KWIKXR's EF Fairmont Turbo

[galapogos01]

Love the video! Just a taste

[kwikxr]

Didn't get much of chance to work on the tune over the past weekend, but took it down to the drags anyway as the tune seemed decent enough to do a couple of runs. Would mean I could also have a nice stretch of road to use to get some AFR readings at WOT, legally haha. Turns out it's still a bit rich on boost, especially up around 5000rpm so will lean that out and try keep it around the mid 11's.

Ended up having problems with the trans not shifting up gears under WOT. Would get to the top of every gear and just bounce off the rev limiter until I let off the accelerator completely to get it to change up, then pull through the next gear only to do the same at the top of that gear too. This obviously soaked up a fair bit of both ET's and trap speeds in all my runs. Up until this point I had never done a WOT run going through the gears so I had no idea this was going to happen and freaked out a bit during the first run when it wasn't going in to 2nd gear lol

Anyways, ran a PB of 13.8 @ 102.6mph, 2.24 60'. Guess it wasn't too bad considering the shifting issues, but it pissed me off big time as I couldn't get a single clean run the whole night. I knew it had a lot more in it, but couldn't do much about it at the time. Couldn't find much traction off the line either as the track temp was pretty cold and I had cheap Kumho tyres on the rear which never helps.

It was way too dark so I don't think anyone got any photo's, a mate got a quick video of me warming the tyres before running the 13.8, the screamer is a bit of a laugh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xei0RckWeug

After a bit of thinking on the way home, I remembered I lowered the rev limit in the base tune I started with to 5500 down from 6000rpm (just to save the engine a little as it's nearing 300,000km's, lol) but left shiftpoints as is, so it was hitting the rev limiter before the trans wanted to shift gears. Will fix that up tomorrow and go for a bit of testing to make sure it solves the problem.

Should be going back to the drags when they start up again mid June, hopefully will have some in-car action cam setup or something by then. Hoping for mid-low 13's and higher trap speeds this time round once the fueling side of the tune is 100% sorted, the trans is shifting normally again and I've got some sticker tyres on the back. Still have to upgrade the exhaust to full 3" (still running 2.5" exhaust from the dump pipe back at the moment which would be restricting the top end a bit) and work on a better intake for the turbo so hopefully it won't be too far off a high 12 once that is all done.

[EBOOST]

Sounds fantasticin the vid haha.

13.8 is good going what boost is it running?

[kwikxr]

Haha, cheers man! Got a lot of positive comments on the night about it which was cool, everyone has external gate's with screamers on their EVO's, WRX's, Skyline's etc at the drags so it's good to mix it up with one on a 4L

Running 8psi at the moment, just want to run low boost as it's got close to 10:1 compression lol

[galapogos01]

Sounds great man, and seems like it gets on boost nice and easy.

Love your work with the limiter!!!

You can set the shift points lower if you do want to keep the limiter around 55-5700. Keep a good eye on your line pressure too.

Will see a much better time on your next outing I'm sure.

[kwikxr]

Cheers mate . Haha, yep, massive brain fail lowering the limiter and leaving the shift points as is

Might just transfer my trans map's from my NA tune over to the boost mapped tune as they worked pretty mint for the powerband of the cam I'm running. Can't wait to get it back to the drags and see how much quicker it can go!

[Rollin]

Wind the tans pressures up heaps. We're running around 105 up to 220 between 60 and 200% throttle I think.

You probably won't need to go that high but too low will kill the box from slipping.

[turbo_will]

Good job mate not a bad time and mph for first time out. Get the 60ft down and sort trans I reckon you will squeeze a 12 out of it if you can launch on decent boost.

[kwikxr]

Wind the tans pressures up heaps. We're running around 105 up to 220 between 60 and 200% throttle I think.

You probably won't need to go that high but too low will kill the box from slipping.

I think mines set to around 185 at 100% throttle, but I'm also running an electronic shiftkit as well (mainly so I can fine tune whenever I need to on the fly) which I turn up full at the drags and it shifts nice and hard. Box seems to be going good so far over the past month or so it's been turbo'd, but if it does die I've got a fairly recently rebuilt BTR in the garage waiting to go in with a 3000rpm stall

Good job mate not a bad time and mph for first time out. Get the 60ft down and sort trans I reckon you will squeeze a 12 out of it if you can launch on decent boost.

Cheers turbo_will . Hopefully I'll have decent tyres on the back by then, might be getting some 245/40/17 Nitto NT05's off a guy that brings his FG GT335 down to the drags usually so they should provide plenty of grip out of the hole. I was getting pretty bad wheelspin off the line so ended up backing off before it came on boost to avoid baking through 1st gear.

I'd be over the moon with a 12.99 haha, as soon as it gets a 12, I think I'll keep it as is and daily it whilst I build up something a bit more serious.

[kwikxr]

Went out and caught up with a mate this morning. Got a few shots parked up next to his mint EL Ghia 5.0.

[SnipeZ]

Nice wheels on the 5.0

Sent from my GT-N7105T using Tapatalk

[kwikxr]

Yeah man, they suit it perfectly I reckon, looks so much tuffer in person though! 19" DTM LV 8.5" fronts and 9.5" rears, nice amount of 'concave' to them. Pretty keen to save up for a decent set of wheels for my Fairmont now, super jealous lol

[EFFalcon]

yep... those wheels look awesome.

[the sam]

Just swap yours for his (when he's not looking)...

No-one will notice the difference....

[kwikxr]

Went round to my mate's (same guy who owns the above EL Ghia) place yesterday to trial fit some different wheels that he had spare. Started off by fitting one wheel and it looked pretty sweet, next thing I know I'm driving home with them all bolted on and grinning from ear to ear, lol. Looks a bit tuffer now I think.

17x8 ROH RT's. 245/40 Bridgestone Potenza RE002's on front, 255/40 Bridgestone Potenza RE001's on the rear.


Fills the guards a bit better now

[kwikxr]

Gave the Fairmont it's first detail for the year, lol. Shows how good I am with the up-keep of the paint . Couldn't believe the crap that came off the paint whilst rubbing it over with the clay bar, felt like a bad parent lol. Turned out pretty decent (just need to get the bonnet done properly now), so went out for a cruise and stopped off by the bay in town for a few snaps

http://s717.photobucket.com/user/nwt351/media/DSC_0142_zps00a66b12.jpg.html

[TUFEF]

Looks Phat!

[kwikxr]

Tuning is about 95% sorted now, pretty happy with how it goes during cruise, light load and WOT in terms of AFR's. Feels a lot stronger now so I'm ready to give it hell at the drags next Sunday and see if it'll run some decent times.

During the road tuning sessions, I fixed up the shifting issue I had at the last drag event (I hope, lol). I bumped the rev limit up to 5800rpm from the 5500rpm I had it set to and altered shiftpoints to suit and now it seems to shift without limiter bouncing until lifting the accelerator like it did previously. Have only tested the 1st to 2nd shift under WOT and it shifts all good now, so hopefully 2nd to 3rd and 3rd to 4th is all good too, not too keen to test that on the street though as it's straight into 'instant loss of license' zone so I'll find out for sure at the drags. Bitch of a thing to test on the street when you try to slowly roll on to WOT in 1st and it breaks loose on boost, jumps up on the limiter, and then starts skating through into 2nd gear, bit of fun though haha

Now that the AFR's were looking better, I thought it would be a good time to change the oil since it has been running a little on the rich side. Comes as no surprise, but the oil was as black as the ace of spades and smelt of fuel even though it's only been in for a month and a half or so. Went out and bought some Motul Turbolight 4100 for a change, luckily Brendan @ No Cams Performance (who has been doing some exhaust and dump pipe welding for me) is a Motul stockist/supplier and ordered it in for me and gave me trade price.


Engine already seems to be running smoother and has better oil pressure when warm compared to the Valvoline Engine Armour I've been running for the past 2 or so years too. I think I'll be using the Motul 4100 from now on.

Been finding myself over at No Cams Performance a fair bit recently getting tyres and welding jobs done. Helps when he is right across the road from work lol. Went over on Wednesday and ended up ordering in a pair of steelies for the Fairmont which will be for drag use. Saw them in a catalogue offered in 17" and just had to have them. Got them Thursday after work and bolted them on as soon as I got home haha

Diezel D-window 17x9, O offset



Left the 5mm slip on spacer on the rear just to push them out that little bit more, sits quite nice. Should look tuff with 255/40 wrapped on them, currently just have my last pair of 235/45 Goodyear GS-D3's on which will probably last me 1 more drag event before they get thrown out.

[kwikxr]

Went to the drags today and had a bit of a shit day all round, was hoping to try edge closer to low 13's or even the high 12sec bracket, but couldn't even get close. Weather was nice and warm, but the damn track wasn't prepped so traction issues were had by all, even the 4WD guys were complaining lol. Poor Fairmont copped a bit of a hiding today, 2nd gear skids, plenty of limter, gotta have a bit of fun



First couple of runs were just absolute shithouse. I'm not used to breaking traction at the drags as track prep is usually pretty good majority of the time so it was a bit different on my first run where I stalled it to 1500rpm, spun hard off the line and skated through to the top of 2nd gear trying to keep it straight. Went down with 28psi in the tyres, ended up progressively dropping it down to 19-20psi as traction was just that shit. ET's ranged from 14.5 - 17 something and one odd run which was 20 something due to having it break loose on me twice in the same run, felt it go sideways on me real quick the second time at around 120kmh-130kmh, so backed off and coasted the rest of the way.

Gave up trying to get decent runs so ended up just going hard in the burnouts instead lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93_wrkS ... e=youtu.be

Final run I went out for a decent skid then staged. Feathered the throttle off the line and didn't hear the tyres squeal at all for a change, so I planted it. Spun a little at the top of 1st gear and into 2nd but seemed to stick pretty decent. Ran a 13.8 @ 105mph, 2.4 60' lol. Got back to the pits for a quick check under the bonnet before I went back out again, but was greeted with the dipstick out of it's tube, oil splashed all over the intake manifold and blowby fuming out of the catch can. Piston rings, goneski's!! Called it a day and drove home. Can't say I was surprised, noticed it had a bit more blowby than normal before it was turbo'd so it was only a matter of time really, haha

Suppose it did alright, copped 2 months or so of abuse since it's been turbo'd. Guess it's not too bad for 8psi with 10:1 compression on a stock 280,000km bottom end . Time for a bottom end rebuild, drop compression back to low 9:1, upgrade to 3" exhaust and push a bit more boost up it.

[EBOOST]

Sounds so good haha.

keep it up mate love this build!!

[kwikxr]

Haha, cheers mate! Got heaps of comments on it yesterday lol, quite a few guys thought I did a XR6T motor swap or something which was a bit of a laugh.

A mate of mine put a quick video together showing a couple of my runs, also the lack of traction lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SE9tk16-K4

[turbo_will]

Nice work 105mph is good going on a 2.5" exhaust

[GLiTurbo]

Im running 9psi in mine and I dont have anywhere near the traction issues that you do. Makes me sad. Lol

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

[kwikxr]

Nice work 105mph is good going on a 2.5" exhaust

Cheers mate, it's a good feeling knowing it has a bit more in it just by upgrading to full 3" exhaust. Hopefully that'll be done before the night drags start up again towards the end of the year, really want to get this into the 12's haha

Im running 9psi in mine and I dont have anywhere near the traction issues that you do. Makes me sad. Lol

Haha, yours probably would have been skating the track like that too! Track surface wasn't prepped to well, so almost everyone with decent power had big traction issues that day.

Sadly, I don't really have traction issues to that extent at all on the street. Felt quite lethal on an un-prepped track, but in reality it's still slow as shit

[kwikxr]

Just found a few more photo's of the EF at the drags..






Had a bit of a chance to look at the Fairmont and turns out things weren't as bad as I thought, lol. Still think the rings are a little buggered, definitely has a bit more blow-by than it had before, but still has plenty of power so it can't be too bad. Bought a compression tester so will test it this weekend and find out for sure. Drove it to and from work every day last week and gave it a thrashing whenever I could, it felt strong and never spat the dipstick out again which was good to see, ha!

Found out my loss of power on the way home from the drags was due to overheating, coolant temp sensor was buggered and not reading accurately and by the time I got home, the coolant reservoir was very low. By the time the engine went cold, the reservoir was empty. So changed the temp sensor last week, topped up the coolant and it's all good again. Still seem to be loosing coolant out the overflow hose, so will change the radiator cap first and see how that goes. Won't be pulling the motor out just yet as it's still running pretty decent, so will fix up a few things with the cooling system (new cap, new thermostat), possibly fit an aftermarket 52mm thick alloy Fenix radiator and also add an external oil cooler setup so I can keep the oil temp in a decent range and hopefully gain back some oil pressure when the motor gets hot. Got a bit of saving to do so I can freshen up the bottom end with new rings and ACL race bearings.

With a few things needing to be done on the car, I wanted to park it up for a bit to relieve it of daily driver duties. Went out shopping last weekend looking for a cheap e-series hack, ended up finding a 1997 EL Fairmont Ghia 4.0 in Arctic Blue, at a dealer on Sunday arvo. Quick look around the car and I was sold on it. 126,000km on the clock, completely stock standard and pretty much mint condition all round so was pretty happy with all that for $3.5k. Picked her up yesterday, so now it's on daily driver duties until further notice. Will probably put a thread up on the Ghia once I've got some pic's of it

[kwikxr]

So here's the EL Ghia I recently scored, will put up a thread on this soon-ish..


It's become the daily driver, so the turbo EF just sits in the carport all week long waiting to get fired up every Sunday for a little drive to keep it going.

Fired it up early this past Sunday morning and took it for a quick blat. Roads were freezing cold and heaps of moisture in the air so a bit of fun was had around the quiet back streets lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdmxcSl ... Ub6NzZDK4w

Haven't done anything with the EF recently, it's been put on the back burner while I save some cash to go towards freshening up the motor. Fingers crossed, motor will be coming out in August/September sometime.

So far on the shopping list:
-ACL race series mains and big end bearings
-Grant piston rings
-JP standard volume oil pump
-New set of headbolts
-Timing kit (new guides, chain, tensioner, gaskets and seals)
-Water pump
-ACL Race Series full gasket set
-Atomic lifters
-Bigger catch can with bigger breathers

Plan is to lower compression back down to low 9:1 (either 1.3mm MLS gasket, or use the standard thickness ACL race series gasket, and open up the chambers slightly), then up the boost to 10-12psi and see how we go from there. My local camshaft machinist just picked up a flowbench so looking into putting a bit more time into porting the head and getting it flow tested to see where it's at. Will also be ideal as he can then design a cam profile to suit the flow characteristics.

Also have a custom front facing plenum on the cards in the near future soon which should help get boost into the motor a lot quicker

Have been meaning to fit an oil cooler ever since going turbo, so finally picked a basic 15 row kit with -10AN lines/fittings on the cheap. Also picked up a billet Manon Racing Products oil filter/cooler sandwich plate, has a built in thermostat so will only pass oil through the cooler once temp reach 80degrees, should work well with the cold mornings we get here in NZ


Won't get a chance to touch the EF for a good couple of weeks as I'm off to Melbourne this weekend and have got All Ford Day down in Hamilton on the following weekend. August/September should be a busy and productive time though, hopefully should have a fresh motor ready for some abuse and a LVV certification so it's all legal by the time it's all done!

[kwikxr]

Haven't really done much with this at all recently, focus has been somewhat changed to my EL instead to get it looking and running to a standard I'm happy with.

Ended up taking it out for its first run in over 2 weeks today and caught up with a couple of mates. A mate of mine got a couple of snaps which turned out nicely



Gave it a wash last night so it was fairly clean, and with the EL still being fairly clean from the prior weekend's All Ford Day, I took them both down the road to the car park for a quick group photo. First time the 2 ladies have been parked up together for a quick snap, been waiting to do this for a while now lol


Hopefully things will slowly progress with the EF from here on, probably won't be pulling the motor as quick as I intended, but it'll get done eventually; I want more power

[the sam]

EF looks awesome as per usual mate

[kwikxr]

EF looks awesome as per usual mate

Cheers mate

Engine rebuild is going to be put off a little further. It's driving pretty decently at the moment apart from a little more blowby than normal, so I'll probably just keep hammering it and see how much life it has left in it. Since I've got the EL as a daily driver, I don't have to rely on this anymore, so I have no problem blowing it up

Not much has happened with this recently, so ended up finding some motivation to go work on it over the weekend...

Ripped out all the AC shit and replaced the compressor with a delete bracket and new steel pulley. Reduced about 12.5kg in the process which isn't too bad at all



Fitted up the MRP billet oil cooler sandwich plate and routed the oil lines



Then mounted the oil cooler


All done



The small cooler on the left of the trans cooler is going to hooked up to the power steering cooler pipe. Just need to cut the pipe, flare the ends and run some hose from the ends to the cooler and then hopefully mount the cooler in that position, or off to the side somewhere.

Haven't driven it yet, but hopefully it'll keep the oil temperature in a much better range. Should do for now until I can afford a nice option from Setrab

Also bought a new 1.5L catch can to replace the 0.5L can I had previously. This one has internal baffles and a much bigger filter so should help keep the oil trapped in the tank and let the rest of the vapour out a bit quicker.
[/quote]

[TUFEF]

looks good With a engine rebuild its going to push out some good numbers!

[kwikxr]

Cheers mate . Should be interesting to see what it can do once the exhaust is done and motor is rebuilt with a bit more boosted shoved in it. As long as it can do a decent powerskid, I'll be happy

[Rollin]

What compression does it have across the cylinders?

[kwikxr]

Forgot to write it down, but from memory, it was 220psi across 1,2,3 and 6. Cylinder 5 was a little lower at around 210 and cyl 4 was 185psi. That was a dry test, didn't have any oil left in the garage to do a wet test. Either way, I'm suspecting the rings are slowly starting to go

That was done a couple of months ago now. It has copped a bit of a thrashing everytime I've driven it since then, so I wouldn't be surprised if those figures are slightly lower now

[EBOOST]

Pretty good pressures imo.

[kwikxr]

It was better than I was expecting at first. When it blew the dipstick out at the drags I assumed the worst and thought it was over

Will keep going along with it for now and see how long it lasts, pretty keen to take it back to the drags once the coolers are all setup and the new catch can is fitted up.

Picked up a new alloy radiator today, Fenix branded 42mm core unit. Was tempted to buy a cheap 52mm one from Ebay AU, but was a little desperate to put something decent in there asap. That way I can make sure clearances are all okay with how far the trans and engine oil coolers are recessed at the moment.

[Bipolar]

Radiator is all fitted up, , new thermostat fitted, cooling system flushed out and filled with fresh Nulon coolant and water. Started it up tonight for the first time in about 4 weeks and bled the cooling system, made sure there was no leaks. All looking good so far.


Also mounted the power steering cooler. Couldn't fit it where I initially wanted to, not enough room to route the hoses neatly and it also obstructed more flow to the radiator, so mounted it off to the side.


Re-did the pipe work for the turbo intake and fitted a smaller K&N RF-1015 filter so I could angle it off to the side a bit more. Previous intake setup had the end of the pod filter rubbing on the bonnet which was a bit rough lol


This is where the engine bay is at the moment:


Need to make up a mount for the new catch can, and redo the breather lines and it'll be all good to go.


Got a few things in the pipeline for this (including getting it all LVV certified so it's all legal), just need to start working through them. Planning to do a cam swap back to my old N/A cam and retune to suit. Only just got confirmation that it was suitable for a turbo application, so it's going straight back in as it's a fair bit more aggressive than my current cam, and I really miss the idle I used to get with it, ha! Has .508 valve lift, 216/217deg duration @ 50thou, 114LSA so still pretty tame, but should be good for some better top end power. Once that is done, it'll be about time for a full 3" exhaust, and then it's going straight back to the drags to see what it can do.

[kwikxr]

Took it out for a drive over the weekend and got a couple photo's. So good to get back into a boosted 4L; standard NA 4L's are so shit lol

[ed40]

man your car looks awesome hey!

[kwikxr]

Thanks man! . Probably looks a lot better in photos than it does in person though haha

[Petrie]

Was nice seeing this plastered all over TI performances Facebook! Nice man, good work