Features Falcons done right?

I picked this up.... Not sure which way im going with it but for now its getting new quarters and becoming a weekend driver... My g/f enjoys it so i better keep it for a while.

 

Good luck with the new ride! What engine is in it?


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It's got the oh so powerful 144 in it but most likely going to put in a sbf, then it's either gasser or mustang suspension for a pure street car. Not worried about nice paint or a fancy interior, just some mustang buckets and a cage for a decent safe daily driver.


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I like gassers, but I think the mustang II front end is the way to go for a street car that you want to drive a lot. I know a few people with gasser street cars, and they love them, but I personally wouldn't want that for a street car. Anyway you choose to go can't be wrong as long as you're having fun!


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• Wood beds in AU Rancheros?
• Back bumperettes!
• And an uncracked original steering wheel?

 

Modified stock suspension works just fine, and is way cheaper. Ride us smooth, and I can corner at alarming rate.

 

Yea its either be obnoxious or fast... I had an o/t car with a 496 and i think i got the fast out of my system... I will stick with the transplant for now then decide once i get that settled in, nothing like seeing all these cool cars figuring out what you want and trying to be unique.

 

I agree that there is a ton of stuff you can do with the front suspension on early falcons, but I needed, wanted more room for big headers. The injected 289 in my car is not the original plan, I have another engine that I've been building that needs a larger header than 1 5/8" plus, I like the fact that I can change the rack in a matter of minutes, and go from a standard ratio, to a quick ratio, manual, or power.


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You can be both obnoxious and fast with a gasser!
And a straight axle sure wont corner with a MII front setup, but they don't suffer from driveability issues. I've put over 10,000 miles on my Austin gasser in the last couple years, and that's mainly just dry days driving. I expect to do the same with my Falcon gasser now that it's on the road.

 

One of these days if I live long enough I will have one.Its a shame to be over 60 and never had one should be against the Law

 

I apologize if this has been posted before....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynfBePupc2c&feature=endscreen

Do you think the late model in the other lane even knew what he was racing against?


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If he didn't he should have after the burnout. Looked like the Camaro fell asleep at the light.

 

If you search the name you can find more videos of the car, some in the garage showing of the engine.

It's not quite HAMB friendly under the hood but he seems to have kept everything as low key as possible. No forced induction or nitrous that I noticed.

It's running a single downdraft two barrel weber which is odd to me. It's an IDF which I'm used to seeing mounted with one venturi per cylinder. For some reason I was under the impression they couldn't be properly tuned otherwise.


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I think if I were going "low key" the hilborn style scoop wouldn't be part of that equation.

 

Mostly low key?

I guess what I mean is it seems any changes made have been in the "this is safer or faster" category.

I'm just jealous of his I-6 that'll lift the front wheels, ok?


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Says the man with a straight axle, BBC, and pie crust slicks, Hahahaha!

 

This guy was flying through the streets at the Watkins Glen vintage fest last weekend. I wish i could have got a better picture...

 

You're welcome, gald they worked out for you!

This is one of those deals that always turns into a bit of a shitstorm, but I'm going to jump in anyway. I am going to start a separate post on this ....

That car is pretty well known in the vintage road race scene. It is a pretty nice piece!

 

This will probably start some arguments, but I have spent a lot of time looking into this and think I have a pretty good handle on it.
Guys have been doing Mustang II conversions for quite a number of years now, with varying degrees of success. But there have also been problems associated with it.
The number one problem is the Falcon/Mustang platform was never designed to carry the suspension loads through the lower stamped unibody frame rails. By design these cars were made to spread the load through the upper shock towers and inner fenders into the cowl. Braces were made that support the top of the shock tower to the center of the cowl. These did two things, they gave the tower support back to the cowl, and they also helped with chassis twist by triangulating the the towers and cowl.
When you cut the towers out and eliminate the braces you are now asking the lower frame rail to carry all the loads - something they were never designed to do.
This is a big enough problem that convertibles have been known to crack the windshield over things as everyday as railroad crossings. It can also be seen in cars that are driven hard in things like the fender gaps changing.
Now lots of guys are going to chime in and call BS saying that they have 10 million miles with an MII and they have never had a problem. And the truth is, in many cars that are more of a cruiser the problem may never become an issue.
Now here is where my study and research got kind of interesting ~ and Ironic. I sold one of my cars with an MII conversion to an Engineer at Ford. And he told me an interesting story about a group of guys at Ford that play with early Mustangs and Falcons. They had seen this issue with twisting and movement on a few cars and with some knowledge of engineering and the ability to do drawings, and computers with the power to due finite element type analysis, they could simulate what was happening. This confirmed what was believed by some of us as to what was happening. To cure it for those who still wanted to run MII type suspensions, especially on convertibles or cars that were road raced with sticky tires, we looked at a series of tubular braces that started on the frame rail and came up to the firewall with a 90° plate at the intersection of the firewall and inner fender to spread that load. Then a secondary pair of braces were developed to triangulate those bars to the center of the cowl/firewall like the factory braces. Simulated in the computer again, this seems to have strengthened the front clip back to higher than factory levels.
Now comes the sixty four thousand dollar question, Is this Really necessary? The answer isn't easy, as it depends. Is the car just a cruiser and not going to be abused or raced? Is it fortunate enough to live in an area where major potholes are not a problem? In those cases, on non-convertible cars, then No it is not really necessary. My own Ranchero has done many thousand miles with an MII conversion and no signs of any problems.

So what if you do want to auto cross one? Or do track days and have some sticky tires. In these case I would say you are going to have issues at some point. And this is another area where some are going to disagree, but I would NOT put an MII in a car destined for this kind of life! Like I say, I have put a lot of research into this, so for my own 63 Convert, I came to the conclusion that I was better off working with the factory design and modifying it to suit. The Mustang II design, while compact, stout and well supported by the aftermarket, is NOT a design that was optimized for handling. It has a fairly short spindle and not a very good camber curve. The original Falcon design has a terrible camber curve, lousy brakes, crappy lower control arm retention, and sloppy steering. But it does have a decent spindle and is also well supported by the aftermarket. Large tube headers can be a bitch, and bigger motors are a down right pain in the ass. But modifying the stock towers can alleviate these issues without losing the integrity of strength. The camber curve was figure out by some guy named Carroll Shelby a long time ago, and has since been further refined. The sloppy steering is easy to fix with bolt in Rack & Pinion set up and better control arms are available from a few sources. The only other issue is the tension rods and stronger ones with spherical bearing and caster adjustment are also available.

Here's where I ended up. Global West tubular upper A-Arms with Del-A-Lum bushings, Global West Springs, Koni Adjustable shocks, Modified stock lower arms (Spherical bearings on the pivot and boxed in lower paltes), Adjustable Tension Rods with a spherical bearings, and a custom Rack & Pinion using Woodward Steering control valve and TCP body. I also got ird of the outer tie rod ends for heim joints with adjustment shims for setting up the Zero Bump Steer. This front end works 100 times better than any MII I had ever done before.

 

I have a '63 that is pretty stock.

 

How about if it has frame connectors, and a cage? My 63 1/2 2 door hard top has 2 X 3" .120" wall frame connectors that pass through the floor, and a 10 point chrome moly cage. I thought about passing through the firewall, but the chassis guy said that it wasn't necessary to pass tech.


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Yep! Mine's definitely NOT low key! LOL

 

Well, over the years I have been very careful to post pictures of my wagon in the "Doing Falcons Right" thread as it's always been a project. Today, I regret to announce, it's done... Went to lunch with some friends today and came back to find that it was hit by a drunk driver at 1:28 this afternoon. I'm afraid it's wounds are mortal.

This marks the second time I have had a car hit and destroyed in front of my home in less than six months. Another hit and run. Both events by people at the very exclusive high rise condo tower at the end of my street, The Regency. This one actually made the lower story parking garage, where after a bit of investigation with the grounds staff we found a half a P.T. Cruiser.

 

Man that just plain SUCKS............

Did you find the driver too?

 

The Police are with her right now....

 

Damn, Chip.

I started to post "death by carbon monoxide" , but I figured that would be counter productive and just plain wrong.

 

Dude? WTF? Bummer man....sucks!

Tried to fold that poor car in half?!

 

I'm in deep shock right now. I have a friend coming over that is in the Insurance biz to help me maximize the claim on this deal. Fortunately it wasn't my '62 coupe that I have had for the last thirty years, and I do have the Ranchero that started this whole deal again a couple of years ago in the back yard to quickly resurrect.

 

Need Louvers that's terrible.

I've enjoyed watching your wagon come together and hoped that someday my Comet wagon project would be as nice. I'm very sorry to see your post.

 

Sorry to see it banged up like that.