I got the Cortina in mid 2002 when I was gliding up at Lochiel in S.A. One of the members wanted to sell this car, so I bought it. I was 14 at the time. From then on, I have been modifying it as quickly as money and time will allow. I have done some pretty cool stuff to my car and want to hear what other people with Cortinas have done to their cars. Below is a list of mods that I have done along with some future plans and some pictures.

To me, the Cortina six seems like a great first car and with a little money and mechanical ability they can be transformed into a real head turner.

Page 1: History of the car\Stock specs
Page 2: Current modifications
Page 3: Current projects
Page 4: Future modifications
Page 5: Performance stats (estimated)
Page 6: Pictures

26\10\04
Currently, the gearbox swap is in progress. So far a custom crossmember, tailshaft, clutch master and slave cylinder mountings,clutch fork, manual pedal box and speedo cable have been made, and the gearbox is in the car. Unfortunately, after first testing, the clutch was slipping due to it not fully engaging. This meant that the gearbox had to be pulled out again. I am currently in the process of extending the clutch fork and moving its pivot point to get more movement so that the clutch will fully engage.

I am also working on the interior at the moment. I have just bought new plush pile black carpet and am in the process of installing it. The headlining is also being replaced with a new one in grey velour trim. Along with this, window and door seals will be replaced. The dashboard is currently out of the vehicle and has been resprayed black and so has the crash pad on top of it.
New insulation is also being added and the vent system is being tidied up and resealed. The rear seat is being replaced and retrimmed to match the interior.
Hopefully, the car should be on the road again by the end of the year.

30\10\04

Its alive!!!!
During the week, I redid the clutch pivot point and it seems to work fine. I've finally got the car off ramps on Thursday night. It is the first time its worked properly in around 8 months. The clutch doesn't slip anymore. I also fixed the ignition so I don't have to hotwire the car to get it started. I played with the carby as well, installing a bigger secondary jet and secondary idle jet. The engine does not seem to die like it did if you flattened it before 2500rpm. When I was testing it, I had a couple of nasty incidents with the throttle sticking when the pedal was flat to the floor. In less than a second the engine had gone from idle to over 6000rpm. Quite scary when youre not expecting it. Lucky I didn't blow the engine. I also finished the speedo cable, shortened the clutch fork and refilled the gearbox with new fluid. Tomorrow, I plan to readjust the master cylinder/pedal setup so the pedal sits in line with the others. I want to get as much travel out of the clutch fork as possible because it starts to take up quite close to the floor at the moment. Then all I have to do is shorten the shifter and seal up the hole in the floor and the gearbox swap will finally be done.

10\12\04

The gearbox swap is complete. The pedal setup has been adjusted so the pedals sit properly and so that I get maximum travel out of the clutch. I also flattened out the flexiplate that bolts onto the bellhousing so it doesnt hit the crashbar anymore. The other day, I started to rebuild the distributer because I wanted to change the advance profile. On inspection, the mechanical advance mechanism was not working because it was sticking. After cleaning and relubricating, it worked again. I put in the original Cortina advance springs in the hope that the advance profile would match the camshaft more closely. After reassembling, I put the distributer back and cleaned up all the connections and the sparkplugs in the electrical system aswell. The car was a bit smoother in low rpm, but backfired through the carby badly at higher rpm. Advancing the timing seemed to help correct this. It is now running at about 10 degrees advance instead of the factory 6 degrees. While looking under the engine bay, I noticed fresh oil on the side of the block. I could not explain why it was there. I then started the engine and saw the oil was bubbling out from the head gasket. The head gasket was blown. This would explain why the oil light has been on recently due to the low oil pressure. This meant that the head needed to come off. Unfortunately it was raining the first day that I was able to do it. I waited until the next day and decided that I wouldn't wait any longer for good weather. I had the head 99% off only 1 hour after starting. Unfortunately, I spent the next 2 hours trying to work out why the head still wouldn't come off. Then, under some grime, I noticed another headbolt. I undid it and the head was off. 2 hours searching for that one bolt!!! I wasn't happy. Anyway, at least the head was off. I also noticed that the pistons weren't standard. They turned out to be flat top pistons, which raises the compression ratio of the engine, which helps give more horsepower. I gave the head a quick clean with some solvent. It was disgusting! All of the inside was caked in carbon at least 1-2mm thick. The valves were badly pitted and burned. After another half day, I had the head stripped down. I had removed all of the valves and springs using a drill press with a bit of upside down U shaped metal with a bolt hole the top of it. Push down on the drill press with a block of wood under the valve, remove the collets and it is out. Since I had previously port polished a Ford inline six head, I thought I would do the same to this one. I have spent about 7 hours port polishing the head using a dremel and flexible shaft. I have smoothed the comnbustion chambers right out and done the valve bowls. By blending these into the intake and exhaust runners, it really smoothes the flow of air through the head. Also I have polished up the exhaust runners aswell. All I have left to do is to bore out the intake log and to do the intake runners. Then all of the shaping will be done. Then I just have to polish up the surface so it is shiny and I'm done. That just leaves welding in the port divider and fixing a broken exhaust bolt hole and the head can go to the machinists. There, it is getting decked to 9.5:1 compression, 3 angle valve job and I am getting another set of valves fitted. After that, I need to fit new piston rings and a new oil pump and the engine will be back together. Hopefully, with these mods, it will raise engine power to around 130kw or 174 hp.

01\01\05

I have been going to the wreckers lately looking for parts. I came across a nice set of rims for the Cortina. They were 13x8 inch deep dish magnums. They looked so good!They were only 2 years old. I bought them for $100 without tyres( because they were blown i.e. big burnouts), which I thought was a really good price. I took them home and bolted one of them on because it had a bald tyre on it. It looked really bad on the car. The mag was way too fat and the tyre way too small. They looked like MINI wheels. I then realised that the offset of the rim was wrong and that I would have no hope of fitting them under the guards without serious modifications.I have some pictures of the Magnum rim on the car. It isn't bolted on, just sitting in the right place for a photo. It doesn't look too bad in the photo, but it looks lame in real life. I ended up taking the rims back and I swapped them for a set of 13x6.5 inch Hotwires. I got them with 205/60 profile tyres for an extra $75. One of the tyres turned out to be dead though, so I am going to go get another tyre for it. I still need mag wheel nuts , locknuts and centrecaps to put the wheels on. I will go and get them at the wreckers as soon as shops open again. The hotwires should polish up beautifully with a bit of work and will look really good on the car. There will be some photos of the wheels in the pictures section soon. I also managed to find a new back seat at the wreckers that had been reupholsered. I will get a rear seat cover and put it in soon.
Over the last few weeks I have finally had a chance to work on the interior of my car. I have stripped away all the old insulation and sound deadening and replaced it with new material. Then, I put in my new black carpet. Its all cut to size and it looks great. I just got a new headlining aswell. It is grey velour instead of cream and I got the visors retrimmed to match. I am in the process of instaling the headlining at the moment. First I have had to fix some rust around the rear window sill. I finished that tonight, it just needs repainting. Then I can put in the headlining. I am also using some alfoil to reflect heat coming through the roof. I am going to stick it on top of the insulation shiny side facing outwards. Should help keep the car a bit cooler. Today I put some of the interior back together at the front of the car to see what it would look like . I have a picture of what it looks like in the photos section. I should be able to finish off the headlining job tomorrow and then I will get on with putting the rest of my interior back together.
The head that I am port polishing has had all of the bowls cleaned up along with the combustion chambers and the exhaust runners reshaped and smoothed. The port divider has been braise welded in and all the welds have been smoothed out. I still need to do the intake runners and log intake, along with polishing the surfaces up to mirror finish(except intake runners and log). The head is probably two thirds done and is looking good. I will post some pictures of the head how it looks at the moment. There is still a heap of work left to do on the car, but I should have it on the road early this year for when I have my P plates to drive it.

07\01\05

Recently, I have been putting in my headlining and port polishing the head. I made up a flap wheel out of sandpaper and a piece of tube. I used this to smooth out the inside of the log intake and the intake runners. I removed a heap of casting flash in the intake. It should flow much better now. The log intake is finished, I just need to finish off the intake runners.
I started putting in the new headlining the other day. It is made of grey velour, which matches the seats and the rest of the interior. I have glued down almost all of the edges at the moment. I just need to do the corners and make the holes for the interior light and sunvisors. There are some shots of it in the pictures section. I should finish off the headlining today. The next job will be putting in the repainted dashboard.

26\01\05
The dashboard is almost in. The dash itself is in, there is just a couple of bits need to be fixed (switches etc). Also, parts of the interior have been sprayed in urethane black. The paint sticks really well, but looks a bit blue, so it will be resprayed. Today, the head will be finished. I have ported the whole head and 90% of it is polished aswell. The intake is done, intake runners, intake throats(where the valve goes), combustion chambers, exhaust throats and exhaust runners are all shaped. Everything is surface finished except the last 2 exhaust runners and throats and a couple of intake throats. I'll post pictures of both the dashboard and the head soon.

12\05\05
Yeah, I'm still here. I've spent several nights trying to update the site, but each time it didn't work. Anyway, since last post, I have pulled the engine out of the car. Did you know these things suck up some serious money when you rebuild them? I've put some cool parts into it like Crow 270 degree cam and heavy duty valve springs and Rollmaster adjustable timing gears and chain. Aside from that, the rest of the money has gone on bits like new bearings throughout, lifters, oil pump, gasket sets, rings etc. The running total is about $1000 on the bottom end. Quite expensive really. It was a heap of fun pulling the engine down, putting it back together takes way more time though. The block has been sprayed blue, and is going to the machine shop to have new cam bearings installed and to be zero decked. I wasted three days trying to fit the stupid cam bearings, finally worked out how, only to find that I had been given the wrong bearings. I've got some really weird size cam bearing, which is annoying because it has to be located interstate, which is taking ages. I guess its a pretty rare part. I have finally finished my work on the cylinder head. Its gonna cost me about 550 to get all the work done on it. Decked 9.5:1, new inlet and exhaust guides, unleaded seats, big valves,new retainers and collets,3 angle valve grind, back cut inlet valves. I am also getting the block zero decked and the new set of cam bearings professionally installed. As soon as I have the money my beast will be back on the road.

13\05\05
Aside from the engine, I have been working on the engine bay. Over the Easter long weekend, I stripped it out, rubbed it down and resprayed it. It is now nice and smooth and sprayed in jet black with a clearcoat over the top.It's a 2 pack urethane paint clear over base. It isn't perfect, but it's a whole lot better than what I had originally. For some reason, the paint didn't harden properly, which is a bit annoying, I may end up respraying it later.

11\06\05
I have posted some pictures of the engine bay respray. The paint has finally gone off which is good news. The cam bearing problem is finally solved. It turns out that the parts shop were giving me different model crossflow bearings, when my engine is a pre crossflow. I found this out when I asked for some help on FordSix.com in one of their forums. Within one day they had worked out the problem and told me the correct part number. The bearings were a prefect fit. Thanks to all the guys on FordSix.com for their help. Seven weeks later, I finally have the right bearings. I am not getting th block zero decked anymore, but just a skim taken off it. This is because excess deck height has saved me in the past. The engine saw close to 7000rpm, which is off the tacho, around 2000 rpm over the redline. I was toying with the idea of balancing my rods pistons. Then I found out that there was a high chance of cracking a piston if when removing the gudgeon pin, so I didn't go ahead with it. The block is now done and I will be reassembling the bottom end this weekend. The oversized valves have come in at the machine shop . They look pretty big. 1.74" intake and 1.49" exhaust valves. They should help the engine breathe a little better and it only cost $100 for the valves on top of the cost of a 3 angle valve grind. In my opinion, money well spent. The only thing is that the intake valves have a 5 thou oversized stem, which means the valve guide needs to be reamed, not replaced like I originally wanted. I have started rubbing down some of the engine bay components ready for respraying. I figured that there was no point putting dirty parts into a resprayed engine bay. The wiring loom is also being tidied up so it doesn't look so tacky. It was time to fix up some of the dodgy wiring jobs done over the last 30 odd years. After I put the wiring loom and brake booster back in, it's time to fix the clutch. I am puttin in an XB Falcon hydraulic clutch system in place of the Toyota one I had on it earlier. I wasn't happy with the way it took up too early off the floor and the fact that it was about three times heavier than the clutch in my dad's XB ute. The slave cylinder bolts straight on, but I need to get a new clutch fork because I butchered to old one. The pivot point also needs moving back to the stock position, which is no trouble because I modified it so that it could be flipped around. It is attached by two high tensile allen key bolts. The clutch pipe is going to be bent up by Power Brakes Austraila. It only costs $30 to bend it to my template, which saves lots of mucking around. I think that the reason the last clutch was so heavy was partly due to the clutch pipe having a smaller internal diameter than normal clutch piping. Then all that has to be done is attach the clutch master cylinder and the new clutch system will be done.Finally it feels like I am getting somewhere.

04\07\05
More work has been done on the engine. About three weeks ago, I put in the camshaft and crankshaft. The week after I put on the new timing chain and gears. When I took it out of the box, I was surprised to learn that it was a dual roller chain set. Should have much less slack in the chain than the one that I replaced. Yesterday, the pistons were put back into the block. I had already cleaned up the pistons, so I just had to put on the rings. I made up a ring compressor out of some aircraft aluminium and a clamp. I was really surprised how well it worked. Four out of six pistons went in really easily. Pistons four and five didn't work so well. It was extremely hard to move them up and down the bore. I had to use a breaker bar to get the crankshaft to turn after I put those in. It was easier to turn after a couple of revolutions. It's gonna take a good battery to get it started. The other thing that made it hard to turn was the new rear main seal. I cant turn the crank with the number 7 main bearing done up to torque. The oil pump is in, but needs to be primed and torqued up. That and the sump gasket and the bottom end will be back together.
The head is still at the machine shop, but should be back in a week or two.

23\07\05
The car is finally taking shape. I have been on holidays for the last two weeks and have got a heap done to it. In the first week, I started repainting parts for the engine bay. The brake booster, master cylinder, firewall panels, brackets, wiper washer pump and a heap of other parts all got a coat of shiny black enamel. I stripped some of the parts like the water pump pulley back to metal and they came out looking like brand new parts, no runs in the paint, scratches or anything.The rest of them just got taken back to primer and sanded smooth. All the parts got a coat of rust killer. I also got the head back form the machine shop. It loks really cool with the oversized valves and shiny metal.Then, I went to Power Brakes to get my custom clutch pipe made. I am going to try using a Toyota Master cylinder and a XB Falcon slave cylinder. All of the mounting brackets and connecting rods are already made for the Toyota master, so I am going to keep it. I had to undo all of the custom clutch stuff that I did before for the Toyota slave cylinder like mounting brackets and toss away my custom extended clutch fork and changed pivot point setup. I have bent the clutch pipe up so it sits under the lip on the firewall, so it cant be seen. The weather finally picked up near the end of the week, so the engine bay started getting put back together. For the first time in quite a few months, I have brakes and a clutch again. All of the brake pipes got polished up to remove the corrosion. The wiring loom is almost back in and it has been rebound to fix the dodgy repairs on it from before. There is only one problem that I havent figured out on it yet that will have to wait until the engine goes back in. More apinting was done in the second week. The extractors got stripped back to metal and resprayed silver again. Hopefully it will last a bit longer than last time. The crash bar, fan, harmonic balancer and transmission cover plate also got resprayed black, along with other brackets and things. All of this stuff got sprayed in jet black 2 pack urethane paint and undercoated with red metal primer. The head got cleaned up aswell and sprayed in the same blue as the block. I also cleaned up the rocker cover and sprayed that. It came out really nicely. The letters Power By Ford are going to be polished up later so they look like chrome against the black rocker cover and I will get a chrome breather cap. While the heater fan and wiper motor were out, they got cleaned up, regreased and oiled so they run properly. I've only got to respray the radiator and all the engine bay painting will be done. Should look pretty good when it gets put together. The windscreen also got put back in this week. I got it back in, but forgot to put the chrome strips back on the rubber, so I had to pull it out again. It was messy trying to get the chrome strips on while the windscreen rubber had black sealant on it. The windscreen eventually went in the next day. The shifter still needs to be done for the gearbox before I can drive it, but it is halfway there. It just needs to be welded together, the shaft has already been bent up. I also need to redrill and tap the number six exhaust bolt because the casting broke off. To fix it, a lump of braise weld was put in place and filed flat to match the exhaust face. Tomorrow, if the weather isn't too bad, the engine will be dropped back into the car. The head will be reinstalled and I will start bolting things back on to the engine. Hopefully, within a couple of weeks, the car will be driveable.

05\08\05
The engine is back in!!!!!!! There are some pictures of it just dropped in on page 6. I'm really happy with the way it looks. The head is torqued up and the rockers are adjusted. Almost all of the parts are back on including the repainted extractors and the Weber carby. Some pictures soon.I have rotated the completed engine by hand a few times and everything seems to be fine. I was worried at one point that valves were going to hit the pistons. Today, I got the clutch working. The system seems to work much better than the previous setup. The pedal is lighter and clutch fork travel is further. If all goes to plan, I should be able to start the engine up tomorrow. I'll take it for a little drive up the street. It wil be the first time it has moved in ten months. Although the engine and gearbox are almost done, the rest of the car still needs a bit of a tidy up to make it look respectable. I want to touch up the paint and give the car a polish before I start driving it, along with finishing the interior and probably put the mags on. It's only a matter of weeks.

07\08\05
More work done this weekend.On Saturday, I bled the brake system so I now have brakes again, which is good. Did some work on the shifter aswell. It is now finished. The cooling system is reassembled, it just needs to be filled with fluid. The accelerator cable it back in too. I now have all pedals back and a working shifter. All of the wires are back in along with vacuum pipes. I am still mucking around with the wiring. There are so many wires going to the coil and I cant remember which side they go onto. I'll hopefully figure it out during the week. Maybe next weekend will be when the engine finally starts.

13\08\05
Unfortunately didn't get the engine started today. Only got a few hours work in. I managed to get the instruments sitting in the car again and all connected up. I had to remove some metal from the steering column support because it was overhanging. I have polished up the VIN plates and filled up the cooling system with fluid. I removed the choke assembly from the carby too, it restricted airflow too much. The carby should flow better now. I need to plug the holes from the choke shaft at some point. There is now fuel in the car and the carby is primed ready to go. The wiper washer motor is back together and sitting in place. It needs to be bolted in, along with the cover panel next to it. The wiring for the starter motor has been worked out to include the starter relay solenoid. I am starting to get the electrics sorted out. I have headlights, indicators and brake lights back again and some accessories like the heater fan. Tomorrow I need to figure out the coil wiring and then I may be able to start the motor. If not, there is always next weekend.

17\08\05
The wiring is almost done. I now have enough electrics to start the motor. I have been trying all week to get it started but it just wont crank fast enough to run. The engine is really tight.
I think what is happening is that the starter is drawing all the current so the coil cant produce a good enough spark.Im going to regap the plugs from 1.0mm back to stock .85mm in the hope of more spark. Im also going to swap to a Bosch GT40 coil because im wondering if mine is defective. If all this fails, I'm going to run it down my street and try to roll start it. It should take the load off the starter and give enough power for the coil so I get a strong spark. If that doesnt start it then I'm back to the drawing board.

18\08\05
It runs!!!!!! After some adjustments to the timing, plug gap and swapping the coil, I managed to get the engine to take its first breaths of life. Man I'm happy. The reason I got it started was I managed to borrow a jump starter from the mechanic shop that I did my work experience at and that my friend used to work in. It was a long shot, but they were really nice about it and happy to lend it to me. There will definitely be a six pack going their way. I'm not out of the woods yet though. I still have my oil light on which really worries me. The engine is really noisy at the moment, but seems to turn much more freely than it did before. I was worried that the engine had seized at one point, but I can turn it easily with a spanner on the harmonic balancer bolt. The engine also seems to die after about one or two minutes of running time. I think this is a fuel supply issue. It should be able to be fixed by adjusting the fuel float on the carby. I have not let the engine idle, keeping it at around 2000rpm to break in the camshaft and wear in the motor. If the weather is ok on the weekend, I should be able to get the motor running a bit better.

22\08\05
It finally runs, properly this time. It seems I left out an important little 5\16 hex rod that goes between the distributor and the oil pump. I won't be living that one down anytime soon. My motor has not had any oil pressure. I am extremely lucky I didn't seize anything. After fixing that and adjusting the plugs, the lifter pre load and the timing, I finally got it running smoothly.... with oil this time. That was on Sunday. Other good news is the clutch works really well. The car finally moved under its own power today, for the first time since late last year. The clutch is smooth, progressive and doesn't take up quickly off the floor like the last one. The carby still needs a proper tune because it���s running rich at the moment. During the week, I'll play with the tuning and try to get it running better, then take it for its first drive!

25\08\05
I have been playing around with the tuning this week.I have swapped to a smaller main jet, and it runs better now. The timing has also been played with. There was a vacuum connection that I forgot before that I installed. It controls the primary transition jet fuel flow. It richened up the mixture quite a bit. With the vacuum connected, the jet really smooths out the low end of the rev range. I tried installing a larger secondary jet to correct a problem I was having. The carby was backfiring as soon as I hit the second barrel, killing power. The tuning still isn't right though. I put the passenger seat and seatbelts back in today so I could take it for a little drive up the street. I aslo bled the brake lines again because they were full of air and I wasn't getting much braking at all. The brakes feel much better now. The engine really lacks power at the moment. I think the carby is too rich and the distributer is not advanced enough. It looks like more tuning this weekend. The car just needs a general tidyup, a good tune and some rego, then I can start driving it.

01\09\05
Should be getting some rego in the next week or so. I am having trouble adjusting the valves at the moment. It seems like they are too tight and the valve is held open if I do them to factory specs. When I tried that, I got a weird knocking noise from the engine. It really scared me at first, but then it went away. It was like a slow knocking sound that seemed to go away when the engine heated up. I am pretty sure it is to do with the valvetrain, possibly a noisy lifter, hopefully nothing major. I am aiming to have the car ready to go to school in term 4, so at least I can drive it for a couple of weeks there. I am hoping to sling the car together so it is driveable for this weekend. That way, I can tune the carby properly and run the engine in a bit, plus I can't wait to drive it!

03\09\05
Yesterday, I finally got rego. I spent a few hours tidying up some loose ends and got it ready to take for a drive. I ran out of petrol on the way to the service station. Not the best start considering it was my first drive of the Cortina. It hasn't ran since I got my L and P plates. Anyway, after that little incident, I took it for a drive. It runs smooth, but is very badly tuned. It has less power that my stock motor and auto
transmission. I played with the carby a bit more today and it runs better. I can finally get some wheelspin, although the road was wet. Still fun though. I can get it to spin in second gear with a quick shift. Motor runs like a dog under load. It is too rich on the primary barrel and too lean on the secondary. Also, the distributer advance springs need swapping back to normal. I have more power on the primary barrel than on the secondary, but it is getting better. It still needs lots of tuning but it shows promise. I know what I'll be doing for the next few weeks.

06\09\05
I think I've got the carby tuning almost right. I pulled the sparkplugs out and they are a nice tan colour. It seems most of the problem was with the distributer. I swapped in a rebuilt 200ci distributer with a better advance curve and it made a big difference. The car doesn't die under acceleration like it used to, the backfiring through the carby is gone and it actually accelerates. Its so much fun to drive. Insane wheelspin in 1st, big chirpy and a turn or so of wheelspin into second, chirpy into third and a little one into fourth. Its still got more in it too. I'm going to try increasing the secondary jet size up one, more advance, and add an extra 1\8 turn to the rocker arm adjusters to get a bit more lift from the cam. That should get me some more power. I know I am supposed to be gentle on the motor, but it is just too much fun to drive. If all goes well, I might take it to the dragstrip before the end of the year and see what the car will do.

23\10\05
Its about time I got round to updating this! I've just had so much fun driving my car. Its not going too badly, apart from the fact that I slightly bent the rear axle when I was driving...carefully of course. I hit the rear left wheel on the gutter after going around a roundabout, didn't damage anything else. Another funny incident was to do with my windscreen wipers. I finally got them back in the car, but I left off the clip that held the wiper bar to the motor. I was driving with a friend down Lower North East road in the rain and suddenly I had no wipers! I managed to pull over without hitting anything which was good. I had to wait until the rain subsided and then drive home. Needless to say I got the wipers fixed properly after that. Since last post, I have put on some new carbon metallic brake pads and rebled the brake lines, along with fixing the handbrake(which I subsequently 'tested' in some wet weather). I also tried to put on the hotwires that I've had sitting in the shed for the last few months..only to find they didn't fit. I wasn't very happy. I should be getting some new mags in the next month or so. Soon I plan to do some suspension work because at the moment the handling is pretty poor. I'm loking at getting lowered King Springs all round with Monroe GT Gas shock absorbers and probably a Whiteline front swaybar. The suspension should be done by Christmas. Yesterday, I did some more work on the car. I fixed up the ignition barrel so it worked again and did some work on the headlining. Before when you were in the car your head just touched the roof because the headlining wasn't up properly. After rebending the support bar and removing the insulation that had fallen off the headlining was back up to proper height. I also put up the retrimmed sunvisors which look pretty cool. Next week, I'm taking my car down to Bill Towler Automotive to get dyno tuned. I'm getting the carby fully rejetted and the distributer recurved to suit my motor. I'm hoping this will get me some more power. I should have some dyno graphs to post in the next week. Anyone want to guess how much power I'll have? I haven't got the thermofan on, the cold air intake finished or the Mobil 1 and Roil put in yet, so there is still the possibility of more power. I'll have to go and get another run on the dyno after I've done those things, but I have to wait for the motor to run in a bit better first. If all goes to plan, I'll probably do a quarter mile run before the end of the year too.

28\10\05
The tuning has finally started! I took the car down to Bill Towler Automotive to get some tuning done. I left the car there overnight and got a phonecall back the next day. There was a sizeable list of stuff that I needed to fix. The distributer was not right for the car and it had mechanical problems(the phasing was out and it had a bit of play in it), the coil was the wrong type(a resistor coil instead of the 12v one I need), the idle and primary jets were too lean and the secondary jet was waaaayyy to rich(like 10.5:1 A/F). Anyway with all this stuff wrong the dyno graph wasn't exactly impressive. The car put out 85hp at the rear wheels. The dyno graph is on page 6. That all happened two days ago.
Yesterday, I went to the wreckers and got a points distributer, new points and ordered a Bosch GT40 12v coil. I started cleaning the distributer and the old coil, getting ready to swap the over.
Today , I got all the stuff in including a multispark unit, but had to use the stock coil as I'll be getting it tomorrow. I got it all together and it seems to run alot better. It revs out much easier and has quite a bit more power. It still needs proper tuning though. I am going to take it back to the shop next week to get the tuning finished.

18\11\05
School is over!!!! Time for some work on my car. I have three and a half months and around a grand to play with. Ah the good times are about to happen. Anyway, I never managed to get my car down to the dyno shop that week because it was the week before exams. It did however make an appearance at my schools muck up day which I was pretty proud of. I was hoping to have it running by then and I got there in the end(there was a nice black line in the carpark to prove it)! Now that exams are over, I should be able to get the car down to the workshop next week. I am hoping to have it tuned and tidy for the Year 12 Formal. Hopefully I'll get some good photos from there. I should have a dyno graph up in the next week or so. Between now and the Formal I want to repaint my black bonnet bulge as it has faded pretty badly. I am also going to add some silver stripes around the edge of it sort of like the XB Falcon GT bonnet paintouts. Also on the list of things to do is finish up my interior. If the weather is good I should have an opportunity to respray it this week. The rest of the thousand dollars will go towards my lowered suspension, a new brake master cylinder(hopefully an upgraded one if I can find it), a nice set of mags and tyres(14s if I can find them), remote central locking and maybe a nice sound system and steering wheel. This is probably more like $2000!! Main priorities are the suspension and brakes. Aside from that, I have had a serious look into turbocharging my car. I managed to track down a Mazda RX7 turbocharger that should bolt on nicely for about $150. With all the rest of the bits and pieces, I should be able to get the turbocharger on and working for about $500-$600 not including tuning. Before that happens though, I want to work out how to run LPG with my turbocharger. I am trying to figure out how to build a blow through system that will work with LPG. I already have a LPG tank, but I need the rest of the gear and to get it certified, which is more expensive than the turbo system. The LPG wil probably be around $1000. I plan to run a dedicated LPG system and later on get a custom grind cam to suit. Thats later though. Now its time to PARTY!

21\01\06
Its been a while since I wrote here. Theres been good news and bad news. Good news is that I finally got the motor tuned up and it went pretty well. I also got some Monroe GT Gas shock absorbers and lowered King Springs. The shock absorbers in the back were originals! It handles a bit better, but not much because the car just slides on the 20 year old tyres! New tyres and rims coming soon. I will try to get 14"s. The bad news is that I blew the motor. Well it wasn't quite that bad, but it was undriveable and sounded like I had marbles in the sump. Bottom end bearing has gone I think. It was probably due to detonation
because I had the vacuum advance hooked up wrongly. The advance was somehere about 22 degrees at idle, peaking at 42 or so at full advance. It caused a cracked piston that I've had for about 2 months. It ran really well after that was fixed, but unfortunately I only got to enjoy the motor and suspension for a couple of days before it blew. I am swapping in my dad's 250 pre crossflow and bolting all of the good stuff from my motor onto it. Power and torque will go up considerably, which should get me a to 100kw at the wheels once its all tuned up properly. Then I can finally head to the dragstrip and see what the Cortina can do!

09\03\06
Time to let you all know whats been going on. In February, I finally got dad's 250 in with the only mods being my Weber on a bored out intake, extractors and a thermofan. I broke off a bellhousing bolt hole lug block while tightening up the bolts for it. There seemed to be alignment issues between the block and bellhousing which were partly to blame for this. I took the car out on its first run with clutch issues and horrible noises coming from the clutch throwout bearing and the starter motor when it cranked. It was by far the fastest car I have even driven. An old tired 250 with just some basic mods in a Cortina really flew. It would have left my heavily worked 200 for dead and most likely beaten my dads EB falcon. The thing would light up the wheels in a straight line without even dropping the clutch. The car would load up on the suspension every time I put my foot down. Unfortunately that was the only good drive I ever had with that motor. It died the next day because the oil pickup bolts had worked their way loose and the gasket was letting air into the oiling system. Time to pull the motor out...again. This time though, I had a proper engine chain block to do it with. It was sooo much easier. Anyway, through someone on Fordsix.com, I managed to find someone selling a 250 precrossflow with a nice cam and some goodies and a 2v head. I managed to pick that up at just the right time. Sometimes things just work. Over the last few weeks, I have been putting in the rebuilt 250 bottom end and got all the nice bits like a new balancer, adjustable timing chain etc to go with it. It is all in now with my worked log head as the 2v wasn't ready to go yet. Tomorrow should be the lucky day where I get to fire up this new motor. I can't wait!

10\03\06
It's alive!!!! I got the last couple of bolts in the extractors today and aside from attaching a couple of pipes and cables and checking out the ignition, coolant, oil, fuel etc I was done. It fired up within about two turns of the crankshaft, which is unusual for me because something usually goes wrong. It ran really warm for the first half an hour of running, to the point of overheating. It got to the point of overheating twice while I was breaking in the camshaft. There are a couple of small noises coming from around the place, which I think are valvetrain and drivetrain related. The car drives really well. There is heaps of torque everywhere and it has no trouble at all spinning the wheels in first and second gear around a corner with only half throttle. So far it has only been up to three and a half thousand rpm in gear, but it feels like it wants to go way further. Some people with the 250 2v motors have no trouble taking them to six and a half grand. I need to put on 1500km before I can really drive it the way I want to, but I should have that done inside the next month or two. The carby jetting seems to be off quite a bit at the moment because I cannot get it to idle properly. The mixture screw is all the way out, meaning I need a larger primary jet. With a proper retune and distributer recurve, this motor should go really well and be what I originally wanted my 200ci to be like. I should get very close to 100kw at the wheels, which should make a very interesting car to drive.

06\05\06
Many things have happened since I last wrote here. The motor has several hundred kays on it now, but is off the road again. I got the electronic distributer recurved and did the necessary machining to get the distributor shaft to fit in properly without any play. It was recurved as a mechanical advance distributor. The Crow hardened distributer gear was also fitted. Aside from that, I have pulled apart and cleaned up a spare starter motor and fitted it so my car actually starts properly now because the starter on there died. I will probably swap to a later model EL falcon high torque starter motor later down the track. The thermofan has also been removed due to engine overheating. The fan did not flow enough air to keep the engine cool at idle, so I put the metal fan back on instead. I plan to put on twin 10 inch fans and mount them in front of the radiator instead of being bolted to it. The carby has also been replaced with a rebuilt model off an XF Falcon. After playing around with jets for a few weeks, the performance of the car suddenly died. It was backfiring through the carby and not making any power. I found out that I had the jets way too rich and my combustion chambers were filled with carbon. This caused the plugs to foul. I put all the jets back to stock and ran some carby\injector cleaner through the fuel system. I also replaced the sparkplugs. After this, the car was alive again. After a week of so, I decided to go get the carby tuned. A few days later, my car was sitting on the dyno rollers down at Boostin Oz in Salisbury. After advancing the timing to 15 degrees initial, enlarging the plug gap to 40 thou and removing the air cleaner, the car made peak power of 97.2 kilowatts at the rear wheels in shootout mode. This is about the same as a stock EF 4.0. I was disappointed that they didn't even touched my carby though, which was the whole reason I went to them. I was pretty happy to be getting decent power until my car started to make very bad noises at high rpm. It turned out to be chronic valve bounce. It turns out that the machine shop that did all of the head work on my motor never set up the valve heights or spring pressures. This explains why my motor has never ran right with this head on. The mystery is solved!! After taking one of my friends out for a cruise around, we pulled the head off the motor. It turns out the valve heights were out so much that there was about a 1.5mm gap between some of the valve heights. I am never going back to that machine shop again. So far, the head has been cleaned up and the chamber volumes checked. The volumes were out by up to 3cc between the largest and smallest volume chamber. Ideally, it should be less than 1cc of difference. I am going to get my new mechanic (the same one that degreed in the cam on my current motor) to sort out the head. I am going to get the chambers volume matched, the valve heights matched, spring pressures sorted out, inlet valves back cut and the head decked to make up for the large piston to deck clearance of this motor. It should run way better when this is all fixed up. With this done, the carby tuned, the ignition retimed and a better air cleaner, I should get to around 110 kilowatts at the wheels. While the head is off though, I am going to remove the log intake once and for all. I am in the process of designing an adaptor so that I can run the 250 2V intake manifold on my head. The log will be entirely ground off and mandrel bent tubes inserted into the intake runners. The tubes will be braised into the head. A 5mm thick plate will then be welded to the new intake pipes. The plate will have the same bolt pattern as the 2V manifold so that I can bolt it on. The tubes will have a large wall thickness to reduce the cross sectional area of the intake runner to increase air velocity and help mid range power. I will then modify the 2V manifold to suit the Weber two barrel carby that I am currently using. The carby will have to be modified so that it has synchronous barrel opening instead of the progressive opening that it has now. This will even out the fuel distribution in the manifold. The cold air intake will be completely redesigned to use a K and N flat panel filter instead of the round element currently being used. Using the new manifold should reduce bonnet clearance issues, allowing the design of a better cold air intake system. After this is all complete and the motor retuned it should be worth around another 20 kilowatts at the wheels, meaning that I should be around 120-130rwkw.

30\07\06
Things have changed a lot since last update. I attempted to get the 2V manifold to bolt on but Ford changed the spacings on the centre ports too much for it to work. While the car is off the road, it is being converted to LPG. To do this, I ended up getting another TD Cortina with LPG system already fitted. The car also came with a set of 13 inch Magnums and a sports steering wheel that I have taken off it. I am going to tidy this car up and sell it after I remove what I want. After trying a number of possible LPG combinations, I have settled on making up a 90 degree pipe coming off the bored out intake hole and facing it forwards like an EFI intake. That way, I can bolt on the throttle body and Impco 225 LPG mixer that I have straight on with no more bonnet clearance issues. It will be running the Impco L series convertor. I will also be able to put a K&N pod filter on the front of the LPG mixer, which will be the best air filter setup yet. The exhaust manifold bolt hole that broke off has been replaced and strengthened with braise welding and a crack in the intake manifold sealed. The crack formed due to earlier braise welding on the head. A metal plate was added over the cracked area to further strengthen it. Since I was originally just going to get it running on petrol, I modified the Redline adaptor that I had so it flowed perfectly smoothly into the intake manifold from the base of the carby, rather than the much poorer flowing setup that I had before. Unfortunately the only time I will be using this will be to drive the car down to the mechanic finishing off the LPG system. The head is currently down at the machine shop being fixed. After a phonecall to the machine shop that I originally went to, they offered to fix up the mistakes they had made that caused the engine to not run properly. They are recutting the valve seats so that the valve heights are identical, changing the valve springs and setting up the valvetrain geometry correctly, along with cleaning the head and facing the exhaust surface flat and retapping an exhaust bolt hole. After that, I am getting the combustion chamber volumes matched, the head shaved to achieve 9.7:1 compression and Teflon stem seals fitted to finish preparing the head for LPG.

14\09\06
I finally got the head back from the machine shop!!!! He stuffed me around for 8 weeks but I finally got it out of there. Very happy to see the last of him, I will never be going back there. I took it straight to another machine shop only to find out that it wasn't done properly. The valves were not all at the same height in the chamber, changing the combustion chamber volume, material was taken out unevenly from the side of the chamber to fit the exhaust seats, again changing the chamber volumes. Also, when the exhaust seats were fitted, the exhaust runner was not matched to the seat, leaving a very pronounced sharp edge for the exhaust gases to run into on the way out. All in all, why it will still work, it has not been done to the standards that I would have expected from a machine shop. Tomorrow I will be pulling the motor out of the car again. To get the compression ratio I need for LPG, I need to have the block zero decked. It will also be grouted. This is where a grout mixture is poured into the bottom of the water galleries, stiffening up the block considerably, allowing it to be much more stable at high rpms. A clutch spigot bearing is being put in too as I forgot it when I did the gearbox conversion. It was the reason my clutch shuddered so much, but this should fix it right up. The head is also being worked on. Teflon valve guides are being fitted, chambers volume matched and those exhaust runners are being cleaned up. It would be great to have it back in the next week or two for my holidays, but it all depends on how busy the machine shop is. As for the reat of the car, I have put on a set of 13 inch Magnums with 185s on the front and 205 width tyres on the back. While I would like bigger wheels, these still look great when all polished up. The black 3 spoke steering wheel that came off my other Cortina has been put on too. It looks way better than the original wheel and the driving position has improved. Lets just hope I get a chance to drive it sometime soon!
21\09\06
More progress is being made with the car. I have been lucky enough to pick up some work in Dave Adams Motor Shop, the same place where my motor is being repaired. Tomorrow I will be pulling the motor down so that the block can be machined. Once this is complete, the block will be grouted, honed and then reassembled. Next week, work will start on the head. Once this is done, the motor can be reinstalled and I will have a car again.
15\12\06
Its Alive(again)!!! After many problems that include fitting twin 10" thermofans, dropping my brand new motor into my painted up engine bay due to a bolt snapping(not happy) and having to pull the gearbox off for the fiftieth time because of a bad clutch, I got it running about ten days ago on petrol. The car drove pretty well, with a heap of torque and the motor idling well and running smoothly, although to me it felt down on power. It was still quite happy to do 2nd gear burnouts though! After putting 100km on the clock,I took it for a run down to Victor Harbor with one of my friends, sitting on about 100-110 with a couple of runs up to higher speeds(not done by me because I'm still on P plates!) The motor was great for cruising as it was just sitting on its torque peak(3000rpm in 4th) the whole way. This put another 250km on the odometer, although I did encounter a problem during the journey which was the occurrence of a tapping noise from the engine. Naturally I was not happy, so I went to the mechanic to find out that I probably have a sticky lifter and that the noise is valve train related. I will hopefully be getting it fixed next week.
This Monday, my car was booked in for the fitment of my LPG system. It comprises of a large capacity APA tank, Impco L series convertor, Impco 225 mixer, custom 90 degree 2.25 inch mandrel bent adaptor and a Hitachi throttle body of around 60-65mm diameter that came off a 2.4 litre Ford Corsair(I have posted pictures of the new setup on page six). The fuel tank has been removed to allow room for the fitment of a dual exhaust system. The car has been set up for dedicated LPG. The filling point has been fitted in the standard fuel filler position, so the only exterior signs of the LPG installation are the red diamonds on the front and rear number plates. The installation was completed today, so I got my first drive with the new system this afternoon. At this point, I have driven the motor very carefully, as the knocking noise is still present and because it is a new motor. I am yet to move the accelarator pedal over half way. Throttle response is far superior to running on petrol and overall power appears to have increased considerably. There are still more improvements to be made as the timing has not been advanced yet, or the distributor recurved to take advantage of the new fuel, but so far, I am very happy.

26\01\07
Much has been happening with the car lately. The knocking noise in the motor didn't go away when I changed the lifters, but did subside when I removed number 6 sparkplug lead. This meant that either a bearing or piston was damaged on this cylinder. After pulling the motor out(again! only took 4 hours to get the motor out of the car and disassembled), it turned out that number 6 piston was damaged. At some point, the motor has got too hot, causing the piston to expand and hit the cylinder wall. Material was shaved off the piston in the process. When the piston returned to normal temperature, it was then too small, causing it to rattle, which was the noise I was hearing. It ended up taking .02" off the diameter of the piston. Luckily, a replacement piston of the same type was found, reducing the cost of the damage. The motor is currently at the engine rebuilders being honed and reassembled. While the motor is out, I figured it would be a good idea to switch to the 5 speed gearbox that I always wanted. The trip to Victor Harbor highlighted the need for the overdriven 5th gear. This will keep the engine speed down and hopefully impove ride comfort and fuel economy. The gearbox has now been found, minus the shifter housing. As soon as I get the housing and clean and paint the gearbox, it can be installed. The trip also showed that the tailshaft was out of balance, so this problem has been fixed too. While the whole driveline is out, I decided to look into getting a replacement clutch assembly since the Exedy heavy duty pressure plate and 225mm driven plate are showing signs of wear. A 240mm Supra clutch plate will now be used, along with a slightly uprated Ford pressure plate. I tried to use an Xtreme heavy duty pressure plate, but ran into problems due to the gearbox conversion. The setup also required a custom throwout bearing setup, which was manufactured by Adelaide Clutch Services. Hopefully within the next couple of weeks, the motor and gearbox will be back in the car so I can go driving again...more carefully this time.

12\08\09

Wow, I can't believe its been two and a half years since I've updated this! From the last post, the Celica 5 speed was installed shortly after. Since then the bottom end has been rebuilt using the longer 200ci conrods, custom ACL race series pistons and a Crow 63651 cam with 282 degrees advertised duration and 0.45" lift. An EF Falcon harmonic balancer pulley was fitted, along with an electric water pump and EA Falcon alternator. The bottom end was also balanced and completely rebuild by the late Dave Adams, sadly this was one of his last motors he built before he passed away in late 2007. The flywheel is also from an E series manual Falcon so as to ulilise the 5 bolt flywheel and larger diameter pressure plate. The clutch was again supplied by Australian Clutch Services, using a 255mm heavy duty pressure plate and 250mm organic clutch disc. Recently I began doing a 2v head conversion, which involved a complete head rebuild as well as some other custom fabrication. New to the pictures section is the flow sheet for the new 2v head, compared to the previous log head. Over the next few weeks I plan to get things back up to date on here so there will be more info and pictures soon!

ORIGINAL CAR INFORMATION
MODEL: Ford TC Cortina XL
4 door sedan
200ci Inline Six Cylinder Engine
Low Compression Head
Manufactured July, 1973
Body No. CK55NR50010C
Head No. 72DA 6049 AA
Colour: Calypso Green Metallic
Kerb Weght: 1143kg or 2515 pounds.

OWNER: Brett
Registered in South Australia, Australia

FACTORY OPTIONS:
Bone Vinyl Roof
Twin Round Headlights
3 Speed Manual Transmission with floor mounted shifter.
(Converted to 1984 Borg Warner 35 3 speed Auto (floor mount) by previous owner.)

OTHER:
Cream/Brown Interior
13-inch wheels with chrome hubcaps and wheel surroundings.
185/75/13 Skyway Radial Tyres