Updated 10/24/05
Ross and I acquired this car, at her urging, in June of 2002 at the All Ford Nationals in Carlisle, PA. It had originally been registered in June of 1962, so I like to think that we were its 40th birthday present. The body color was beautiful, although the paint job itself a bit shoddy. The interior was nice and it had a rebuilt 200cid engine - a nice upgrade from the stock 170. I knew the beauty was largely skin deep: The suspension was pretty far gone, and I figured a few more things would be, too. The goal was to make a reliable weekend driver, not a restoration. This would mean upgrades in all aspects of performance and reliability. I knew I had my work cut out for me and years later the saga continues, but I'm pleased with the results so far. The idea is to maximize the performance within the spirit of what this car is: a classy boulevard cruiser.
Of all the cars I've owned or regularly serviced, this one has been by far the easiest to work on. After owning nothing but imports, I have a new appreciation for classic American steel. The design is simple, the bolts are big and beefy, and everything is easy to get to. It also has responded remarkably well to every modification I have made. This is most likely because those Ford engineers erred on the side of cheap and reliable, leaving a large margin for improvement in all aspects of design and implementation.
Brakes
The brakes on this machine were dismal: Manual four wheel drums
with a single reservoir master cylinder. It took both feet to stop.
I upgraded to power brakes thanks to a kit available from Todd Fields.
The installation of this kit is detailed at joesfalcon.com.
What a difference! I had been planning an upgrade to disk brakes
and have acquired the typical Granada setup
. I bought a complete four-lug kit from a retailer. I will be installing it shortly.
The boosted drums are quite good performers, but I've been driving the
car more and more and they really are not appropriate for modern highway use.
I'm putting in an 8-inch rear soon, too, so I'll finally be rebuilding the rear brakes.
Chances are that I'll perform an upgrade there, too. The most likely approach will
be to use Brake in a Box from Praise Dyno
. That brake combo should prove a significant upgrade for this car.Suspension
The suspension on this car was shot. I think it was the full
forty years old. The first thing I did was replace the rear springs,
bushing and shocks. It only took a few hours and made a huge difference
in driving confidence. I used stock springs and bushings, but upgraded
the shocks to KYB Gas-Adjust, a decent performance shock at a great price.
There is a bit of torque steer and it definitley jumps around on even the slightest bump.
I'm looking into heavy duty shackles and different ways to stabilize the front eye bushing as well.
The front was more of a challenge. The entire suspension and most of the steering had to go. Furthermore, modifications were in order if the handling was to be adequate for the 21st century. I installed a complete rebuild kit, again using rubber bushings rather than polyurethane. I'd definetly consider the poly bushings for a racer or street rod, but for a daily driver the rubber seemed fine. I also ordered a 1" swaybar to replace the bird's scrawny factory bar and of course the KYB shocks. This rebuild alone would have been an exceptional improvement over stock, but I decided that the so called Shelby mod was essential. The Shelby mod, a.k.a. Shelby Drop and Shelby Arm Relocation is a modification to the front suspension geometry first broadly applied by Carol Shelby to his racing Mustangs and Falcons and presumably also applied to the factory Shelby GT350 and GT 500. It consists simply of moving the mounting point of the upper suspension arm down 1" and rearward 1/8". The effect is twofold: First, it lowers the front end slightly. Second, it increases camber gain on compression. Both these things are very good for handling. In addition I had the car aligned with .5 degrees negative camber, 1.5 degrees caster and 1/16" toe-in; fairly aggresive specifications. For more on the Shelby mod, see joesfalcon.com.
My conclusion: Impressive! Responsiveness, cornering traction, straight line stability, all on a par with any modern car with a solid rear axle. Still not great, but much better. The steering is still a little loose on center and really s l o w. I'm considering a rack & pinion upgrade such as steeroids , although they have yet to confirm compatibility with the Falcon.
Future suspension work may include chopping the fron springs to lower about 1", and the aforementioned rear spring mods. If the rear shackle and bushing upgrades don't do the trick, I'll likely install a panhard bar (and YES, they do work with leaf springs).
Chassis
The first thing I did was add a "belly bar " while I was
doing the suspension rebuild. It ties the lower suspension points together.
Did it help? Well, the car feels more solid. Since I rebuilt
the suspension at the same time it's hard to tell how much is the brace
and how much is everything else. Nevertheless, I couldn't
imagine designing a convertible or any kind of performance car without a
brace between the left and right lower suspension. This does it and
only cost $35 plus some paint.
My second modification in this area was to have some subframe connectors
fabricated and welded in. That was a HUGE improvement and I consider it a must
for any of these old unibody cars. Especially convertibles. Handling is much
improved and most of my squeaks and rattles have dissapeared.
Next I'll
add the Monte Carlo bar that ties the upper shock tower together. Engine
The ford 200cid inline six is a much maligned engine in performance
circles. Stock, it only makes about 100hp, give or take 10.
But, it also makes 190ft-lbs of torque which is pretty impressive.
The big problem with this engine is the head with the integral intake
manifold. It's inherently wheezy, but it can be improved through clever
machining or even replaced with an Australian or Argentine head with separate
intake manifold. There were also several versions of this head made. Some
with big logs and some with small. Our car, of course, had the small
one. There were a lot of other choke points on this engine besides
the head, so I've focused my inital attentions on bolt on modifications.
Exhaust
All my engine projects begin with a header and this was no exception. I installed a dual outlet header from Cliffords and mated this to a 2 & 1/4 inch exhaust with a fairly quiet turbo muffler. Alone this was a worthwhile improvement that made the engine run better, stronger, and cooler. Still, I knew such a vast engineering improvement over the stock manifold and exhaust should be producing more power.
Ignition
Next I installed a brand new Duraspark distributor and module for an '79 Fairmont along with an Accel high power coil and some new Bosch wires. Then I advanced the timing up around 12 degrees or so. This improved starting and also gave me a bit more power and smoothness, but still not enough. Also, the Accel coil died on my after only a couple of months. I replaced it with an MSD Blaster 2.
IntakeEventually my single barrel Autolite 1101 started dying on me. Thank goodness! I finally got motivated to install the Weber 38 two barrel that had been sitting on my shelf for three months. It only took about three hours to install and calibrate. I used a cheap adapter from Langdon's Stovebolt, modified with some grinding, and actually bent the stock throttle lever to connect to the carb. THIS really woke up the engine. Major improvements across the powerband. The electric choke is nice, too
The Weber 38 DGAS is a synchronous two barrel carburetor. I strongly recommend it over the 32/36 DGEV progressive. The DGEV is an economy carb and while it offers an improvement in performance over the stock carb, its potential is limited. I've used it on three different cars and always been dissapointed. Yes, the DGEV will run better and make a little more power than an Autolite 1100, but the DGAS is just a better carburetor. Many worry that this carb will be too much for their 200s, that it will bog at low revs and offer poor economy. Nothing could be further from the truth. The throttles on this carb are only 38mm. That's pretty small for a 200cid engine. I ran this carb on an MGB, 110cid. Worked fine. The venturis are rather small and so the intake velocity is actually quite high. Thus, off idle performance is excellent, and it only gets better from there. Do it.
Head
In my never ending quest for more performance I have aquired an additional head. This is an "m" casting, meaning it is a '69 head with a large intake manifold. The intake port where the carb mounts is 1.75" as compared to my car's 1.5", and the volume of the log is greater, too. presumably I could bolt this head straight on and see big performance gains. Instead, I've decided to port and polish the exhaust ports and clean up all the port pockets, have the intake valves back cut, and install hardened exhaust seats with larger valves. I'm also going to cut off the stock intake port where the carb mounts and have the log milled and drilled and an adapter plate made to mount the Weber directly to it. The head will be milled for a target compresion ratio of about 9.2:1. That should be considerably higher than stock. Finally, I'll install the head with 1.6:1 rocker arms. I expect this final modification to be the one that really maximizes the potential of this otherwise stock engine, although I know I'll wish I had installed a hotter camshaft. We shall see...
DRIVETRAIN
This car was equipped with the Ford-o-Matic two speed automatic transmission. Performance wise it is a hunk of junk. I eventually replaced it with a C-4 three speed automatic from a '77 Maverick. This did miracles for my acceleration, and it's just much smoother. Now the rear end is dying, so I've ordered an 8" pumpkin with a Trac-Lok differential. The 3.50 gearing was quite low for the C-4, so the my new rear has a 3.25 final drive. I'm still looking for an 8" housing for this, and if I don't turn one up soon, I'll end up getting one from Currie. Expensive, but correct.
INTERIOR
The interior in this car is in nice shape. I've put in some new floormats and door panels and I've added a Custom Autosound stereo with a 10cd changer, some decent speakers, and a Kenwood amp. I've also embarked on the process of installing shoulder belts. I'll add a page on that procedure once I'm finished.
The stock guages are useless. I mean, I can tell if I have gas, that I'm travelling between 40 and 50 miles and hour and that my engine is somewhere between hot and cold, but that's about it. I'm trying to resist the temptation to install a custom instrument panel, but at the very least I'll need to add temp and oil pressure gauges and a tachometer. Haven't figured out how or where yet, but I will.
That's it for now. I'll be updating this site as I make further modifications. Check back for more pictures and ideas.
James