When we first received this car, in its original condition with Springtime Yellow paint and black leather pony interior, the car drove well but the owner wanted a great car that would handle, brake and have enough power to have a lot of fun with.
To achieve this we set out to make the car safe and reliable. By replacing the suspension bushes with neoprene bushes and new ball joints, fitting front and rear swaybars, removing steering play and rebuilding the toploader shifter the car was a pleasure to drive. After tuning with the current set up of the original 289 2 barrel, the car went from 150rwhp to 170rwhp.
The owner was pleased with the car but was still chasing more power, as we do. The owner looked into performance packages as well as crate engines. After weighing up pricing and performance he decided on importing his own crate engine from Roush in the U.S. With the decision made we proceeded on removing the old 289 windsor engine ready for the new 327 cube Roush engine. While the engine was out we 2bremoved the steering box and components and fitted RRS rack-and-pinion power steering and power brake booster.
Because of the power increase we needed a new clutch set up with higher clamping force. Customising our own hydraulic clutch set-up to make the clutch as easy on the foot as possible. With more power comes more heat so we changed the standard radiator with a custom 4 core aluminium radiator from PWR and 3000cfm electric fan.
For strong reliable ignition we chose MSD 6AL and MSD distributor. The diff centre was changed to a LSD 3.25:1 centre. With the new engine in we added a torque strap to save the engine mounts and fitted factory Shelby diff tramp rods to keep the drive train under control. To finish the car off we fitted 17x8 Mustang replica GT wheels, rally pack gauges and factory headrests.
At last trip to Victoria the car was getting 22-25 miles to the gallon, depending on the right foot.
Final Specs- Engine : Roush 327ci windsor, polished finish Gearbox: Toploader Diff: Ford 8" 3.25:1 ratio, Shelby tramp rods
Steering and suspension: RRS rack-and-pinion power steering, neoprene bushes.
Power: Original 150rwhp. Roush 327 made 310rwhp Torque: 370 ft.lbs The owner is extremely happy with the car, but a build of this magnitude we expected good results but the car over exceeded any expections. We are extremely happy with the final result.
