Four doors are mostly parts cars anyways, go ahead and cut it up before you ruin a good two door, will be a good learning experience. Then when you get ready for a real car, find a two door and use that experience to make it better. P.S. Sell the Chevy and buy a old Explorer with the 5.0 V8 in it. It will have the basic stuff you need, just change it over to a carb, Duraspark ignition, and a front sump pan and oil pickup and you'll be ahead in the ball game. Plus you'll get the good 8.8" rear that can be narrowed to fit the Falcon. You're gonna need it, because that puny 7.5" Falcon rear will shell out the gear teeth like shucking corn off the cob....
This, but it might be worse. Depending on the year, it might be a 6-3/4" rear end! If he's going g***er-style, with radiused wheel openings (and cut doors), the rear from an Explorer might not need to be narrowed. There are a couple here that run an un-narrowed Explorer 8.8. The Explorer route is the way I would go. A whole vehicle will yield a ton of useful parts.
I’m glad to hear that you have someone to turn to for help. If you use the Speedway front end kit don’t just weld the spring brackets to the subframe. Make some doubler plates from 1/8” or 3/16” plate or angle, weld them to the subframe and weld the brackets to the doublers. This will spread the load out and give you more and better weld area. Go with the 8 point cage and tie the front down tubes into the cage. I think you will find that the opening left by the removal of the shock tower is too far forward for the headers. Weld in patches and cut new holes farther back or your headers will be in the way of the tires when you turn. I was going to put a 390 FE and a toploader 4 spd in my ‘60 Falcon but I kept it as a daily driver with a 200 cu in Mustang six and built a ‘40 Willys pickup instead. Wish I had my old Falcon now.
Here is @1971BB427 thread but most photos are missing. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/63-falcon-and-39-chev-g***ers.810807/
Somewhat off topic but years ago a buddy had a 67/68 mustang GT coupe, factory 390. We ran that car hard, blew up 4 390 engines in one summer, it was during the gas crisis so replacements were all over for $50 or less. Finally got tired of swapping motors so we stepped up to a 428 out of a wrecked police car, had it rebuilt to cobra jet specs with a hotter cam. When we went to swap the 428 in we found the frame cracked at the steering box.
My 1st car at 15 was a '61 Falcon that my uncle said if I could get that thing home from where it died I could have it. Beat to death 144 with 3 speed. Factory buckets and console. I got it home. Dad and I shoehorned a '57 312 Y block into it kinda going by a magazine article about putting same in a '60 Comet. Notched out the spring towers to the springs, etc. Lots of engine goodies, 4.11 9 inch rear. Broke the 9 inch. Went to 4.27 Dana 44. Ran that thing every week at the drags and drove it to school and work every day and plenty of back road drag races. Drove it for several years until the front end started spreading apart. Only car to ever beat me was my Dad's 340 4 speed Dart *******. He would wave at me after he went into 3rd gear and slip on past. I eventually stuck the 312 in a '56 Vicky. It did not have a happy ending. My friend had a '60 Falcon with '65 mustang 289 and automatic. He drove that problem free for years. Yes, the 6 cylinder cars need bigger rear end and bigger brakes when putting in a V8 but if your not beating it to death they will live. Killer engine will kill the car but as a daily driver I would do it. Look at all the AV8 cas out there that don't have boxed frames and such that really shouldn't survive, but they do. My avatar is one, being built in 1958. Your mileage may vary! Dave
Heres my 2 cents . Since you are seemingly just starting out, take some of these wisdoms bestowed upon you to make a good decision on your build. Start off with things that you know were meant to work within your build constraints. . Things can get very frustrating ,very fast, for those that are lacking experience and or financial means to overcome them. Engine ,trans, rear ends, radiators, .exhaust ,brackets etc can and will get very frustrating unless you have a wise old person that can right your wrongs. Every thing is available at your local parts store to get your Hot Rod going, I have been building performance Fords for the last 45 years, and still get a little pissed on occasion when things dont go the way they should. Tradional Hot Rods were built using what parts they had, or what friends they had for help. Good Luck going forward!
You seem to have a decent understanding of what needs to happen. things can morph and change , why not stuff a sbf under the hood with the related trans and rear, get stiffer and taller springs to raise the front end ( not ALL g***ers where solid axle cars ) Put sub frame connectors and torque boxes etc where you can to stiffen the car. And have fun!!!!! As you get more experience and want. More out of the car build snd add to it. nothing worse then tearing into a car snd find out it’s more then you can accomplish space , time, or cash wise . Post some pics of the car !!!!!
I’ve searched high and low for information about varying unibody structures and have found nothing about it..
Yup but it requires ditching the entire widow maker front suspension/steering and braking system...cut the shock towers right out and tie the 2 subframes together...narrow a rear end and use a pair of junk front fenders ww's as rear wheel wells (so you can get more than 5"s of rubber back there) however if the floor/frames are as bad as most of the ones I had you'd be better off building a full tube frame and sticking your body on it....
Sounds to me like he's actually trying to build a 60s style car....so the late model Explorer stuff really has no place in this build.
The only thing late model would be the 8.8" rear. Engine would be basically the same as 60's 289 after you change out the intake and ignition systems. You would have the dependability of a roller cam, the oil pan and timing covers all interchange with the older stuff.
Yes definitely use the bar that runs under the block on the v8 cars and the monte carlo bar on the upper shock towers to stiffen that frame up as well as sub connectors
yup, so he should make some effort to do it right. There are plenty of old rear ends laying around that can be made to work...it will take some effort, of course.
I want you to succeed. This project is an ambitious one and considering the "known" parameters...it looks like it's doomed to fail. I don't want that for you. I want you to be successful and have fun. Consider these points. What's the status of the Falcon? Is it a complete car? Is it a running car? Is it a rust bucket? What do have to work with? Of lesser importance, what is the status of this engine? Is this a good engine ready to go on a stand in the garage or is it some random "350" laying on the dirt floor of a barn? For a more educated or more qualified opinion, it would help us to see exactly what you are working with. I'm going to shoot straight.... The above comment shows a lot of arrogance and ignorance. Arrogance and ignorance is a bad combination. What happens is a person gets "humbled" and they "learn", the hard way. Most of the time this is not fun and it's costly. In extreme cases learning these lessons can cause injury. It's a big deal.....a really big deal. The width of the 350 can cause issues with the shock towers of the car as mentioned but there is another major issue.....Transmissions.... GM automatics are much larger than say a C4. Most of the time the floor and firewall has to tweaked, cut out and modified. This may be very problematic for a uni body car like a Falcon. You say this is a non issue because you are removing the shock towers. Then you turn around and ask what mounts to use. You can use any SBC mounts but the big deal is.....What are you going to mount them too? What are you going to mount the "springs" too? Where this is going is a complete ch***is and using a Falcon body shell. In the real world are you competent enough, driven enough, skilled enough, equipped enough, and financed enough for this level of fabrication? Honestly, most people are not. Life has taught me this.... When you get knee deep stuff you are on your own. The only people I can rely on in this life is my blood kin, My Dad and my brother. I don't pull that card on my car projects. My car projects are just that...My Car Projects. What I'm saying is....You are own your own kid. When the rubber hits the road, it's going to be you and you alone. You may get some advice but that's it. It's up to you to educate yourself. My Uncle built a '60 Falcon. I don't know what all he did but he did use a lot of 5 lug Futura, Fairlane and Mustang stuff. It made a pretty decent little car. He worked on it for.......years, many years. He had this to say.... " I could have built anything considering the time money and labor I have in this car. Despite what I have done, It's still a 1960 Falcon. No matter what I do to it, and have done to it, It's still a 1960 Falcon. For the same effort, the same time and money, It could be a 1957 Chevrolet. If I had it to do over again, I would have chose a more desirable car, because in the end...It's all the same money." One of the big keys in success is choosing realistic projects. Start small and build up on your accomplishments. This adds to your library of experience. Everybody has to start somewhere. Roll around...Scoot....Crawl...Stand...Step/bust your ***....Walk....Run....Win races. The Falcon.... If this is a decent solid little car. How about loving it. They can be nice little cars and you can learn a lot. If it's a solid platform.... You can rebuild the stock brakes. Get the six running. Get the wiring in order. Get the inside nice. Hop up the little six. Consider another six, a 200 and hop it up. There's plenty of things you can do to have a cool little Falcon. Getting a 60 year old car running and driving is a major accomplishment. Build on things you can accomplish rather than a "Pie in the Sky" G***er project. The g***er 60s thing...... If you are going this deep with ch***is work, straight axles, 350s, side steer, leaf springs on and and on.... Heck! You might as well build a Model A.
Truth be told I dont think hes 15, But I have been wrong at least one other time. When I was that age, I was trying to install headers and 4v carbs not a complete race car cobbled up with items never intended to fit with each other. I will help out if I can, Hell I might even have some parts that might move this forward best of luck!
I only ever saw one written reference to it, it was in a dealer brochure for the '64 Comet. Mercury was touting that for '64 they were upgrading to the stiffer V8 shell across the Comet line for better NVH performance, included was a 'ghost' line drawing of the shell outlining all the places thicker metal was used. When I personally discovered that drawing was true was when I was rebuilding/upgrading the front suspension on my '64 Comet hardtop. I had the car on 4 jackstands in the driveway with the entire front suspension off in preparation of the install. My knucklehead oldest high-school-age son had purchased a POS '64 Chev Biscayne 4-dr without our knowledge with dreams of a lowrider and it arrived with various issues but the biggy was bad brakes. I told him the car wasn't to even move until the brakes were fixed, that's how bad they were. I still don't know how they managed to drive it to our home. Well, you may have guessed what happened. He got home from school one afternoon while my wife and I were at work and decided he needed to wash his new purchase, so he moved it into the driveway behind my Comet... no brakes. He hit the Comet and knocked it off the stands, but it didn't go all the way to the ground. The jackstands slipped off the framerails onto the floors and came up through them. Ripped a big hole in the p***enger front floor/trans tunnel, dented the drivers side, and ripped two big holes in the rear floor under the seat. He was sure I was going to kill him when I got home... I told him no, he was going to have to pay for the repair panels. Stupidity has a price... The kid semi-lucked out. A guy I knew had bought a '64 Falcon 4-dr for parts and told me I could cut whatever I needed out of that for free. The p***enger side floor was the same, it turned out the rear floor was Comet-specific because of the longer wheelbase. Ended up cutting that out of a wrecked '65 Comet. But when cutting the Falcon (a six-cylinder car), everything I cut through was the same 22 gage; floor, frame rail, trans crossmember, rocker. Not the case on the Comet. The floor metal was the same gage, everything else was 14 gage. There's only two easily-seen visible differences. The V8 bodies had torque boxes (also in 14 gage) at each end of the rockers connecting the frame rails and rockers, and the V8 shock towers had three layers of reinforcement around the attachment points for the upper control arms (with one layer being almost 1/4" thick), the six car only had one. I will note that the six-cylinder Rancheros (and probably wagons?) also had torque boxes in the rear only but I never checked the metal gage on those. Now if you get under these cars and really look, the flange thickness where these pieces attach to the floor are visibly thicker on the V8 bodies. Ford did layer additional metal reinforcement over the framerails forward of the firewall on the six bodies for strength. There's a ****py pic of the six shock tower here... Automotive History: Ford’s “Falcon Platform” – From Falcon To Versailles In 18 Different Wheelbase Length/Track Width Variations | Curbside Cl***ic about halfway down, compare that to this... This is a later Mustang, but very similar to the first-gen V8 Falcon/Comet. Note the thick flange 'wings' sticking out on each side. Ford actually did a bit of overkill here on the Falcon, the first Mustang V8 bodies weren't quite this stout. I've never seen a '63-65 V8 Falcon/Comet shock tower cracked, that can't be said about the later cars. And as I noted, only the Falcon convertible got the V8 shell with the six, for better rigidity. It also had additional bracing under the front seat which raised the floor, those had specific seats and consoles that only fit the 'vert...
Mixed emotions on this one. My 65 Futura has a poorly swapped 289. It’s next on my project list. My high school buddy’s older buddy did a complete 8”, 289, 4 speed 64 Mustang to 60 Falcon four door swap while he was still in high school in about 1967. On the other hand, a guy from work did the 327/Muncie swap on a 61 Falcon back in about 1964 or 65, so I can’t argue that it isn’t traditional. Don’t know how difficult the swap was, but he came to be one of the leading Diesel tractor pull forces in that sport, and campaigned a SCCA trans am Camaro for many years, so I guess a little fabrication wouldn’t daunt him.
All bs aside, I've seen too many failed/stalled engine swap projects in vehicles that took a certain amount of fabricating to accomplish. The SBF in a Falcon has been done times over and the knowledge is out there and here to walk the young man through it. The job can pretty well be done with a basic hand tool set, engine hoist and some jack stands or blocks to hold the car up. No torch, no welder, not cutting on spring towers and no hunting down that elusive oil pan to get things to work.
I have cut up several Falcons, all to far gone to be saved, in both 6-cylinder and V8 flavors. Also, my friend Mark's dad worked at the San Jose (Milpitas) Ford ***embly plant, where my Falcon was made, when my Falcon was made, on the shift that made my Falcon. He remained there for many more years. He has confirmed the metal thickness and layer differences, and changes over the years. 1960 is not even the same as 1961. The front subframe rails are shorter and thinner. I had to plate mine, and notch the bench seat reinforcement rails to put the subframe connectors in. They are touching the floor. This would not be the case on a 1961. That is the reason why most manufacturers say 1961-whenever. Even the doors are thinner. My car came to me with just over 100,000 miles on it (do***ented). The inner door shells were cracked by the vent window divider, from pulling the doors shut. I fixed and reinforced that. If you look under mine now you will find torque boxes, subframe connectors, subframe plates, a floor reinforcement intended for a T-56 in a Mustang, a stout transmission crossmember, shock tower reinforcements, boxed export braces, a welded-in heavy plate K-member with front mounts for tubular A-arms. My outer shock towers (gravel guards, and yes, they are structural) are present, but cut and welded up 2", with 3/8" bump stops. My whole tunnel from firewall to trunk bulkhead is now 18ga, built to take a '60 Thunderbird console. All the bodywork that I did was MIG and TIG brazed with silicon bronze filler, so I could keep the input temperatures lower. When I finish up with the air conditioning install, it will get a custom Momte Carlo bar (shock tower brace).
1)Consider a fabricated full front frame. 2)Consider a straight axle kit to get proper steering geometry if you dont have experience making one. 3) rear suspension and rear end needs major overhaul as well as sheetmetal work to fit a tire to hook it up. Not trying to talk you out of it. A lot of work, a lot of expense. Consider the size of the project. Small block ford, AOD, 8.8 rear would make an awesome driver in that falcon. If you want a race car, sometimes buying one thats had the fab work done is money and time way ahead.
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