1966 Ford Fairlane Feral-lane devaluation

mjlogan said:

In reply to MadScientistMatt :

Acworth

You're not far! I'm in Marietta and have a friend with a similar Comet build in Canton. We could meet up!

I'm in Lawrenceville, other side of Atlanta.

So about a month ago I got back on this thing hard (dec 2024).  

First thing I got busy on was getting the rear down bars knocked out on the cage

My girlfriend has been getting pretty good with the MIG so I let her weld some non critical stuff like the cage to frame tie ins

The lower rear fenders needed some rust repair and some more support so I obliged.  Note the welds around the cage down bar... I'm going to have to let her do more of the welding!

Now I had to float a 15 gal fuel cell and a battery in the gaping hole that was once the trunk area

Came up with some sort of sub structure out of 1" .083 HREW.  Tried to keep stuff out of the way for exhaust and maybe add a swaybar later.  You can also see where spliced in a piece of 1.75 for a crossmember that is tabbed for shocks

Added a little hoop below the tank.  Welded some tabs to the tank so that it would bolt to the sub structure.  I kina like this better than straps

Painted and everything installed.  Shocks are som Konis that my buddy retired off his road race fox body.  Tank is a 15 gal unit from Rhodes race cars with a 450lph pump.  You can see where I was messing around with the stock explorer swaybar.  It might get used later depending on if this car takes a direction on intended use.  You'll also note the 2" lowering blocks, still playing with stance but I think it looks about right

Rear is done for now.  It'll get paneled or something... some day... maybe

Dec 28 I had 3 buddies over, 2 of which were previous caretakers of the fairlane.  It was a great day and we got a lot done.  Its awesome when you get a group of capable guys together.  One of the guys was just not liking the factory core support, so I handled him a sawzall and it got deleted.

Engine in.  The AJE sn95 crossmember already had SBF mounts so that was too easy.  $250 chinese stainless headers and a holley EFI manifold

T5 trans.  Fabbed the crossmember that same day.  It may get tweaked and reinforced a little but it put things where they need to be.  You'll notice more factory sheetmetal disappearing too

Front shot that shows the core support delete.  You can see some threaded inserts we welded in on the upper inner fenders and some 1.75 flag tubes that were bolted to inserts we welded in to the framerail caps.  These will come in handy later (well this weekend actually if all goes well) when the new core support is built

This post was all one day's work with 3 friends.  What an awesome day

With the momentum from that day I mounted the pedal assembly and brake/clutch master.  Pedal assembly from wilwood was suprisingly affordable and exactly what I needed.  Also started mocking up some rough but free Corbeau seats

7/8 bore brake master, 3/4 clutch master

After playing around with some seat mounting and setting the pinion angle the inevitable had to happen for the car to be as low as I wanted it to.  I really should have done this on day 1, would have made things a lot easier

Started by tying the subframe connectors together and adding outriggers to tab for seat mounts

Trans tunnel starting to take shape.  And yeah thats a splice up by the firewall.  Was tricky following enough of firewall to weld to and have the asymmetric shape needed for exhaust clearance on the passenger side and pedal clearance for the driver

These were tough for me too.  Tried to follow the seat profile as close as possible to give driveshaft/exh clearance

And the finished product.  Man I am not looking forward to paneling this

And with seats bolted in

That brings us current.  Thanks for sticking with me so far and sorry for abbreviating a lot of the work that has been done.

Right now I'm working on intercooler/rad/turbo locations.  Here's what I've currently got

White cardboard is the intercooler space claimer.  I bought one that should fit sweet right below the filler panel

Laying the radiator foward like this will help packaging quite a bit.  Anyone see issues with this?  I'll make some sort of scoop ducting and probably a cutout in the factory bumper for airflow.  

Nice work and progress! I don't think the radiator mounting angle is any issue.

That radiator angle will help when you vent it thru the hood

gumby said:

That radiator angle will help when you vent it thru the hood

Are you implying there might be a hole in the hood?

someones paying attention haha 

gumby said:

That radiator angle will help when you vent it thru the hood

That was exactly what I was thinking!

I for one am not disappointed in the drive train in the least.  That 302 will make some good noises.

Btw I too share your interest in the 3.7 Ford engine.  I agree it isn't the right thing for this project, but it is the oft-overlooked powertrain that Ford got right.  S197 Mustangs came with that engine and a manual trans at one point and their performance was actually pretty good.  I've always thought that would make an interesting powertrain for a kit car.

Loweguy5 said:

I for one am not disappointed in the drive train in the least.  That 302 will make some good noises.

I'm not disappointed in the drivetrain either, but I am concerned for it. There will be enough atmosphere and fuel to do some damage to the 302 and the t5. My hope is lack of traction should keep stuff alive. 245 cooper cobras should slip before T5 parts scatter 

mjlogan said:

Loweguy5 said:

I for one am not disappointed in the drive train in the least.  That 302 will make some good noises.

I'm not disappointed in the drivetrain either, but I am concerned for it. There will be enough atmosphere and fuel to do some damage to the 302 and the t5. My hope is lack of traction should keep stuff alive. 245 cooper cobras should slip before T5 parts scatter 

Yeah, keeping a stock style drivetrain should save you from any excess fabrication...

I'm curious how to make a T-5 live in this situation as well.  A TKX or the Richmond Gear TKX copy might be one long term solution?

Hot side needs a little fine tuning. Might mess with the 3" bend coming off the pass side header to get the turbo a little more level but this is the basic idea

You're in Acworth, nice I'm in Woodstock.
Love this Build! My friend linked me to it as I'm doing something similar. Mine is a 67 Comet "The Vomit Comet" as my friends call it. Same chassis as the Fairlane. I'm a big fan of S-Chassis's so I decided to use all S14 suspension. I am going to attempt to use the rear IRS as well. I'm also using a SBF for now. I have one so it's cheaper. Keep up the awesome work. 

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, this looks like a lot of fun. Following.

Thanks also for linking to the Ranchero build. I missed it the first time around. Our little Mazda 5 has the 2.3 MZR (Duratec) and I have become a fan.

Looking great! Just reclock the housings.

CcMoss33 said:

You're in Acworth, nice I'm in Woodstock.
Love this Build! My friend linked me to it as I'm doing something similar. Mine is a 67 Comet "The Vomit Comet" as my friends call it. Same chassis as the Fairlane. I'm a big fan of S-Chassis's so I decided to use all S14 suspension. I am going to attempt to use the rear IRS as well. I'm also using a SBF for now. I have one so it's cheaper. Keep up the awesome work. 

That sounds really cool! I'd love to check it out one day. Bomb this thread with some pics! 

DarkMonohue said:

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, this looks like a lot of fun. Following.

Thanks also for linking to the Ranchero build. I missed it the first time around. Our little Mazda 5 has the 2.3 MZR (Duratec) and I have become a fan.

It's all about fun, I'm not spending money just to be miserable. That's why I do rust repair with tube. It's a balance doing work you're not ashamed of yet not take things too seriously 

I love those mzr's, I bought an 08 Mazda 3 to commute in solely because of how much I liked that engine in the ranchero 

Love this build, nice work. I will be following.