Boosted Falcon

Thought I'd put up a thread on the second e-series to add to my name and stable. 1997 EL Fairmont Ghia in Arctic Blue.

Picked this one up a couple of weeks back. Was planning to buy a cheap pov pack e-series to use as a run-about/daily driver whilst my turbo EF gets a few things sorted. Heaps of EF/EL's I looked at were well below average for the price so took a while to find the right one. Almost gave up until I found this one at a local car dealer. Really wasn't what I was after as it was too nice to use as a run-about, but it was way too clean and original to pass up lol













It's in awesome condition all round, puts my EF to shame in all areas haha. Scored it for $3500, 126,000km on the clock with one lady owner for the past 11 years. Probably has been garaged for most of it's life judging by how good a condition the paintwork and the rubber and plastic trims on the exterior were. Has a few stonechips on the front bar and bonnet but nothing major. Interior was freakishly tidy, factory premium sound system was all sounding in good nick, the leather seats and steering wheel hardly looked used and all the chrome and woodgrain looked like new. Motor runs so smooth and quiet, and the factory suspension makes it feel like driving a lazyboy recliner on the road - all of which I'm not used to at all coming from the EF which just feels so raw compared to this

Anyways, haven't got much planned for this apart from keeping it real tidy and maybe upgrading a few little things to make it perform and handle a bit nicer and look a bit better.

Current plans are:
-Intake and exhaust upgrade to get the engine breathing easier
-TI Performance J3 chip to trim fuel for max fuel economy
-Lowering springs, not too low, probably Dobi superlows all round or get the factory springs compressed about 40mm
-Whitewalled tyres or get some Atlas flapper inserts fitted up, will be sticking with the 15" Ghia alloys to keep the factory look
-Darkest legal tints
-Maybe ditch the entire premo sound and fit some decent SQ gear through-out
-Fairlane/LTD clear side repeaters
-Cornering lights
-Remove mudflaps or cut them down at least
-Maybe de-spoiler depending on how stupid it looks after the rest is done

Will update as things progress with the Ghia

Nice pick up dude!

No to flappers, yes to ticky kit and FTR's

Looks tidy as ****!

Cheers guys

Intake is pretty much sorted for now. Ended up fitting the AU tickford snorkel, BA XR8/GT airbox and a short section of 3" piping. Just need to paint the alloy piping satin black so it looks a bit more factory-ish. Had all the stuff laying around from the EF after it got turbo'd so it's good to be able to do a few mod's without forking out $$. Quite a few things from the EF will end up making their way onto the EL eventually, lol.

Before:


After:


Did a bit of digging around in the garage and found a spare pair of clear side repeaters and cornering lights, so those will be getting fitted up next weekend when I return home from Melbourne.

Looks mint dude. I'd definitely ditch that spoiler, otherwise your plans are spot on haha.

Cheers mate . I usually hate spoilers, but this thing is starting to grow on me lol

Ended up doing a few things this weekend. Fitted up some clear side repeaters and cornering lamps, always good when you have good spares sitting in the garage, ha! Also removed the dealer plate surrounds and mudflaps for a cleaner look. Gave the car a wash, clay bar, and once over with some Meguiars Color-X, looks heaps better now. Just need to get a few stonechips touched up on the front end and it should be looking a fair bit more tidier.

Got the tyres 'whitewalled' today. Found an old school guy that was still doing this service on the side, so organised to have him do the tyres today with a 3/4" wall, looks pretty cool!





Next up on the to-do list is lowering and tints, extractors + exhaust, J3 chip and then start looking into a nice sound system setup with SQ in mind

Lowered it on Dobi superlows and shortened shocks. Need to redo the front as I forgot the front springs I had were V8 springs, so it still sits a little bit jacked in the front lol. Should look pretty sweet when it's level though

Oh man, I liked it at stock height!














Said no e-series owner. Ever.

wow thats clean as mate

the sam wrote:Oh man, I liked it at stock height! Said no e-series owner. Ever.

Got that right! Lol, Ford had some ridiculous factory ride heights back in the 90's. Putting superlows in the rear of this dropped it almost 3"

MNTXR6 wrote:wow thats clean as mate

Cheers mate

Took this down to Hamilton All Ford Day last weekend, had a pretty good day all round. Decent weather and a great turnout, was good to catch up with some mates I haven't seen a while also and see where they were at with their Fords


Next to a mate's mint, stock EL XR6


Picked up the correct pair of superlow springs for the front, so hopefully by this time next weekend, it'll be sitting a lot lower in the front and nice and level with the rear. Should also have a new set of rotors and pads all round to get rid of the cheap shit pads and heavily grooved rotors it currently has

Very nice man!
Quite jealous of the condition indeed, looks the good now with some low and walls.
+1 ticky kit though.

Cheers mate . Haha, was tempted on a ticky kit, but I think I'll keep the straight clean look with this. Even the spoiler has grown on me, and I hate the damn things in general, but I'm leaving it on lol

Put the 6cyl spec superlow springs in the front over the weekend to replace the V8 spec superlow springs I put in the first time round. Starting to settle in nicely now after a couple of days

Before with the V8 springs in the front (lol!)


After with the correct springs


Took it out for a couple of photo's with a couple of mates the other night, turned out pretty good

Looks mint mate,love it. Arctic blue is the best e series colour imo. That shark fin tickford spoiler suits it I think. Looking forward to more updates.

That spoiler, be spoilin'

I think I'd have to agree. As soon as I find a spoilerless bootlid in the same colour in good enough nick, I'll swap it straight over. Bootlid weighs a farking tonne with that massive thing on it lol

Got around to ditching the factory Premium sound system and replaced it with something fairly basic so I had USB functionality at least..

At the moment, have got the speakers running off the headunit channels and the factory amp running the sub. Sounds okay for now, much better than the factory system at least.




Still need to swap in the Response ribbon tweeters (trying to work out a way of swivel mounting them in the factory location to fine tune the sound stage) and ditch the factory amp for the Response 4 channel amp. Will be running the front speakers off the amp once it goes in so should be sounding a fair bit better then.

Swapped most the interior lighting out for white LED replacements



Swapped out my rear Dobinson superlow springs for my old Pedders springs from my EF. Wanted something a bit firmer and needed to raise the rear to get away from the driveline vibrations I had previously, this seemed to work a treat!


Gave it a clean and took it out for a few photo's over Bathurst weekend




Next up will be to fit the extractors and my old 2.5" exhaust from my EF, trans oil cooler upgrade, then probably J3 chip with a good economy tune

What sort of economy increase can you get from a j3??

I'm actually not sure, I guess it will vary a lot with different mod's, setup's etc. They seem to run pretty rich in stock form, so there'd definitely be some gains in trimming fuel and playing with spark advance, especially under cruise conditions. I drive the car everyday now so would be good to get around 500+km out of a full tank. Not sure how much I get at the moment, but I'd say it would be around the 400-450km mark per tank given I do a fair bit of driving in traffic.

This is so much better than daily driving the turbo'd EF though lol. The weekly fuel bill with the EL is pretty much half of what I used to spend on the EF

I have seen 50-100km/tank from one of my tunes. Try to get some solid 'before' data as a comparison, km/tank and l/100 km average over a few tanks and then see how you go!

I can confirm Jason's claim. He did a J3 chip and tune for me for an EL I had, late 98 with a hybrid AU motor, just a high flow cat and basic 2.5" exhaust, converted to manual and 3.45 lsd. From what I remember, I was getting close to 600kms per tank with combined driving.

Nice EL Ghia man, I saw it at the all ford day in Hamilton at the start of the year.
Have you fitted up the xhaust from your EF on to it yet as I see above that was your plan?

I have 98 Ghia that I have just fitted a set of extractors too and have removed the cat. It still has the small and big muffler on it with the little one out the back by the tail pipe too.
I want a bit more sound from it aye but don't want it to drone away inside.
So I was just curious...

Cheers mate

Haven't had a chance to fit up the exhaust yet, but it's in the pipeline for this week hopefully. I've got the 2.5" exhaust off my EF and it's ready to go onto the EL, just need to get a resonator fitted somewhere in the system as it's only got 1 muffler and will most likely have a mass amount of drone without anything else to muffle the sound.

I've just fitted up a set of Coby extractors, deleted the cat in the process and bolted it up to the factory exhaust. Did next to nothing in terms of sound lol, still quiet as a mouse. Could always get a muffler cut out which will bring out a little more noise, or try swapping in a straight through muffler perhaps. Otherwise, I can definitely recommend the Rage 2.5" mandrel bent exhaust system made by Autobend, it's pricey but sounds and flows good!

Might as well update a little while I'm here..

Got a few more serviceable things done over the past few weekends.


Engine oil + filter, fuel filter, coolant, thermostat, radiator cap, overflow hoses, serpentine belt, idler/tensioner pulleys, front and rear brake discs and pads have all been renewed. Still need to do diff oil change, trans fluid flush and powersteering fluid flush and then pretty much everything has been done.




As above, started working on the exhaust. Removed the factory headers and cat assembly, then cleaned up the side of the block for a quick lick of paint to tidy it up. Bolted on the Coby extractors and bolted it up to the factory exhaust for the time being.



The 2.5" Rage exhaust system from the EF has been removed, so should be going on to the EL soon. Bought a 2.5" M&H bullet resonator/silencer to get welded in somewhere to keep the exhaust note down, it's way too loud and droney with one muffler and a straight pipe rear section.

For now, this is how the engine bay is looking. Fairly tidy, but still want to do a few things like the heatshield for the extractors and some heatproof sleeving for the accelerator and cruise control cables.


Gave it a quick wash to wrap up the weekend, then it started to rain. Typical


This past Friday I took it down to the drags for a bit of a laugh and to see what it could do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93NO_HO ... e=youtu.be

Only got 1 run in before the rain came and killed the night for everyone. Ran a 16.5 @85mph, 2.6 60' . Just stomped it off the line to get a baseline run to improve on, so the 60' was always going to be shocking. Was hoping to try stall it up in the following runs and try get close to a flat 16, but never got a chance to. Got another drag day coming up in 2 weeks which I might go have another crack at.

Cheers for the replay man.
If you get the exhaust on this week or whenever, flick an update, keen to know how it sounds inside and outside the car.
I'm thinking I might just replace the small and big muffler with one and keep the resonator at the arse end to keep the drone down.
Here's a few photos of the extractors i fitted.
Got the second hand off trade me, had them sandblasted, I then painted them and then had a powder coating company bake them in their oven. So far the paint hasn't burnt off, only done a few Kay's on them, so fingers crossed...I've had in the past the paint burn off on the initial start up.

Got the exhaust sorted out last Thursday.


Bolted on the centre section of the 2.5" system from the EF and took the tailpipe section over to the workshop across the road from work to get welded up. Was going to get a resonator welded into the tailpipe section, but didn't mind the noise it was putting out with the straight pipe rear.

This is how it sounded dumping before diff, lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6X9z_ucvq4

Sounds much quieter now with the tailpipe section in place, just has less of that deep rumble. Surprisingly, no drone at all under cruise conditions which is pretty weird considering it only has the 1 muffler in the system. Almost sounds V8-like at idle and cruise up to around 2200rpm, but anything over that gets a bit too roudy and you can definitely tell its a 6. Will probably get a resonator put in later on down the track if the exhaust note gets too annoying, but for now it's all good.



Rear shot - don't mind the BBQ and it's matching whitewalls :lol!:


Picked up a LTD grill over the weekend, Always wanted to fit a nice big chrome grill to the EL ever since I got it, but didn't really like the Fairlane grill I had in the garage, so LTD it was! It's not in the best of condition but a bit of black paint to mask the peeling chrome in between the grill fins has cleaned it up heaps.


Hit a bit of a milestone yesterday after work also haha


Got the drags again, this Friday and Saturday, so might take it down for a few runs

That's a nice looking exhaust system and sounds quite rad. The grille looks apart too.
What style / brand muffler is the system running?

looking awesome as usual man, keep it up such a cool cruiser

Cheers guys

Horangi, it's running just the single 'Rage' branded muffler (supplied by Autobend here in NZ). 2.5" in/out, straight-through design.

nice pick up mate! amazing condition for its age, tastefull mods so far, leave it as is

Hey man, when you fitted up your cornering lights what did you wire them into? Park lights or is it in a seperate switch?
Cheers

Hey mate, I've never bothered to wire them up at all. Only really fitted these in place to make the front end look a bit more classy, I've got all the relays, wiring etc to make them work, just never got around to wiring them up, haha.

I was intending to wire them in using a relay and the parklight wiring as a trigger so whenever the lights are switched on, the cornering lights would come on too.

Whilst I'm here, may as well throw up a few photo's from the past couple months..

Took it back down to the drags and cracked into the 15's . First time/last time out, it ran a 16.5, so it's was a little less embarassing when it ran a 15.9. Should be interesting to see what happens when it's got a cam and tune. Have got a spare Crow 2222519 cam and T.I J3 chip sitting here, just need to find the motivation to do it, lol.


Have been keeping it clean and taking it out a fair bit. Still using it as a daily driver and haven't any faults with it so far which is great.


At my cousin's wedding day earlier this year driving the groomsmen around..


Kumeu Classic Car and Hotrod Festival


Gave it a good tidy up for Auckland All Ford Day a couple weekends ago

Cheers. Your car is looking awesome.
15.9 run is alright, have you only done the intake and exhaust mods so far?

Cheers man . Yep, just intake and exhaust upgraded so far. Cam and tune should get it into the low 15's pretty easily

Hey man, question for you? How many speakers has your Ghia stereo system got? I have read that the Ghias came out with a 9 speaker system. 4 upfront and 4 up the back plus the sub.
I noticed in mine that in the rear parcel shelf it has the speaker covers in the rear corners but no actual speakers.
Just curious?

Yeah, that's a bit of a strange one, they are classed as having a '9 speaker' sound system. Basically you've got the 2 tweeters in the top of the dash, 2 midbass speakers in the front doors, 2 speakers in the parcel shelf (which each have a small tweeter mounted coaxially within that same speaker i.e 2 way, which is counted as an extra 2 speakers), and then the sub = so all up 9.

Not sure what the covers are for in the corners of the parcel shelf, every Ghia has them. Guessing it's some sort of vent to let a little extra bass into the cabin maybe?

Suppose I better kick this thread back to life, been a little while since I've updated..

Not too much has been done other than ticking a few things off the list of things to do that I compiled late last year. Basically, the plans were roughly, sound system upgrade V2, fit my spare AU momo steering wheel, new tyres, a couple new suspension bushes, and then cam + tune.

First up was the steering wheel swap. I had my spare Momo wheel freshened up by a mate and swapped that in. I wanted to go a bit AU 'TL50' style on the wheel with grey handgrips to go with the grey leather in the EL Ghia. This actually turned out quite nice, not a perfect match to the EL grey, but contrasts nicely with it.


Next was onto the sound system. Ditched most of what I had originally upgraded to temporarily, apart from the headunit (Pioneer FH-X500UI) as it does the job fine at the moment.

Bought a pair of Vifa 10" DVC sub's to replace the single 12" sub I was running previously. Wanted a bit more of a heavy hitting sub stage, so opted for a custom ported box this time round. Linked up with a local guy Andrew running DC-Tech NZ (NZ importer of Morel, DC Audio and XS Power batteries) and had him sort me out. Box is made from 25mm MDF, 3.0cuft volume single chamber, slot port length tuned to 35hz

Wired the twin Vifa 10" sub's to a 4 ohm load with quality SP audio 12gauge speaker cable supplied by DC Tech and mounted them in the box ready to go.


Needed an amp to run the sub's, so did a bit of bargain hunting and got a local shop to price match an amp I had seen from an online store halfway down the country. Picked up a Fusion Performance series PF-8001D mono block. Since I was stepping up to around 500-600wrms in total, decided to upgrade the amp power cabling from the 8ga I was previously running to some quality XSPower XP Flex 4ga cable also from DC Tech. It has a nice small footprint, so mounted the amp behind the rear seats easily.


Front stage was always going to be upgraded to my Hertz HSK165 component set I had sitting in storage, was great to finally get these bad bitches fitted up.


At the moment, they are just running straight off the headunit channels, but will definitely be running them off an amp in the future sometime. The doors need to be fully sound deadened (have only just layed down a Dynamat speaker kit to firm up the panel where the speaker is mounted too) so that will happen in a couple weeks time.

I ran the system as is for a few weeks, until the sub's were pretty much making things fall of the car. Within the first 5 minutes of tuning the subs after their run-in was done, the rear 'Fairmont' badge became 2 pieces and fell off and rattled the rear view mirror completely off the windscreen. Was pretty impressed with how hard these subs go only off ~500wrms

Shortly after, I ripped the rear speakers out, and removed the parcel shelf carpet so I could lay down some sound deadening. Rear speakers and factory premo sound sub were easily as to remove, considering all the retaining nuts weren't even finger tight anymore, ha! Ditched the factory stacker too since it's no longer used. Laid down 2 layers of Dynamat Xtreme, refitted the carpet, and then replaced the rear speakers with some 2-way Response Precision kevlar coaxials.




Next up was the bootlid. Tried my best to remove as much of the expanding foam crap that had rattled loose, then laid down some Dynamat here too. All in all, much quieter outside the car with majority of the rattles gone. Sounds much cleaner inside the cabin now too.


Now that the sounds were done, I got to work on swapping out the cam. Dropped in the spare Crow 2222519 profile I had sitting in the garage (cam was ground by Kiwi Cam's here in NZ, pretty much an exact copy since they were a Crow agent). Idles pretty smooth with a slight lope at idle, bit more low-midrange pull now too so should be a nice street cam. Still running off stock ECU, so should come alive once I sort a J3 chip for it.


Stole a few things from my turbo EF since they were being upgraded anyway, so the engine bay ended up looking like this afterwards
With my EF turbo being in bits at the moment, it was a perfect time to steal a few bits that were no longer needed due to them being upgraded to better items etc. Engine bay ended up looking like this afterwards.


Needed new tyres since 2 of my old ones were shot after driving around for about 6 months or so after lowering without a wheel alignment. Ended up getting a full set of Hankook Optimo's and had them whitewalled. Turned out looking pretty tidy along with de-spoilering the bootlid.


Bought an upgraded trans oil cooler and got to work fitting that up since we've been hammered with a fairly warm summer this year, always a good idea to keep the BTR from cooking itself. Upon pulling off the front end, I was met with usual E-series shit, rusted as hell P/S cooler line, clogged up AC condensor, dust/dirt caked everywhere. Was a good chance to tidy it all up!





Also had a mate tidy up a spare set of genuine headlights for me. They got machine sanded down from 800 grit up to 4000 grit pads to remove the original coating on the lense, then clear coated with a special UV protective coating. Turned out pretty fkn nice!


So that's about it for the time being! Got a few things on the new list of things to do this year, so will slowly start ticking those off when I can get around to them. For now, time to just drive it and start putting some $$ into my turbo EF instead

Nice update! What a beautiful daily!


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That sub box is sweet, and HSK-165s are the best!

I need to do my headlights badly