The chronicles of NWOLB d/up beware**New underbonnet Bling**

by **Rmyers** » January 23rd, 2009, 9:50 am

I've only just noticed that there is no thread on my car in this section, i thought i made one but that must've been on boosted version 1. Well, i have the day off of work, so i might as well leave my mark here. Be prepared as it is a lengthy read, so put on a pot of coffee and make yourself comfortable......

The car started off as daily for my parents when it was passed down to myself.

And now this is how it looks

OK I couldn't be stuffed typing the whole story lol.

Haven't been on boosted much lately, since i was last active i've had the blower rebuilt as the origional impeller was chipped and corroded. Upgraded to a billet impeller and Kevlar internal belt, had the Haltech installed and a second BOV put on (as it was my cheapest option). Not sure what is next for Nwolb, atm i need a new aircon compressor as the current one has a shot bearing and is making some god awful noises. May look into a cam upgrade and to remove a few bottle necks from the exhaust as the engine is not flowing the boost it's currently making.

Anyways a rather pointless thread, but meh....

by **Gozza** » January 23rd, 2009, 10:30 am

I love this car and the thought behind it. Do you drive it daily man? Is all the paint still sexy?

by **Rmyers** » January 23rd, 2009, 10:51 am

At one point i started to drive it more than my daily, but now she sits in my garage with 1mm layer of dust lol. Having some starting issues since the haltech was installed, would take a few goes to start but one day it just got beyond a joke and i cracked the shits and left it. It's got a flat battery now, plus the noisy aircon compressor made it embarrassing to drive. I got side tracked over holidays as i started building a bar in my garage, so i kinda forgot about the car lol. Paints still good

by **EFFalcon** » January 23rd, 2009, 10:54 am

LPG Starting sucks.

by **Gozza** » January 23rd, 2009, 10:57 am

Ive had some trouble with Haltech starts. It would usually be the hot starts though but the last tuners i've used have got it sussed.
I know what your saying regarding the noisy air con. When i had the 3 belt setup, the aircon tensioner pulley seized. I just cut the belt off :lol:

by **YBHVE4** » January 23rd, 2009, 10:59 am

fark....that a transformation and a half.

do you have progress pics?

by **Rmyers** » January 23rd, 2009, 10:59 am

Gozza wrote:Ive had some trouble with Haltech starts. It would usually be the hot starts though but the last tuners i've used have got it sussed

Any info or tips regarding this?

by **Rmyers** » January 23rd, 2009, 11:02 am

YBHVE4 wrote:fark....that a transformation and a half.

do you have progress pics?

Was wondering how long it would take before someone asked that lol. Ok you twisted my arm, i'll do the full story

by **Gozza** » January 23rd, 2009, 11:02 am

Unfortunately no

Im sure someone on here will provide some answers.

by **EFFalcon** » January 23rd, 2009, 11:02 am

we really should look at fixing that starting issue, surely its something to do with ignition timing on start up.

by **pHaT`eL** » January 23rd, 2009, 11:06 am

I love my car starting on petrol, avoids those embarrassing backfires

Love this car Steve, easily one of the classiest E-Series going around!

by **YBHVE4** » January 23rd, 2009, 11:11 am

Rmyers wrote:
YBHVE4 wrote:fark....that a transformation and a half.

do you have progress pics?

Was wondering how long it would take before someone asked that lol. Ok you twisted my arm, i'll do the full story

thank you *sits patiently at his computer for the full story to come up*

by **Rmyers** » January 23rd, 2009, 11:25 am

YBHVE4 wrote:
Rmyers wrote:
YBHVE4 wrote:fark....that a transformation and a half.

do you have progress pics?

Was wondering how long it would take before someone asked that lol. Ok you twisted my arm, i'll do the full story

thank you *sits patiently at his computer for the full story to come up*

Ahah uploading/reszing all pics now, might be a couple of hours before the stories up

by **EBOOST** » January 23rd, 2009, 12:41 pm

yeah this car is a good example of a very nice e-series and good article in i think it was street fords awhile ago man.
uve done a very good job.
cheers josh.

by **Rmyers** » January 23rd, 2009, 1:30 pm

Ok i'm uploading this in stages, should have the full story up in a couple of hours

She is an EA falcon 30th anniversary and was previously owned by my parents. Nothing special, but it served my parents well since they bought it in 1996 and was passed down to me as my first car in 2001.

At this stage i was never really into cars and was soley used for getting to UNI and back (tho i did not attend all that much lol). My friend had an EA as well which he was doing up slightly, and I started to get some "inspiration" from him. One day walkin through Dandenong plaza i came across a stand by the tint professor. Seemed like a pretty good deal, and my main reasoning behind getting the tint was to keep the car slightly cooler during summer. I also bought a set of "race bucket" seat covers to liven up the drab interior, they weren't overly comfortable, but looked "ok".

Next up i was fed up with listening to the standard tape deck, and was in desperate need of a CD player. At this stage a few of my friends were really into there car audio, and influenced by them i purchased a decent pioneer HU, a set of sony xplod 6x9's, a JL audio W0 sub and an el cheapo audioline amp. I recon it sounded sick, and we started going out cruising alot more with the stereo pumped to distorting point. A second bigger audioline amp was then purchased to run the sub whilst the smaller amp took over the 6x9 duties.

by **Rmyers** » January 23rd, 2009, 1:39 pm

Begin the ricer era! Not too proud of this stage of my life. This is were i started decking my car out with crap you find at Autobahn. Neon lights, monster tacho, big falcon sticker on the front windshield, pioneer stickers, "carbon fiber" steering wheel, fluffy dice and big red Monza pedals. I also upgraded from the old sub and amp to the slightly better JL W3 sub and a Kenwood amp to run it. The HU also received an upgrade to the first generation JVC mp3 player, and a set of MOMO splits were also bought along with another Kenwood amp to run them. The Sony 6x9's were then removed as they served no purpose.

Slowly i became more interested in modifying cars, and my first real plunge into debt came when i purchased a set of 16" chrome FTR copies. Now my car was a bit more "blinged" out, and i felt like a sick ****! Many a weekend nights were spent cruising chapel and hangin out at Nobel and Doveton Maccers respectively. At this time I also received my first canary at Noble Maccers (which was actually a blessing in disguise). I got done for most of the ricey stuff i had put on my car, meaning i was basically back to my starting point bar the rims and stereo.

by **EFFalcon** » January 23rd, 2009, 1:48 pm

i like the Rmyers story

by **Gozza** » January 23rd, 2009, 1:49 pm

monsta tacho is gold. i think we have all had a ricer era. Mine was in an 84 civic. twin 12" subs. about 10 Blue neons and skull gearknobs lol

by **pHaT`eL** » January 23rd, 2009, 1:50 pm

Steve, are you just copying whats in StreetFords? LOL.. Im sitting here reading the mag atm

by **Rmyers** » January 23rd, 2009, 1:56 pm

At this stage i focused much more money into my car audio. I purchased pretty much the biggest most powerful sub woofer available to civilians at the time. A Rockford Fosgate HX2 power 15" sub and an alpine MRV1507 amp to run it. The "carbon fiber" steering wheel was replaced with a tasteful four spoke "leather look" steering wheel, which to this day i believe is one of the best suited steering wheels to the EA-ED interiors. The dash fascias were later sprayed silver to match the silver HU, which sounded like a good idea when i thought of it

. At this time i discovered the EA falcon club, and promptly signed up as a member.

by **Rmyers** » January 23rd, 2009, 1:58 pm

pHaT`eL wrote:Steve, are you just copying whats in StreetFords? LOL.. Im sitting here reading the mag atm

Umm it would be very very similar as it is the story i sent street fords for the article

It's all pre-written so no need to write it up again

by **Rmyers** » January 23rd, 2009, 2:02 pm

Gozza wrote:monsta tacho is gold. i think we have all had a ricer era. Mine was in an 84 civic. twin 12" subs. about 10 Blue neons and skull gearknobs lol

I tried to block that era out of my memory, but then again ignorance can be bliss. Those days i was happy when i bought myself some fluffy dice, but now i cant be satisfied with anything haha

by **Gozza** » January 23rd, 2009, 2:06 pm

Shit, i was considering a cannon for the falcon when i got it 6 years ago.

by **Rmyers** » January 23rd, 2009, 2:27 pm

A long time passed before i decided to do much else to the car. The stereo went through many phases, the MOMO splits were ditched in favour of a set of 2 way Focal Utopia front speakers, and later on a very quick boot install was slapped together before a fordforums cruise. Later the install was dodgily trimmed in some fluffy black felt. At this time my JVC HU shat itself, and a Sony Xplod HU was installed whilst the JVC was being repared. Around the same time I acquired a set of 3way Focal Utopia splits, which required me to make a dodgey set of pods to house them in. After 13 weeks i finally got my HU back, and I purchased a second Alpine 1507 amp, meaning i ripped out most of the old install to fit both amps properly in the boot. A optima yellow top battery and 1.5 farad capacitor was installed to keep up with the high power demands of the stereo. For $hits and giggles, i entered an SPL (sound pressure level) competition at freeway car audio, and to my surprise i came first in the single sub category with a decibel recording of 139.9 (which i thought was pretty damn good for an enclosure far too small for the sub and the fact it was a large sedan).

Yet again a long time passed before i decided to do much to the car. I was extremely proud of my stereo equipment, tho when i opened up the boot to show people, it was an absolute mess, with wires hanging around every were and amps just screwed down in whatever position they could fit properly. Something had to be done, and influenced by one particular mate of mine that made a very nice looking stereo install by himself, i started planning my first real attempt at a decent looking boot install. After many different sketches and ideas, one was decided on, and the result (whilst taking a fairly long time to complete) is an install which i was (and still am) immensly proud of. The spare wheel well was fiber glassed and turned into a sub woofer enclosure, the amps were housed in a false floor and the sides of the boot were boxed off with rockford fosgate symbols back lit by green neons. The original plan was to cover the install in carpet, but then decided to have a go at painting the install. Phantom purple was chosen and with the help of my mate, we sprayed the install purple, making the boot come alive. Now i had an install worthy of showing off!

by **Rmyers** » January 23rd, 2009, 2:48 pm

Big problems arise with having such a power hungry stereo in the form of voltage. No point in having all this stereo equipment if your alternator cant keep up to the task. I purchased an EF alternator, and tried to make it run with the triple belt setup. Nothing i could do made it work, and the belt would just screech and chew up in a matter of days. Being fed up with trying to get the triple belt setup to work, i decided to attempt a serpentine belt conversion. A few problems arose here and there trying to get the system to work properly, and alot of money was spent as EF parts were not as readily available as they are these days, but the end result was much better voltage and a much better sounding stereo. Thermo fans also needed to be installed as the now EF water pump does not have a provision for the old clutch fan. Being the highly impulsive person i am, i also purchased a second battery and multi-battery isolator to keep the power hungry stereo at bay, alas it never made it into the car

.

Throughout the years i was always getting hassled by friends to lower the car. I was never really in any rush to do this, as my insurance company would not cover any "performance" modifications. I bit the bullet and told myself "fvckit", and went ahead installing a set of king spring super-lows. At the same time i saw alot of E-series members doing multi point conversions and even a few doing BBM conversions. Since the serpentine belt setup would not allow me to install the normal log intake manifold without changing the auto tensioner to an XH item (they were and still are hard to find and really expensive from ford), i proceeded in installing a BBM instead. Silly me forgot to do the wire mod needed, and the car was constantly in limp home mode and would frequently stall at the lights. I put up with this for a while and only worked out what the problem was well after my next set of modifications.

yes that's a coolant leak lol

by **Rmyers** » January 23rd, 2009, 3:02 pm

Walkinshaw's EL interior conversion inspired me to give it a crack myself. John aka EFFalcon had purchased an EF fairmont ghia wreck, and from this i purchased almost everything needed to convert to an EF dash. He was also selling the tickford motor out of it, and since i was already ripping most of the car apart to do the interior, i snapped up the motor aswell as the transmission, diff, tailshaft etc etc. Other things were taken from the car aswell, including all the pillar trims and even a section of the floor, which i will explain further on. I aquired a set of NL seats and door trims at the wreckers, and then proceeded to strip the EA bare.

by **donno** » January 23rd, 2009, 3:10 pm

Awesome write up mate. Keep it coming - I'm bored out of my mind at work.

Gozza wrote:Shit, i was considering a cannon for the falcon when i got it 6 years ago.

Must....resist.....urge.....to kill.....

by **Gozza** » January 23rd, 2009, 3:19 pm

heheh - your 6 years too late bro

by **stav50** » January 23rd, 2009, 3:54 pm

man a cannon would be sweet, u could shoot cannon balls at passers by....
haha ive seen a couple of falcons with cannons look terrible.
however this car is awesome i love the wheels!

by **Rmyers** » January 23rd, 2009, 3:55 pm

Everything sounds easy and quick in theory, but a combination of a lot of unforeseen work and laziness on my part caused this interior and engine conversion to take almost a year to complete. I have forgotten a lot of the details of this conversion, but some things that pop into mind is welding a section of the EF floor onto mine so that i have all the mounting points necessary for the EF seats, center console and handbrake. The entire EF wiring loom was run throughout the car to keep as much wire splicing as possible to a minimum. Holes had to be cut into the foot wells so that we could run the new loom though to the engine bay, the original dash mounts had to be slightly modified, electric windows were installed, cruise control was installed as well as an EL k-frame, steering column, steering rack, etc etc etc. Way too many details to list individually, and the sheer amount of work and various "human errors" meant she did not see the road for about 10 months. I was very happy with the end result tho, and the car now had a full EF/EL interior with leather seats and Tickford motor which was much better than the CFI 3.9 or even the half arsed MPFI conversion that i previously had. During these 10 months i had also purchased a second hand capa supercharger kit comprising of a Powerdyne head-unit, bracket suited to an AU 6cyl and various other bits and pieces to set it up including injectors, fuel reg, piggy back chip, water injection system blah blah blah. The old JVC HU was also scrapped, and an Alpine CDA7998r head-unit took over in it's place.

by **Dumpsta** » January 23rd, 2009, 4:05 pm

Well done mate, I remember reading the story in street fords, I love the pics in the last post.. looks great. Keep it coming

by **Rmyers** » January 23rd, 2009, 4:18 pm

While i was doing this interior conversion my parents were overseas. Unfortunately my father never returned as he had suffered a heart attack and died in Phuket. The EA lay dormant for a long time as i had no motivation to work on her any further. I took a few months off of work and just enjoyed what had built thus far. Boredom kicks in after these few months and decided to do a little retail therapy. I thought to myself that it was high time to get this supercharger installed onto the car. A massive spending spree was the result, as i had made the decision to install a little more than just the supercharger. The head was sent to be reco'd and worked, with a mild port/polish and compression raised (yes raised

). I purchased a set of modified pacemaker headers from Al aka Gunns, and had them porcelain coated and installed with a hi-flow 3inch stainless steel cat and 3 inch exhaust. The BBM was gutted and the Diff was sent to be rebuilt with 3.7:1 ratio gears and LSD and a wade 1004 cam was also purchased. A few more small purchases such as boost gauge, air/fuel ratio gauge and catch can were also made. We installed the head, cam, gutted BBM and exhaust at roughly the same, and she certainly pulled alot harder than she did before. Now it was time to get the Blower installed!

I eventually wanted the this car to be fully EPA legal (which i've since not really worried about lol), so a decision was made to make the car straight gas in the hope it had more chance of passing the ADR 37 test. Several gas places were considered, before I settled on Swift automotive.I also got them to install the supercharger system while they were at it, consisting of Gas research carby and twin converters, as well as an inter-cooler with 3 inch intake piping. Unfortunately because of the newly fitted gas tank, the entire boot install had to be removed and redone. After about 3 weeks since dropping the car off, it was ready. After this i also installed some customs door-pods kindly donated by Lowna

I think i'm gunna have to make this a two parter. The second half will be done some time this weekend

by **EFFalcon** » January 23rd, 2009, 6:55 pm

top effort for one day

love them door pods.. and still have a soft spot for the rosewood and grey bars!

by **nstg8a** » January 23rd, 2009, 7:25 pm

those door trims look sweet....
this was my favorite e series, now its even between this car and the blue one in street fords with the xr6t motor and ebgt bodykit.

but this one just looks 'right'....

by **travs ea-xr6** » January 23rd, 2009, 7:49 pm

man you have done a tone of work on this thing,im suprised it runs after so much stuff had been riped out and changed

have ya got the pics of when you started to get it painted

by **Thanatos** » January 24th, 2009, 7:25 am

EFFalcon wrote:still have a soft spot for the rosewood and grey bars!

Haha same!!

Ahhhh so many memories!! I love the shot of the wreck where both my EA and John's EF are visible, looking ever-so-stock!

That 'leather look' steering wheel is still in my EA to this day, and I agree with steve it is one of the best suited aftermarket wheels for an EA interior.

Also, the funky 'chrome dice' cigarette lighter from the ricer days is still going strong in my girlfriend's cressida - she thinks it's awesome!!

by **SnyperEB** » January 24th, 2009, 7:51 am

Awesoem write up Steven cant wait for the next instalment!!

by **ORSMEB** » January 24th, 2009, 8:40 am

Sweet story Steve, was interesting to read..

by **Rmyers** » January 24th, 2009, 3:15 pm

Cheers for all the compliments, starting to piece together the second half story, there's still a while to go

EFFalcon wrote:top effort for one day
love them door pods.. and still have a soft spot for the rosewood and grey bars!

Yer me too, i wish i could press a button in the car and transform between the two styles lol

Thanatos wrote:Also, the funky 'chrome dice' cigarette lighter from the ricer days is still going strong in my girlfriend's cressida - she thinks it's awesome!!

I reckon i about 100-200 years time that lighter's gunna show up on the antiques road show

[quote"travs ea-xr6"]man you have done a tone of work on this thing,im suprised it runs after so much stuff had been riped out and changed

have ya got the pics of when you started to get it painted[/quote]

Yeah that's kinda the problem, it doesn't atm lol, but it did, which at least means it was put together correctly at some point

by **Dezza** » January 24th, 2009, 3:38 pm

You've done a great job with the car Steve. Awesome write up! lol at the ricer phase. Some of those mods made my checkerplate floormats look tasteful.

Rmyers wrote:Cheers for all the compliments, starting to piece together the second half story, there's still a while to go

EFFalcon wrote:top effort for one day
love them door pods.. and still have a soft spot for the rosewood and grey bars!

Yer me too, i wish i could press a button in the car and transform between the two styles lol

lol. I wish I had the same. Every time I see a tidy silver EA Ghia I regret changing mine so much.

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