants to work on when I can at least spark some interest doing a rarer car.

It would be something very different from the usual cookie cutter v8 muzzies and the fox bodied cars are pretty rare in Australia, and given that I'm bored with falcon''s and Cortina's, moreso to do with the lack of people willing to do work on these cars around here, at least a mustang would spark peoples interest, and I always liked the look of Dick Johnson's Plamer ford mustang he raced in the ATCC back in the 80's. Although a Turbo Barra or Orion engine in one would be an absolute weapon....but I love the basic crossy and a lot less work would be needed to fit one.

I love the look of big shiny blowers with carbs on top, especially when they were all the rage back in the 80's and early 90's and i always wanted to do a mid 70's x series falcon with one on a 250 with fats on the arse and a trick paint job with graphics. But after seeing some of my better funded mates with torries and kingswoods being harrassed and defected by coppers over and over again (i always told them it was the dickheads in a holden not the blowers that attracted coppers) who had a gm style blower or tunnel ram hanging out of the bonnet i quickly decided it was pretty pointless on a road car and aside from the FUCK THATS AWESOME factor, they are pretty useless, hot, cranky and don't make anywhere near as much power as decent turbo or centrifugal blower, however they still do look the business on a show car or burnout car. I've been thinking about something different for my cortina and while a blower would look cool i do want to drive the car but i still want that retro classic look and i reckon the draw through carb turbo kits look just as cool as a blower and are more practical as far as much old school tech can be, efi turbo would be the best option but ruins the character of older classics in my opinion. I can think of too many cons to pony up for a roots blower so it'll just remain a cool dream for me, but i'll still get a chubby when i see one on an old school car.

No cortina's dipstick is further back and iirc the est dizzy has a different shaft size to the earlier block, i recently fitted an early xf dizzy to my cortina with an msd 6al, works a treat compared to the old points piece of crap.

Lol, pretty much happens with these threads, turboing is easier to do, cheaper and offers better bang for the buck. However much of the info is interchangeble as supercharging has similar needs to turbo setups. If you are dead keen on a supercharger i'd still give mike vine a call as he has done lots of force fed crossflows and can give you some good pointers on the engine itself. You should be able to google him pretty easily. Im still keen to see what you come up with.

If it wasnt for the stupidly high price of the mike vine kits i would have done one years ago, they look cool and the stage one kits a designed to work on a good low kay stock engine with no mods to the internals other than a decompression plate to lower the comp ratio. While the power outputs are nothing to rave about, 280hp for the stage 1 and 350hp for the stage 2 kit the torque is very impressive and makes for a lively daily driver.

I've spoken to Mike Vine a few times about his crossflow turbo setups, his opinion was to keep the cam fairly close to stock but grind it to suit a turbo. His focus was always drivability over bulk power as he wanted the cars with his kits to behave like they came from the factory, and he prefered stock diff gears 2.92 and 2.77 because of the crossflows good low down torque. It's a shame his kits are so expensive for the power output, $4600 for the stage 1 drawthrough carb kit, 280hp (he's still doing them but i dont think he'll be alive for much longer he's pretty old now) they would make a great starting point for a custom setup as the manifolds are nicely done and his stage 1 kits are pretty much bolt on, tune and go kits. The DJR Grand Prix Falcons used a developed version of his Stage 2 carb kits if i recall correctly. The other downside to his kits is the fact that the supplied turbo is an old TO4B or TO4E depending on the kit, hardly what i would call state of the art these days.

Im keen to see how this turns out, i've always had a love of shiny big gm style blowers hanging out of the bonnet and always wanted to do a crossy to be different and i have an unhealthy love for them. Definatly gives me ideas for my TE Cortina, if i can make it fit in the engine bay.

Ok, been trying to sort out the ADM weber that i fitted to my corty and while the running part is almost sorted i ran into a major hickup as the spacer and adaptor arrangement make it impossible to close the bonnet with any sort of air cleaner on. The first spacer is fitted with the pipe that runs to the PCV valve on the rocker cover and i've used this setup before in XB's and XC's with no clearance issues. If i delete this spacer it should give me the required clearance but then i have nothing to run the PCV to as the redline manifold and weber dont have to port for it. Can i simply get rid of the valve itself and run a hose directly from the rocker cover to the XF air cleaner assembly that i have in pretty much an identical arrange to the XF layout. The air cleaner has been modified to feed to hose from the factory oil filler cap toit in the same style as the XC/XD arrangement. Basically i'll be feeding both hose straight in to the air cleaner without the PCV valve, would this work or is the valve ment to actually do something vital. My main aim is to keep the emissions looking stock to please the cops.

My plan was to use the hose connection on the under side of the air cleaner which is used for this purpose on an XE and XF any way as their valve is in the oil filler cap. Im more wondering if i need to have a vacuum source to draw the vapors out or can it just be breathed in via the air cleaner assembly instead as the gases get ingested by the engine any way. This would make things real simple as i can just remove the pcv spacer under the carb and lower the carb half an inch or so and give clearance for the air cleaner.

http://i1290.photobucket.com/albums/b534/fordrpo83/Mobile%20Uploads/20150227_074057_zpsehbzzzpo.jpg This is my current setup.

Hey Nath, sure you look at it like that and it does make it hard to justify spending that much money one it but look at it this way XD values are climbing everyday and your car if cleaned up it and put a reasonable paint job on it with a nice set of wheels you could probably ask maybe 6k or 7k with a reasonable chance of getting it, give it a couple of years and a little more work maybe double that. I sold my 78 XC last year for 5K it was a column auto 4.1 with a 2.5in system, 350 holley and pacemakers and bit of a cam, the auto had been rebuilt but other than that the car owed me maybe 3k including buy price, it was straight and the vinyl roof was in good nick but it was full of rust in the lower sill some of it had holed the lower guards and the steering was heavy but sloppy, now i got 5k for this with out too much trouble, the bloke i sold it to, took it back to Albury repaired the rust, resprayed it and redid the interior and suspension (i got lots of pics from him) and then sold it for 15k firm just before christmas and that was with the same old 450k kay 4.1 in it. Imagine what a clean low kay XD will go for in a few years, im sure if i advertised my XD i'd probably get 7k or 8k and it looks pretty rough, but it is straight, with a decent paint job and some bushes replace i could probably go for 17k or 18k. Just a thought....