KWIKXR's EF Fairmont Turbo

[kwikxr]

Your's looks awesome man! Would love to go that dark, but knowing how things are with tint legalities over here, it wouldn't be long till they would have to be ripped right off lol.

What's it like driving at night with 15%? Can you still see through the tint?

[SnipeZ]

Victoria is screwed with crap like that. The tint at night is easy to see through at bight


Cheers

[kwikxr]

Went outside to get a quick snap. Really need to go find some nice new scenery to use as a backdrop


Should have some new rear springs in a couple of weeks time, hopefully something that will bring it down a bit more level with the front.

[kwikxr]

Went out for a drive this arvo and got some snaps while the sun was out..

[kwikxr]

Finally got around to undersealing the undercarriage of the Fairmont. Something Ford did a piss poor job with from factory. All the large bare sections of floorpan, inner sills, chassis rails, spare wheel well etc got a few thick coats of rubbery tar-like underseal/body deadener. Messy shit, but is very effective. Had a bit of rust to grind back and treat along the inner sills, but thankfully, nothing too serious. Whilst it was up on the hoist, I took the time to sand/clean up the driveshaft, exhaust, fuel lines, and pretty much everything else under there and give it a coat of hi temp black paint.


Only thing that hasn't been touched underneath with paint at the moment are the rear suspension arms, watts link bars etc and the diff. Will save all that for when the diff comes out for a nice tightly built LSD centre and the shorter diff gearing, eventually lol.

Also, finally got my wideband kit installed. Took it into the exhaust shop earlier in the week to get the sensor bung welded into the exhaust first, then this morning I got to work fitting the sensor, gauge and routing the wiring from under the car and into the cabin.





So far, the gauge is ready pretty accurate according to my AFR readout on the last dyno sheet. It'll be good to finally make alterations with the fueling side of things and know what's happening now that I have the wideband kit to monitor it all.


Now it's time to finally give the interior a well deserved clean up, then next weekend, more road tuning begins

[galapogos01]

Nice work, neat install on the wideband gauge. Best addition for a modified car!

[kwikxr]

Thanks mate . These wideband kits definitely are worth every penny, a very worthwhile addition indeed. I've only had a short time to actually check what it's doing and so far it's showing me I have a few areas of the tune to work on. WOT is quite rich and it also seems to be running fairly rich on overrun above 2000rpm, so have some areas to work on this weekend. Apart from that, everything else seems reasonable, but there's always something to work on.

Have played with spark maps a tad recently; dropped timing at idle down a little to 18 degree's, seems to have helped behaviour around idle and appears to have reduced rev hang. Have smoothed out the ramp-up of timing and then added an extra degree on top of that around WOT from 1500rpm onwards, seems to have made a bit of difference, pulls a bit better down low and feels stronger through the midrange with no sign of pinging. This weekend I'll probably start off with adding a another degree or 2 more down low and maybe add another degree through mid-upper RPM and see how we go from there.

[kwikxr]

A few recent pic's. Weather has been shit here lately, always fkn raining.



Haven't done much lately other than buy a new subwoofer for my audio install, roll the rear guards, and play around again with the tune, lol.

Subwoofer is a good old 12" DLS SP12. It's designed more so for SPL, but apparently is a very good SQ sub that has potential to get quite loud. Dual 2 ohm coils, 97.3db sensitivity so should move quite nicely even off low-ish power, paper cone so should have a nice natural sound. Only planning to put 1kwrms though it (wire it up to 1ohm off my current E-Audio 1000D mono) and see what it can do. Will need to make up a new box for it. So far 1.5cuft ported (tuned to 30hz) seems to be the go for a good balance of SQ and SPL (or SQL).

Guy I bought it off (was the DLS importer in NZ) gave me a brand new recone kit for it, so if I blow the fucker up, I have insurance and a second chance lol.


It's one heavy mother, honestly wouldn't be surprised if it weighed more than both my Image Dynamic's ID12's combined


Also bought myself a guard roller and rolled the rear guards. Fronts have already been rolled and pumped a little so didn't need doing, the rears however were untouched.
Before rolling..

Part way through rolling the lip..


I've always wanted to space the rear wheels out a little more just so the wheels didn't look so far in under the guards. Will be getting some decent 8mm hubcentric slip-on spacers machined up to suit so I can achieve the look I want and see how that goes. Tried some cheap shit 8mm spacers I bought to see how it would look, and it seems they make just that extra little bit of difference. Still have plenty of stud left over which is good. Took those spacers off afterwards so now it's all back like normal for the time being. Didn't have much faith in cheap $20 cast alloy spacers so only used them for trialing/experimenting purposes.

Hard to notice the difference in pictures, but the sidewall-to-guard gap difference is pretty noticeable in person. (+6 offset wheels, with 8mm spacer, 255 tyre)


I've otherwise been very wary of using spacers (be it slip-on's or bolt on hub adaptors) but enough people are getting around with them without issues so I guess as long as I make sure there is plenty of stud available and use a good quality, hubcentric spacer, I should be alright.

Anyways, with the tune...

Started by quickly trimming a bit more fuel yet again to try get WOT AFR's up to 12.5-12.8:1 but still need to pull more to get to that desired margin (so far it's at 12.2:1 up from 11.8-11.9:1). Everything else seems to be okay for now, although could do with being a bit leaner at cruise and light load, but it's reasonable.

Made some decent changes with the timing though, tidied up the values through cruise and light load. It was still running factory timing values in these ranges and they looked all over the place. This time it ramps up nicely towards the BBM switchover at which point I have dropped timing off a degree or 2, before ramping up again in the top end. I've made it so it doesn't drop off a few degrees and then jump back up like the factory map seems to do for some weird reason

3/4 load - WOT is where I have made most changes. I have added a fair bit more timing down low (added another 2-3 degrees on top of what I had originally, increased the midrange by another degree or 2 and added another degree in the top end . Feels much more lively all across the rev range now, bottom end feels so much more better it's not funny. Midrange and top end feels a bit stronger too. No signs of pinging or any loss of power so far so all seems good. Will leave it as is for the time being and get back to perfecting the AFR's.

Fingers crossed, it'll finally do it's first pass down the 1/4 on November 18 . Bring on a 16sec pass

[apoc]

Nice work! I seem to have trouble tuning timing, cant hear pinging so well lol. Need some permanent detcans! Ive been playing with it a bit, a little bit more advance makes heaps of difference

[galapogos01]

Good work mate.

The factory map drops off to avoid pinging at the BBM switch point - the sudden change in airflow can sometimes lead to a ping at around 3800-4000.

They do love the timing, but just be careful of detonation - and yes, I've been considering knocking up a pair of det cans myself.

Cheers,
Jason

[kwikxr]

Nice work! I seem to have trouble tuning timing, cant hear pinging so well lol. Need some permanent detcans! Ive been playing with it a bit, a little bit more advance makes heaps of difference

Cheers mate . Yeah, pinging can be pretty hard to pick up on, I just try and listen out for any sign of a metallic rattling noise or feel a random loss of power. So far so good though (touch wood, haha). Makes shit worse when my timing chain has a bit of slap at around 2000rpm. That gives off quite a horrid rattling noise, so I have to be wary of that, lol.

It's amazing how much of a difference more timing makes, especially down low. With my cam, the low end of the rev range felt quite doughy before, after adding another 4 degree's or so in the lower ranges around 3/4 - WOT, it's feels completely different. The cam pulls into it's powerband much harder too which is an awesome feeling after driving around for so long with very little torque below 2500rpm until the cam slowly hits it's sweet spot.

Detcan's would be great, route them into the car somehow and it would be epic haha. Might have to give that a go sometime

Good work mate.

The factory map drops off to avoid pinging at the BBM switch point - the sudden change in airflow can sometimes lead to a ping at around 3800-4000.

They do love the timing, but just be careful of detonation - and yes, I've been considering knocking up a pair of det cans myself.

Cheers,
Jason

Cheers Jase . They sure do love timing alright! I've tried to keep things fairly tame for the time being, running a bit more compression than standard so was a little reluctant to push things too much. So far it seems to be going great though, so will probably leave it for now. Thanks again for the advice you gave in one of my previous PM's, much appreciated mate

The standard 4TBD bin I was using as a comparison to my current tune had timing at light load, dropping a good 2-3 degrees from 1900 to 2300rpm which is well before the BBM switchover, which is what had me a bit stumped. The timing dips in the 3500rpm column for the BBM switch point, and after your advice from one of my last PM's I followed suit with the timing at that point in my current tune (dropping off 1-2 degrees at 3500rpm as load increases). So far, no pinging which is good

You might have to make up some "TI Performance Detcans", I'll be keen for a set! Haha

[TechXR]

How are you finding it with the whole tuning it yourself thing? Did you learn easy or...? If that makes sense..

You seem to be doing a good job of it!

[kwikxr]

Thanks mate

Honestly, it's not really that difficult once you get your head around the basics. Took me a good 2 or 3 days of researching to come to grips with what I was getting into. The tuning guides on the TI Performance website are a huge help, once I read those a few times over, I started playing around with things in TunerPro and started seeing how things work. Jason @ TI has been a massive help though, he got me started with a base tune that got the ball rolling, from there I needed to play with the fueling in order to get it to hold idle and run without dumping in mass amounts of fuel, then started making small changes from there on to get it better and better. I'm still relatively inexperienced with this, so it's still a big learning curve for me, but it's quite interesting once you start getting into it.

I found it all a bit daunting at first, but I had my mind fixed on fitting a decent sized cam and making it work, so had no choice but to learn how to tune, lol. There's no one that tunes chip's for these cars in NZ anymore so DIY really is the only way for us. Reason being, the modified e-series scene is pretty much non-existent here compared to Australia.

[kwikxr]

Decided to take this to the first round of Night Speed Drag Wars this past Friday night. First time down the 1/4 before so wasn't too sure what to expect really.

Took the Fairmont down as is with full weight like it's driven daily to keep things honest. Results weren't great, but not terrible either. No issues on the night and then car made it there and back without a hitch. Only got in 3 runs before I was in need of food and sleep, best of which was a 16.2 @ 91mph = fkn slow, lives up to being a bloody tank alright, ha. My mate took his BA XR6 down after doing exhaust and intake mods, ran a best 15.7 @ 91mph.

I had a few issues with traction off the line, especially the first run where it pretty much spun all of first gear then got grip before clicking 2nd. Funny how the strip is a completely different playing field compared to the street where traction isn't an issue at all in the dry. Shitty rear tyres and single spinner diff doesn't help the cause. Came to the conclusion that an LSD is a must at the very least before the Ford Muscle Car Club drag day on Nov 18.

Mate of mine let me know about an EF XR6 at Pick a Part so went to investigate. $52 and a couple of hours of agony working on rocks, broken glass, loose bolts, nuts etc under this XR and I've got myself an LSD, lol. Also picked up some other things that looked pretty new so thought they'd make good spares.



Will be cleaning it up, put some fresh oil in it, then spray it black before it goes in next Saturday. Then I've got some time to test it out before the drag day the following weekend. Will keep the original 3.23:1 single spinner and maybe get a locker for it, chuck the 3.89:1 gears I've got here in and fit that whenever it gets done. For now, the 3.45:1 will have to do.

Not really too concerned with making the car go fast down the 1/4, it's not what I've built it up to do really. But if I can break into the 15's, I'd be pretty happy, and hopefully get that trap speed up a bit. Should be able to get some decent results if I get my shit together and stop getting drunk-like reaction times

[kwikxr]

Seems this is the only photo I could find of it at the drags, couldn't find many people with photo's from the night. Too bad it was only waiting in the queue and not even on the fking strip


LSD swap went ahead today. Cleaned it all up, gave a fresh coat of black paint and in she went. Swapped the standard upper trailing arms (and their mounting brackets) out for the matching XR6 arms and brackets as well which I took with me when I got the diff.

EF XR6 upper arm + bracket up top, vs std EF Fairmont upper arm + bracket below



Took it for a drive and it spins 2 which is good, has slightly better acceleration and pick up with the shorter gearing and drives pretty smooth too (funnily enough, seems a lot smoother than before), no clunking etc. Until I came home, went to reverse in the carport and it has a light shuddering whilst turning at very low speeds. Not sure what the go is there, but will continue driving it this week to try test it out a bit more to narrow down exactly when this shuddering occurs. Hopefully will get some time to take the car into the old man's work so I can put it up on the hoist so it's level and put some fresh Castrol LSX90 oil and see if it makes any difference.

[Bob Lablaw]

oil should make a difference, sounds like wrong stuff in there. Car looks sweet should go much better, i'm all set for next week too, go the e series.

[sikwags_218]

Fresh oil should help it but lsds when tight can chatter a bit. You can buy anti chatter additive for them to

[kwikxr]

Cheers guys

Fresh oil will be going in early this week, will see how that goes first. If no change, I'll try an additive and see if it solves the issue. Just want to try and get it sorted before it hits the drags again this Sunday. Hope it cracks a 15 at least with full weight or I'll burn the fucker

[kwikxr]

Took it to the drag day at Meremere today held by the Tauranga Ford Muscle Car Club. Had a ball of a time there, got to meet and catch up with fellow boostedfalcon member 'Bob Lablaw' in his boosted EF Fairmont Ghia. Even managed to have a run against him, in which I got shown up big time haha, once that thing hit boost and finally caught traction it pulled away pretty bloody quick.

I went there with the intention (or hope) of breaking into the 15's after doing a best of 16.2 a few weeks back. Since changing over to LSD with 3.45 gears up from 3.23 single spinner, I thought it should be able to do at least a 15.9 something. Everything bar the diff has been left as it was since the last time at the drags, still running full weight as it is when driven daily.

Did a couple of practice runs. All times were recorded manually without the board at the end of the track functioning so they were a bit all over the show. First run was recorded as a 16.09 which was promising, followed up by some oddball runs where the times were obviously wrong (ranging from 14.76 up to 16.7). They were only practice runs to give an idea of what time to put forward as the DYO time so I didn't read into them too much. From those runs I thought a 15.8 DYO would be reasonable.

Then we switched over to DYO elimination with the time board functioning as per proper drag racing. My first run down in elimination and I got a new PB, but broke out by almost .2 of a second, so parked it up and waited for grudge racing later on haha. Was pretty happy with the 15.645 pass @ 90.76mph. We then moved onto grudge racing once DYO elimination was finsihed. I let the car cool down for a bit as the temp got up quite a bit after a decent skid with some 6k limiter bashing. Then went back onto the track against the 'stang that took my spot in elimination, pulled a new PB of 15.49 @91.37mph, was pretty stoked with that. Almost a full second improvement just from the change to LSD and 3.45 gears compared to last time at the drags which was on a cool night.

Couple of snaps..

Queuing up next to a mate's Fairlane on 20's, the pimp-lane haha..


Lining up next to Bob Lablaw's boosted Fairmont..


Quick skid before running my PB..


And some shots of the Fairmont's together, bothing repping T.I Performance across the ditch in NZ



There was a pro photographer there so once I get photo's from him, I'll link them up

Now hoping to play around with the tune a little bit more, get the AFR's spot on (still running around 12.2 - 12.3 through the midrange) and maybe see if a little more advance can be added in the midrange too. Some better tyres with better grip so I can launch a bit harder and hopefully I can get into the low 15's, I'll be happy, until that comes and I want a 14

[galapogos01]

Nice pics mate! Good work on the improvements, it's amazing how different the track is to the street when it comes to traction at launch. A good LSD is essential!

[kwikxr]

Cheers Jase

Yeah man, very different playing field. I always thought the 1/4 mile track would have tonnes of grip, but it's fairly slipperly compared to normal street roads. LSD and grippy tyres play a huge role here. A lot of guys were there for the first time and I did hint that it is fairly different to the street. Afterwards, pretty much everyone complained they couldn't get any traction off the line lol. Just one of those things you have to adjust your driving style for and try work around it.

Once a bit of sun got onto the track, grip improved a fair bit, quite a few people including me, managed to get PB's just before we finished for the day. Can't wait for the next drag day organised by the same club, the e-series turnout was dominant for once

Here's a quick vid of me and Bevan having a battle, he decimated me big time though haha, boost FTW!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsCZXA3_Ha8

[kwikxr]

Courtesy of Cameron Lee @ 180 Photography

[kwikxr]

Not much has happened with this lately, have kind of lost motivation with it as I have like 20 times before in the past lol..

Bought a Crow vernier cam gear for some fine adjustment of the powerband. Yet to fit it though, when I have a reason to pull the rocker cover off again, I suppose I'll swap it over then.


Bought a Ghia woodgrain shifter surround so I could give it some carbon fiber wrap treatment. Came up pretty good, miles ahead of the factory surround in satin black lol. Ties in nicely with the rest of the CF highlights.



Somehow managed to completely break 2 of 3 of the mounting points on the drivers side wing mirror, it's like the plastic perished after time and just broke off, so picked up a decent condition 2nd hand one GLi spec one on the cheap from Pick a Part. Decided to Plasti-dip it matte black to blend in better with the window trims, did the same with the passenger side and it's come up pretty good. Color coded mirrors are nice, but I prefer the black in this case.


Fitted some Dobi superlow's in the rear. My Pedders low's were looking a bit shot (and a fair bit short for what is a 'low' spring minus a coil). Sits a bit lower with the Dobi's even though they are physically longer, the coils are thinner diameter and compress a bit easier - rides nicer so I'm happy with that. Added bonus was a bit more tailshaft rubbing on hard take off with more than 2 people in the car, so bought a diff snout bump stop and fitted that today, hopefully, it'll solve that issue.



If all goes well, I should be back down at Meremere Drag Wars on Friday night. Hopefully it won't be too packed so I get a few runs down, see if I can get a low 15 with a few minor changes and keeping it at full weight to keep things honest. Need to make some long overdue adjustments with the tune on the J3 and try a few things with the intake setup just to try reduce heat soak as much as possible. Fingers crossed, I'll achieve that low 15 pass as pathetic as it sounds

Some recent-ish shots to finish this off..

[Rollin]

Car looks really good

Tiny bit of advice - don't put an additive in the diff to stop chatter. The chatter is the LSD cone doing its limited slip thing - the additive just basically makes the oil slipperier so the cones don't grab as hard....which means the LSD doesn't limit slip as well as it did pre-additive, so putting it in is a shit idea.

[superhuS!]

I love it. I seriously do.

[kwikxr]

Car looks really good

Tiny bit of advice - don't put an additive in the diff to stop chatter. The chatter is the LSD cone doing its limited slip thing - the additive just basically makes the oil slipperier so the cones don't grab as hard....which means the LSD doesn't limit slip as well as it did pre-additive, so putting it in is a shit idea.

Thanks Rollin

Ended up changing the diff oil for some fresh Castrol LSX90 and the chattering problem went away instantly . The oil that came out looked pretty new, so I'm assuming that whoever serviced the diff previously may have just put the wrong oil in there. Pretty happy that the fresh oil fixed the issue, it's smooth as fark now and hooks both wheels up much nicer.

Cheers for the advice on not using the additive though, will make sure I stay clear of that stuff and just resort to fresh oil first if the chatter does come back after time. If all else fails, I guess it's Lokka time and 3.9's in the old single pegger diff

I love it. I seriously do.

Hahaha, cheers superhuS

[kwikxr]

Not much has happened with this thing lately. Has been the daily/1/4mile hack the last few months - loves it

Since last update, it's been to 3 different drag events and 1 dyno event, totaling 12 runs down the 1/4 and 5 runs on the dyno. Hasn't missed a beat which is good. Has all been a lot of fun, nothing beats being able to drive a car how you want to without having to worry about police.


Haven't had the best of luck down at the drags in terms of bettering my existing PB. Haven't had much success in beating the car in the other lane to the finish line either, only managed to beat my mates BA XR6, a R33 skyline RB25DE manual and a V6 VN Commy wagon. Other than that, turbo'd fkn Honda's, WRX's, RB25DET skylines and a few V8 Clubsports have all handed my ass to me obviously lol.

All of my runs have been in the 15.6 - 15.8 range at 90-91mph. 60' times are a fucking fail, I think the best I have got ever has been a low 2.5 which is when I got a 15.4 last year .

Not having many, if any, issues with traction, problem is this thing is just an absolute dog off the line. Main issues being it needs a stall to suit the powerband of the cam, shorter diff gears to aid the BTR's long gearing and a way to reduce engine bay heatsoak, which has become a huge problem everytime it's been to the drags. Other obvious issue is weight, still bearing the full boot install, spare wheel etc, CBF taking all that shit out for one night only to put it all back in the next day.

Here's a quick video a mate got of one of my runs. The R33 ate me off the line, but reeled him in and got past him at about 3/4 track.. longest 15 seconds of my life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVTFGDE43M8

I have been reluctant to add air vents to the bonnet to help with the heatsoak issues, so tried spacing the rear of the bonnet and removing the rear bonnet seal, which sort of helped, but no way near as good as a well placed air vent would. Turned up a couple of 8mm thick spacers out of some bronze phosphor round bar we had at work. Could probably raise it a bit more, but would prefer to keep it looking fairly subtle.




Haven't really done anything else other than install some new tweeters for the audio system. One of my Response Precision ribbon tweeters had something rattling around inside it's housing so pulled them out and threw in some Soundstream Sapphire series tweeters. They were in for a good 2 weeks before I pulled them back out. Insanely bright, had to EQ down all the high frequencies just to get the sound blended/balanced with the mid's even still they were over powering. Opted for something more mellow and smooth, picked up a pair of old school "Audiophile" tweeters off a guy I sold my Image Dynamics IDQ12v2's to and am loving them so far, best SQ type tweeters I've had so far so they will stay



Attended a dyno day organised by the New Zealand Ford Forum. Was held at Revolution Dyno Centre, a facility that had been opened up recently, which has a few nice features, so we thought we'd make a day of it. Machine we carried out our runs on was a Mustang Dyno. Best thing about this place was the fact that we got to drive the cars ourselves, and the dyno operator was pretty clued on with tuning advice etc.

305rwkw BF XR6T

338rwkw Kenne Bell'd BA XR8

339rwkw 5XR Roush Mustang


Had her strapped on and did 2 power runs, a 0-100kmh sprint test and 2 simulated 1/4 mile sprint tests. Was pretty interesting, lol. The simulated sprint tests were really only just for a bit of fun, they don't account for any loss of traction, weight being carried, track conditions etc. My 0-100kmh sprint came out at low 5 seconds, my quarter mile sprints were a 12.9 and 12.6 (lol) @ 94 and 95mph respectively. Both power runs came back at 149rwkw and 150rwkw back to back, so was fairly happy with that. About the same as what I pulled on the dyno @ Protune before I made changes to my tune, it definitely feels stronger now than it did back then, so would be interesting to put it back on the Protune dyno in the future and see what happens.

Anyways, this was one of my 1/4 mile runs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIFFjZPHmn0

A few guys who had their cars dyno'd at other places commented that they were down about 30rwkw on this dyno, one guy who had recently had his Boss 335GT dyno'd on a Mainline dyno was down about 12rwkw on this dyno (pulled 299rwkw) so we concluded that it was fairly conservative in terms of power readings if the Mainlines are anything to go by. Still a lot of fun was had on the day nonetheless

Drag season is over for the time being, so will just be keeping the Fairmont as is. Maybe play around with a few things and hopefully save enough to at least get a high stall sorted before next season's night drags begin so I can go out there and have some legal fun again. Can't wait!

To end this post, a couple of recent photo's of the Fairmont

[kwikxr]

Couple of shots from Auckland All Ford Day this past Sunday. Mint day, quality of cars was pretty good this year even though the turnout was way down compared to previous years where there has been easily around 600 cars turn up












A whole gang of photo's I got on the day in the following FB link..
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 5be7fa720f

[kwikxr]

Picked up some new wheels for it, ROH Envy's in 17x8 and e-series offset. Seems they sit out a little bit more than the old wheels did, pretty happy with the look so these will stay for now.

[Bob Lablaw]

does look good, be interesting to see them in black like your old ones

[kwikxr]

Cheers mate

Not sure if I'll do these in black to be honest. That was the plan initially, but after they went on, the silver is growing on me quickly. If I do get bored of the look, I can always do them in gloss black, haha.

[superhuS!]

Get some Modena's for it. tarffffff

[kwikxr]

Hahaha, I wish man, Modena's look mint!

Kind of got sick of having a 3000-6000rpm sort of powerband on the stock stall and 3.45 gears (can't afford to do that stuff at the moment), so dropped a high lift, short duration, mild cam back in for the time being.

Cam is a Franklin RH24B profile (195in/192exº duration @ 50thou, .530"in/.504" valve lift, 114LSA). Also swapped in the Crow vernier adjustable cam gear while I was at it.



Currently I have dialed the cam gear in at 0 degrees as per factory cam timing just to see how it goes. J3 is out at the moment as it'll need to be retuned to suit this cam, so it's currently just running off the standard ECU. Should have a lot more in with some timing added, made a massive difference with the last cam. Haven't really tested it out properly due to crap weather but it seems to go pretty good as is. Heaps more low end torque obviously, but probably won't have anywhere near the top end pull the previous cam had. Still pulls quite hard through the midrange though with it's broad powerband.

Engines runs so damn smooth now, feels smoother now than it did when it was completely stock lol. Manifold vacuum at idle is back up at 19-20in compared to 13-14in with the previous cam, big valve overlap FTL! Miss the lopey idle and having the whole car rock in sync with it though lol..

[kwikxr]

Been a little while since I update this lol..

Scored a 2nd hand fibreglass Tickford lip kit for $100, never really was keen on a kit as I've always like the clean simple look, but for the price, I couldn't pass it up. Needs a little bit of work for fit anywhere near perfect, but it's nothing unusual for a fibreglass reproduction kit. Still not sure if it'll go on the Fairmont on whether I'll save it for the old man's EF XR6 as it will suit it better. If it goes on the Fairmont, I'll be hunting around for some decent looking 19's with dish to finish the look.


Scored a set of NF/NL Fairlane chrome window trim strips and swapped those over, pretty simple job, rear trims needed to be cut shorter and end caps swapped over so fit up like factory. Picked up some NF/NL door moulds, they have a smoother look about them, so I'll get them painted up and swap them over too. Also scored some carpeted kick panels, should be good to finally have a passenger side kick panel for the first time in about 2 years lol, J3 tuning was more important during that time haha


Got rid of the old custom DIY airbox, bought a BA XR8/GT pod style airbox and made it fit. Chucked in a fresh S&B air filter, (priced up cheaper than a standard paper element replacement lol), made up some new intake piping and coated it satin black, bought a EF/EL Tickford snorkel and cut a hole in the pod box to rig it up, made up a little deflector scoop to lead into the snorkel (mainly to cover a small missing section of the snorkel around the mounting screw) and put it all together. Looks much neater and keeps hot air out a fair bit better.




Got hooked on that Plasti-dip stuff and ended up dipping my ROH Envy wheels matte black, turned out half decent but no way near mint close up. Gave it that tough/rugged look I was after though.



Spraying the Plasti-dip straight out of the can gives an orange peel effect regardless of how well you shake the can, seems there is no way of getting the paint thin enough to spray on consistently unless buying it in tins and mixing it up yourself with thinners.

Put my old black CSA Gladiators on my old man's EF XR6, looks pretty sweet, ties in nicely with the black bumper mould inserts. The headgasket has recently gone in the XR6 so the top end will be getting a freshen up with fresh stem seals, valve re-face and re-grind, shaved 15-20 thou, quick 'pocket port' and a general clean up, with .


Currently working on getting the rest of the intake and fueling side of things freshened up. This starts with a spare lower intake manifold, plan is to clean up and smooth out the runners (particularly the short ones where there is a decent step left after the machined bore for the butterfly plates), blend the casting to machined bore transitions so it flows a little nicer, streamline the butterflies and shaft, and match port it to my ported upper.

Was going to polish it, but CBF, so will either paint or get it powdercoated, or if funds allow, Cermakrome coating. Port work is about half way there at the moment, still need to do the other half and then match port it to the upper before it is swapped over. Will get pic's up once that is done.

Got in touch with a coating place that offered Cermakrome coating and got a spare fuel rail and thermostat housing coated to see how well it works. This coating supposedly reduces heat transfer so it theory will both keep heat in or heat out, depending on where the source of heat is coming from. Turned out pretty good, not as smooth and shiny as a polished alloy finish, but still fairly nice. Also wanted to test out one of their 'lucent blue' powdercoat colours, so took down a water pump pulley from our 351W motor, turns out it was a near on perfect match for my painted rocker cover which is handy to know, haha



Bought an injector rebuild kit so will rebuild my EV6 AU injectors so everything is fresh once the manifold and fuel rail are swapped over.


So once the intake and fueling side of things is finished, that'll be it for the time being. Really need to get myself a cheap shitter to use for a daily so I can park this up for a bit and start doing so more serious work on it and make it the weekend fun/cruise hack

[kwikxr]

Took this down to Hamilton All Ford Day at the end of last month. Good to see there was a decent E-series turnout, even caught up with 'Bob LablawWas a pretty good day considering I missed the majority of the show as I rocked up about 2 hours before it closed up, lol. The Fairmont had a good run there and back (about 1hr 20min's each way). As expected, it used much less fuel than it did last time I went down back when it had the old cam, haha.




After AFD was over, I had a bit of motivation to get a few things finished off on the Fairmont... Started with the intake manifold swap.

Started off with this spare BBM, pulled it apart, got it soda blasted and then went to work with it.


Finished off porting the intake manifold, gave it a quick coat of flat black engine enamel and spent a good Saturday arvo swapping it over.







With the coated fuel rail


Lined it up against my ported 91AA head + gloss black AU rocker cover, looked quite mad


Pulled the polished upper off my old BBM and gave it a quick clean (already smoothed the runner out when I polished it a few years back) and then gasket matched the ports between the upper and lower halves. The gasket between head and lower was trimmed slightly to make sure no parts of it protruded past the port, for some reason nearly every head-to-manifold gasket I have come across has been slightly smaller than the ports on the manifold

Upon pulling the lower intake manifold out of the engine bay, I saw a pretty awful amount of oil pooled up inside the lower manifold. Decided to put the catch can back in straight away, this time deleting the factory PCV breather setup and blocking off the open ports on the throttlebody and intake manifold. Mounted the catch can, gutted the PCV valve and hooked it directly up to to catch can, along with the rear breather hose so now no oil vapour is recirculating back through the intake.

Manifold off. Was planning to relocate the coilpack at this point, but just couldn't find a decent place for it that wouldn't make it stand out too much


Once the ported manifold was in, I got to work swapping over the Cermakrome coated fuel rail. Pulled the AU injectors apart, hooked them up to a DIY pulsing circuit and flushed some throttlebody cleaner through each of them. Grabbed a multimeter and did a quick resistance check on them first before fitting the new the o-rings, filters and pintle caps. Put it all back together and that was that!

Injectors on the operating table, lol.

Old parts vs new parts..

All freshened up..



All back together..



Seems to run much smoother now, and appears to have fixed a small vacuum leak that I may have had previously. Now idles steadily at 650-700rpm whereas before I couldn't get it to idle lower than 850rpm in drive and that was with the throttle stop screw wound completely off, lol. Ended up having to re-tune the AFR's around idle as they were a little on the rich side.

Now that I don't have oil vapour recirculating back through the intake and into the combustion chamber, I added a little more timing and had some good success. Added another 1-1.5 degrees in the midrange around 3/4 - WOT, added another 2 or so degrees around cruise loads and decel. As a result, it feels a bit more effortless in normal driving conditions and sharper on the throttle which is good. Previously I had timing dropping back a degree around the BBM switchover around 3/4 - WOT loads, but now have leveled that area of the map so that it doesn't dip. BBM switchover point feels a bit more pronounced now, not sure if the manifold porting has had a helping hand with it (probably not, lol) but overall it feels pretty good so I'm happy.

Currently planning to swap back to the AU rocker cover and be done with it. At the moment the cover is with Pro Coat getting sandblasted clean, then I've got a couple of AN bung's to be welded on so I can run some nice fittings and braided hose to the catch can. The old factory coolant overflow hoses I'm running to the catch can right now look a bit boring . Once that's done, I'll respray the cover in gloss black with the lettering and fins blocked back to bare alloy as usual. Will probably get rid of the tacky blue silicon overflow hoses in favour of some braided hose for a better look to match the rest.

Drag season is starting back up next month so I should be getting the Fairmont back down the 1/4 for a bit of fun. Hopefully I can crack a fucking low 15 this time round. If not, I think I better stop kidding myself and turbo it already haha.

[SnipeZ]

My personal favourite e series. It is so fucking mint.
Can't wait to see it with a snail on the side


Cheers

[Frodo]

I love your engine bay. O so clean!

The drags should be great, as apparently they have finished resealing the track.
So no more bouncing down the lane.

Might see ya down there. Apparently the Winter Wars are on in a week or two.

[kwikxr]

My personal favourite e series. It is so fucking mint.
Can't wait to see it with a snail on the side


Cheers

Haha, cheers man! Yeah should be sweet with a basic turbo setup, it'll probably be a fair way away, but I'll get to it one day. I decided I didn't want to turbo this a while back, but have quietly been tempted after seeing a couple of mates turbo their E-series with good results. So now it has to happen

I love your engine bay. O so clean!

The drags should be great, as apparently they have finished resealing the track.
So no more bouncing down the lane.

Might see ya down there. Apparently the Winter Wars are on in a week or two.

Cheers Frodo! Your username sounds familiar, guessing you drive the mercury silver BA XR8 with the FRODO plates? Haha, I remember seeing it at Meremere, sounds and looks great!!

Yeah man, can't wait to try Meremere out again after the track has been redone, it's been a long time coming! The bumps around 3/4 track were pretty horrible, with how firm the suspension is setup in the Fairmont right now, it used to bounce all over the place on the old surface

I'll keep an eye out for your XR8 when I'm down there next, I should be down there for the Winter Wars rounds for a bit of a play and see where I'm at now that a few things have been changed. Good way to get some practice in before Night Speed Drag Wars returns too

[Frodo]

Yeah mate, that'll be me. The plates always get some funny remarks from people.

Going off the results from the Father Day drags, the track may be a bit quicker this time around. Got to get that 13 somehow!
I had the same problem bout 3/4 track, when I'm not wheel spinning the whole way. Haha!!!

I won't be able to make it to this weekends meet, but I might have someone to take it down for me. I have a set of semi slicks which need to be tested.....

[TechXR]

Looking great as always

Where did you get that Ford Built Tough sticker from btw? Wouldn't mind having the same sticker on my car