And a WRX front bar to hide the intercooler :) I will get it repainted after the car is done, and put the Ford badge back in the slot in the bonnet to break up the gaping hole...also some black painted very fine mesh to cover up the holes where the spotlights should be.
Below are some pictures taken during and after fitting all the turbo gear - 42lb/hr injectors, bosch 044 fuel pump, 600x300x75 intercooler with 3" mandrel bent plumbing (piping was painted red to match the car after checking it fit correctly) plumback BOV, Rajay turbo on a 6BOOST manifold, 3" exhaust, relocated battery, Haltech E6X etc...
Once all that was up and running, I took it to get tuned and it made 271rwhp on 6.2psi boost, on an engine totally stock from rocker cover bolts to sump plug, save a set of crow valvesprings and hardened colletts.
After a while I decided to do a serpentine belt conversion to get rid of the pov 3-belt factory setup. The conversion took a day and apart from increased reliability, I also now had a 110 amp alternator to keep vehicle system voltage at a healthy 14V no matter what electrical load I put on the system.
Before it got tuned it started to get a little hard to pick gears, as the original 210,000km old gearbox was getting fairly worn, so I bought another second hand box and slotted it in...once it was tuned it only took 6 days to consume 3rd gear in the 'new' T5, while doing a medium to quick 2-3 shift...so back in with the original box and off to powercruise!
After powercruise (and entering the burnouts, drifting, heads-up drag racing and every powercruise session bar one) the box was almost unusable - second and 4th had to be selected very slowly or very quickly to avoid a crunch - so it was off to the wreckers for another...which lived until I killed the car at QR a few months later, after totally stuffing up my line through a couple of corners and stoving it into the observation deck in the middle of the track...currently the car is sitting in the garage (pics to come) and I'm hunting for another E-series to take its place - either an EB or an ED XR6 for sure!
I has been an absolute ripper of a car...despite the absolute CAINING it got at Queensland Raceway, Morgan Park Raceway, Archerfield International Raceway, Willowbank International Raceway, a trip to Cairns and general use and abuse over the 110,000km I owned it, it only ever required one tow, from my house to work so I could replace the blown gearbox.
This really was one car that was Built Ford Tough.
R.I.P L44124
