Work Continues

The engine bay has been painted the same red as the body, looks pretty good in high glossy duco rather than the ugly matt (and oil stained) black finish. The wiring has been rerun under the guards so it is hidden from view.


New shocks were fitted and the springs shortened to give a better ride and a muscle car stance. Truth is, it did look a bit like a missile launcher with the tail down and nose up.

The extractors have been modded to line up the pipes with the exhaust ports in the aluminium heads. The odd thing is that the exhaust ports are not the same as the original windsor heads and do not line up. So George has modified the extractor pipes by welding material in place and then ground out the pipes to line up more closely. In his words, this is not the best arrangement but in view of his guess of $2000 (which is probably a fair enough price but outside my budget) to build a set of custom made pipes, it will have to do for now.

The exhaust down the left side caused another challenge when the new AOD went in. The pipes had to be cut, the collector removed and a new set of pipes made which turned away from the tranny. More on that later.


The main components are in place, now it is just the "fiddly bits" left to do before we get the tranny adjusted, new exhaust system made/fitted and fire up the motor.

Retiring the 289

Well, here's the old donk!
A sweet genuine old school 289 ci Windsor. I was told by an American dude we met at a drag race meet in Alice Springs, that these old blocks are great for stroking because they are stronger.

Hmmm my new stroker is a '93 block . . . hope he is wrong. LOL

austang is getting a new heart (and lungs, liver and other organs)

We put the car into the hands of George May of Racecraft in Kunda Park. He was straight about the prices and didn't want me to write him a blank cheque like the other crowd (who shall remain nameless)!

The motor was pulled out, C4 and Mustang diff all removed without ceremony. Now they are all living in my garage, while I think about what to do with them.

In their place is a great new 3.5:1 9" diff, AOD tranny and of course the awesome 347 from the Engine Factory.

Today I bought a new B&M Megashifter to give some racing control over the AOD.

Geo suggested I get the engine bay painted the same colour as the body and have all the wiring hidden. I agreed, so he has filled all the holes, taken out the piece of crap alarm installed by a mob insisted on by Shannons Insurance. You should have seen the quality of the connections they made!

On top of it, I scored a set of HID lights for it, so we will now be able to see at night!

Oh yeah, also have bought an RSS rack and pinion power steering set up, to replace the hybrid falcon/mustang set up. It looks like this . . .

The 347 is here!

Last September I ordered a roller cam 302, stroked to a 347ci with lots of go fast stuff on it, rated at 450 horsepower. The people charged with freighting it over stuffed up the transport and it has arrived 2 months late.

The idea is to build up a street machine, with the hot donk, a hard AOD trnsmission and a 9" diff with a locker and 3.55 gears. Should be a sweet beast! Now the engine has arrived but I am yet to order the rest of it, because I was worried the motor had been stolen or I had been ripped off.

Well it has arrived, the thing looks amazing and now I have to pull my finger out and get the rest of the gear organised.
Here's the video the engine builder made for me

Australia Day Buderim 2010

Brilliant blue skies launched a scorcher of an Australia Day on Buderim, nice and early we prepared for the big parade down the main drag.

Shano donned the Kookaburra suit to play the part of Buddee, the mascot of the Buderim Web Site. Riding in the back with a cartoon speech bubble style sign which told the crowd who/what he was . . . he waved to the cheering flag wavers as the Mustang revved and seared on the boiling bitumen.

Ambient temperature was in the mid thirties, a home made ice vest kept the mascot's internal character cool(ish), the poor 289 was sitting quite high in the guage, but kept steady.