JBA Faclon - ideas for engine?

[v8pete]

Hi folks- I'm toying with the idea of doing a rebuild of my late fathers JBA Falcon+2. It's been off the road now for about 8 years, ever since I realised that it was not really practical to keep it on the road along with the daily eurobox & build a Cobra build at the same time! Anyway, for the first time in a while I've found myself thinking about doing a tear-down and rebuild in the near future. Whilst I'd like to see it back on the road for obvoius personal reasons, I would also like it to be fairly 'interesting' from a performance/handling point of view - which would also make the effort involved all the more wothrwhile. This Falcon is one of the early Cortina based cars, currently fitted with a 2.1 Pinto and badly set-up Weber '40s; it went reasonably well in its day, but never really set the world alight. It has the 4-speed 'box, which I remember being an awfully tight fit, and the car used to 'eat' rear suspension bushes for some reason also!

As I have a young family these days, spending a huge amount of time in the garage doing vast amounts of fabrication is not very practical - however, I would like to fit a decent fuel-injected modern engine & 5-speed 'box. I don't really want to get in to refabricating engine mounts etc., so I'd like to know what would give best performance with the least of fitting/fabricating hassles?

I guess that there are now plenty of Brake options on the market these days, eg. the huge range Willwood stuff, so upgrading the Mk III Cortina brages wouldn't be a problem.

One other funny that I seem to remember (haven't actually looked at it in years) but I recall that the Propshaft angle was a little severe on this car?

I'm assuming that the rear axle can take a fair amount of torque, and that other than fitting hardened bushings there is not a huge amount that would need doing to the location arrangements. I would of course take a fresh look at the spring rates & dampers etc.

Thanks for any advice or inspiration !

Pete.

[grahambell]

Fitting Zetecs in place of old Pintos and Crossflows is quite popular these days. Bolt pattern or back of engine is same as Pinto so Ford Type-9 5-speed and bellhousing from Sierra or Capri will fit.

You do need to change some water pipework plus the inlet plenum for RWD fit, but all the parts are available from people like Retro Ford. Inlet and exhaust are opposite sides to Pinto as well. Ashley Performance Exhausts do 4 branch for RWD fit Zetecs in Escorts though don't know if it would fit the Falcon.

Cortina back axle should be up to it, and fitting urethane bushes instead of those bloody stupid void ones fitted as standard should both improve handling and save you having to replace them every year.

[steve_d]

My Falcon needed new bushes every nine months or so and that was using soild bushes not the void ones. Got to the point where I kept a set of swing arms ready fitted with new bushes so the swap was less time consuming.

The Rover V8 engine goes in there nicely. Seen Falcons pulling double axle caravans.

If you have the four speed box you will need to fabricate new 'box mounts if you go to the sierra five speed box. As a new build you had to specify which box you were going to use so they could build the chassis accordingly.

Steve

[v8pete]

Thanks for the input guys - I've had a slight re-think on this. I've done a very quick measure up, & I recon that a Rover T16 turbo would fit without too many problems! So happens that I have a fairly decent one sat in my 800 Vitesse that I was planning to scrap, so although it'll mean some extra playing around with mounts, fitting etc. it sure would be a fun option, and at potentially very low financial cost! From memory, the LT77 box will bolt straight on with the old SD1 2 litre bellhousing !!


Pete.