gerg

I think those gearsets require the casing to be machined for bigger bearings am I right?

Sounds like your idle speed control valve. Yes you need it! Yep sounds like that other thing is your PCV and yes you need that too. If you don't have it, you'll blow seals out when your engine breathes, especially if you boost it.

$3000 can get you 200 reliable hp from a crossy, will be as quick as a stock V8 and you won't break the bank running it. Money is best spent on balancing, porting and blueprinting rather than splashing out on name brand bits. 650DP is too much carby for many V8s, let alone a 6. A 390 would do nicely, but I agree that a 465 would be best. You're not exactly spoiled for choice with manifolds and pricing, so you're basically stuck with Redline or Aussiespeed. I like what one bloke did and cut and shut an EA single-point manifold onto a crossy flange. A popular speedway trick I believe. Much more even length runners than on the aftermarket ones, but this will only allow a 2-barrel carby. Stock valve springs are shit, but everything else is pretty tough. Get roller rockers if going above 0.500" lift, and don't go crazy with the compression. Might be an idea to look into an EF crank if you want to rev it. 3.45 diff will shit you to tears after only a short time driving. You'll get sick of changing gears all the time and besides, the engine will use too much power accelerating itself off the mark. I put a 3.27 in my wagon and next time I have to open up my diff I'll seriously think about swapping back to 2.92s. I also find that you lose too much time between gearchanges when accelerating. Taller gearing allows you to keep on the gas longer while your mate next to you is going backwards reaching for yet another gear. A torquey engine like a 250 will love it. My old man had a warmed over XF EFI 4-speed and when the box got done up, they put a V8 gearset in with taller ratios. That plus the 2.92 diff meant that 1st could pull 80 kays but because the engine had great torque, it would go hard getting there too. He shamed some V8 dunnydores in its short life (before his wife wrote it off).

yeah I reckon it shat on anything Ford US had done with the Windsor... Hats off to the engineers who came up with that one, I reckon someone should build them again. Interested to know what the flaws were though

You can't "port match" a Windsor manifold to a Clevo... Windsors have a water jacket through them with a thermostat housing at the front, and both have different deck heights and bolt patterns. I tend to believe that pic of the DeTomaso Clevo was a mock-up with a 351 Windsor intake as the end of the manifold doesn't even match the valley rail, and the thermo housing on the Clevo block would clash with the one on the manifold too. This proper Trick Flow Clevo manifold has been around for a couple of years now: http://www.trickflow.com/search.asp?N=400098++4294951917+4294951907+4294949519+115+325401&autoview=sku http://www.trickflow.com/largeimage.asp?part=TFS-516L0114

yeah I think the heater/AC controls have little downlamps from memory? Shift quadrant lamp? Plenty of sources in that area other than the cluster lamps anyway. BTW I installed blue LED wedges in my cluster illumination and it looks smick

Nice to see you had a win. Yeah if that o-ring leaks, you get fuel flowing around the needle housing (bypassing the needle) and filling the float bowl regardless of what the level is set at.

Just saw some of their gear, pretty impressive I must say

If you plan on keeping the car forever, then yeah certainly. I've just seen people blow cubic amounts of money on cars and never see it again. I think the best way to look at it might be to compare it to buying a new car, the bonus being that you have something unique and classic as opposed to just another "appliance" that blends in with all the Camrys and Hyundais.

Yeah see what I mean? You've just equalled the value of your car and some, And that's just the front-end! You still have the rear end to tinker with and various other bits to add (brakes, rack-and-pinion, etc). I roughly worked it out going with RRS bits and you could easily blow 20 grand on suspension and steering, and it still needs engineering and installation!

RRS looks nice but going to town on your car with their gear, you could buy it five times over.

That guy must be having a laugh... Max 10 bucks worth of pipe, another 10 for welding wire/gas, and $260 left for labour? I would be shitty if quoted half that!

I've heard this too about the cams, whereas the main restriction on these engines is in the heads themselves. Hence the hi-po Tickfords using the GT40 heads. The rest of the motor is good for 300 hp but then the block starts to become suss. Cracks around bore to cam tunnel apparently. I wouldn't lean on one with the boost too much.

XA-onwards are as wide as they got. A little Windsor in one of those bays would be swallowed even more easily than an OHC donk.

Toothpaste makes for a pretty good mild polish for Perspex and plastics in general. Minty fresh too.

Yeah I second the comments above, as long as the repairs are of equal or greater strength than the original, and done by a competent person, there's nothing anybody can say or do. I replaced the sills in my Corty with twinned 40mm square tubes welded together. It was as strong as an ox after that, and passed 5 regos without anyone even questioning them. I guess if you can make it look normal, nobody will give a shit.

At a pinch, without rubber grease available, I've used canola cooking spray to help slip on rubber hoses that were a little tight. It works well as a light-duty, general assembly lube.

I've been dreaming of one of those puppies ever since I heard about them. The bottom half is the same for all of them, but the top is interchangeable. The Box-R looks the goods but is a high-end screamer, the other 5.0-style wrap-over is the street one, but they've never done it for me, something about the asymmetry I think. Stupid, as you don't drive down the road looking at your engine. Either setup I reckon you could land here for about $800.

Trick Flow:

Looks like a Redline

"Rear weight bias" Good for some mad tank-slapper action

Old-school diesels used to use that as coolant all the time, as they'd never reach boiling point to need an anti-boil function like glycol has. Anti freeze same thing: not cold enough mostly here in Aus

During my apprenticeship I was placed in a diesel engine reco shop and picked up a handy tip for putting on press-fitted engine parts: Take a deep-fryer, fill it with engine oil, turn up to max. Place required part in it (say a timing gear) and wait for 15 minutes. Grab with tongs/pliers and just slip it on, being careful not to splash yourself... It's several hundred degrees. The oil acts as both a lube and a heating medium for the part you're installing it on (ie a crank snout). It will grab pretty quickly (within seconds) as both parts equalise. Then it's done!

it doesn"t have to look pretty, just smother it in underseal when you're done patching and throw some dirt at it... you'll forget it's there.

I'll take a stab and say about 210 kg with maniolds. Your engine stand could handle a big block. I wouldn't be game enough though.