TurboWagoon

Hey mate. Wagon is still going well. I feel victim to the blocked turbo oil feed line so my turbo died earlier this year. I should have changed the line when I changed the engines so it's really my fault cause it is a well known issue that I could have avoided. Apart from that the car is still going strong and I still love driving it. Are you looking to do a turbo wagon as well?

Oh, the only other thing with the driveline that I came across recently was that utes never came out with a centre bump stop like the wagons did. To be honest I didn't even notice when I was removing the diff/tailshaft from the ute and installing it into the wagon. But I recently had a bit of an incident where my rear CV bolts came a little loose so when I got under the car to fix that problem I noticed that the bump stop above the diff had copped a few hits. I knew this cause the bump stop was filthy before the conversion but afterwards, the bump stop was black and had heaps of scores in it and a few cracks. I knew that when I lowered the car the suspension travel was never going to be brilliant, so I just assumed that my car was just hitting the bump stops so often because it was so low. But I think that the povo pack m78 diffs that come standard on the wagons are physically a fair bit smaller in size than the m86 LSD that came with the ute. So im guessing that the middle bump stop had more travel before it hit on the top of the old (small) diff than it did on the new (larger) diff. As you can see in the below image, the LSD only had about 30mm travel before hitting the bump stop, but the bump stops that are mounted to the chassis and hit the diff axles still had about 60-70mm travel before they hit anything. So I took the centre bump stop out, went for a spirited drive and....well....yeah, it rides waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better. I've actually got rear suspension travel again and it's way comfier than it was. Oh and once again, I tried for ages to find out what bump stop configuration was fitted to each model but came up empty handed. After a few days of trawling the net and finding sweet FA, I went back to my trusty online repair manual, which, well you guessed it.....confirmed my suspicions. The utes never had a centre bump stop. I think there's some kind of lesson to be learnt here...... https://cardiagn.com/03-05-ford-falcon-ba-rear-suspension-beam-axle/ Bump stop before removal. See number 27!

Thought I'd share a bit more info on the turbo wagon conversion for yall. This time I thought I'd mention the driveline issues I came across in getting the ute bits to work in the wagon. I got a fair bit of wierd advice on all the forums and I didn't really have any solid advice to go off so I just had to figure it out as I went along. First thing is the parts list. My donor ute had the old T5 5speed manual, 2 piece tailshaft and an m86 LSD. So obviously the engine and gearbox bolted straight up to the wagon without any issues. The diff also slotted straight into its home no problems. The main thing to get right is the tail shaft. As I'll expllain below, the tailshaft won't bolt straight in for a couple of reasons. Firstly the utes are longer than the wagons so the tailshaft is way to long. Second thing is that the utes were fitted with a 2 piece tail shaft. So far as I can tell the wagons only come fitted with a solid (1 piece) tailshaft and m78 diff. This means that the tailshaft has the wrong rear uni configuration and wont bolt directly up to the LSD as the diff pinion flange assembly / tailshaft rear CV coupling are different. I toyed with the idea of keeping the wagon tailshaft and getting the rear CV coupling cut off the ute diff and welded onto the wagon tailshaft. However in Ford's infinite wisdom they actually provide the bolt holes for the centre shaft bearing in the floor pan of the wagons, which means that you can use the 2 piece shaft if you want. The only thing to do to mount the centre bearing is to tap some thread in the blank holes in the floor pan and you can bolt the centre bearing assembly straight up. Petty cool hey. In terms of the tailshaft length, I guess it will depend on which gearbox you use (T5 or T56) and which diff you use (m78 or m86) as to the exact amount to cut off the tailshaft. Ultimately, the combo I went with (T5, m68 LSD, 2 piece tailshaft) meant that I had to get the tailshaft shortened by 190mm (overall length) which was cut out of the rear section of the tailshaft. To get the measurement I pretty much just slid the tailshaft into the gearbox, bolted up the centre bearing and then held the rear section of the shaft up and took a measurement with the diff sitting at 'normal' ride height (which for my car is about 55 - 60mm lower than stock). Then just put a mark on the tailshaft where the face of the diff pinion flange intersected with the tailshaft and that was it. As I didn't have any other advice to go off I'd really only find out whether my measurement was any good once I had the tailshaft bolted in and it took it for it's first drive. So it all worked out in the end. Seems the magic 190mm was pretty much spot on as I havn't had any issues with the tailshaft or diff since the conversion. P.s. for the chopping I used Hardy Spicer in Newcastle. I delivered it to them first thing in the morning and got it back that arvo, so pretty good service. Service repair manual extract: Ute tailshaft is left of picture (black) , wagon tailshaft is right of picture (silver) Diff info. Most of the sticker due to the tie down straps we used to get the ute home.

List of bits I replaced while the engine was out: Inlet Collector Manifold Gasket Inlet Manifold Gasket Exhaust Manifold Gasket Turbo Gasket Kit Rocker Cover Gasket Kit Timing Cover Gasket Kit Engine Mounts (Turbo Specific ones which come with the funky straps around them). Rubber Air Intake Crossover Studs Rocker Cover Vent Hose (as the ute one was ruined) Iridium Spark Plugs Ignition Coils Sump Gasket Water Pump (comes with Gasket) Exhaust Manifold Stud Nuts Turbo Stud Nuts Accessory Drive Belt Heater Hose with T-Piece (non-turbo cars don't have this t-piece for some reason) Bits I replace after the engine was installed but which I'd replaced whilst it was out: Turbo Wastegate Solenoid Turbosmart 5 PSI Wastegate Actuator Turbo to Intercooler boost pipe Welch Plugs The turbo to intercooler boost pipe was an easy thing to replace even after the engine was installed. Basically the 240,000k's had ruined the boost pipe and made it super brittle so it needed replacing. Not sure how a small piece of molded rubber can cost so much but it set me back about $300 bucks for a new pipe. The welch plugs on the other hand were a total pain in the rectum. I would recommend changing these for anyone doing an engine swap. I learnt the hard way that they can go at any time and start leaking. There were no signs of leakage from the welch plugs when the engine was out but after about 1000k's after the engine swap the rear most plug on the turbo side started leaking in a big way. To fix it involved removing the turbo, manifold, basically everything on the drivers side. Not fun at all...... So I got my local mechanic to do it cause I couldn't have been bothered.

Cause the engine was out I took the opportunity to replace boring bits like pretty much every gasket and seal. One thing I didn't change but wish I had, was the turbo actuator. Obviously it would have been super easy to change when I had it on the bench but being a total turbo noob I didn't know that this part was prone to failure and was the cause of my backfiring issue when I first took the ute for a test drive when I was buying it. Initially I thought that the backfiring under boost was just due to dodgy boost pipes slipping off. When I took the ute for a test drive it blew a boost pipe off and I just assumed that it was because the engine was so greasy and the clamps just couldn't hold it on. Turns out that the reason the pipe was blowing off was because the turbo actuator was ruined and it was overboosting big time. There are some good posts on this issue which give some good advice, but really the best way to test whether the actuator is ruined is to remove the hose that goes from the turbo wastegate solenoid (which I also replaced cause apparently they are prone to blocking up) and blowing into it. If you can blow air through the pipe and into the actuator then it's screwed cause the diaphragm is ruined. Ultimately I didn't know all this until after the engine swap was complete and I took it for the first test drive. Once it backfired I knew there was something up. After I did some research and discovered that the actuator was flogged out I bought a new Turbosmart actuator. This (and the new solenoid) fixed the problem perfectly. Only thing was that when I bout the actuator it wasn't sold with a 5psi spring so I had to buy the 7psi version and buy a 5psi spring separately. Basically cause the factory boost is about 3psi then the 5psi spring is required for a stock turbo car, unless you tune the engine and port the vent flap, otherwise you'll get boost spiking again on a factory setup. However I just checked the Turbosmart website and it looks like you can now buy the 5psi version off the shelf which is pretty cool. So the reason why replacing the actuator was a pain in the neck after the engine was reinstalled was cause the thing is truly buried. So to remove and replace it I had to remove the driver side engine mount and jack the engine up. Proper *beep* of a job especially considering it could have been done it on the bench in about 5 minutes flat when the engine was out. http://www.turbosmart.com/product/iwg-ford-xr6 http://www.turbosmartdirect.com/Product-Categories/Ford-Actuators/IWG75-Ford-XR6-Actuator-5PSI_2.html https://www.ebay.com.au/p/Genuine-Ford-BA-BF-FG-Mk2-Falcon-SX-SY-Territory-Turbo-Wastegate-Solenoid/1946470282?iid=221833362489&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D20161027085944%26meid%3D22e7e5f924164cd3a66084a70195abc1%26pid%3D100623%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D5%26mehot%3Dpp%26sd%3D252134306102%26itm%3D221833362489&_trksid=p2047675.c100623.m-1 Above photo showing location of the actuator (I.e. not easy to get to). Oh and this is how the engine went back in. No pulleys, no harmonic balancer, no flywheel, nothing. This made slotting the engine back in a piece of piss. And cause the radiator was out, bolting all the bits back on to the front of the engine was easy too.

Engine removal time. Not too much to report here, but cutting the radiator support panel off the ute was a goer. We originally thought we'd remove the engine and gearbox in 1 piece so that's why cut the panel off. But we ended up separating them anyway so cutting the radiator panel wasn't really necessary in the end. But I would recommend removing the flywheel and the pulleys from the the engine. This makes it easier to remove and install the engine cause it means you can just drop the motor straight down rather than having to find the perfect angle and worry about the engine fouling on bits of engine bay. The pics don't show it too well but the engine was freaking greasy. Probably took me about 15 cans of degreaser to get rid of most of it.

Well first thing is first. Cause I was swapping my rubbish old 4 speed slushmatic out for the T5 an extra pedal was needed. I have no idea whether you could install a new pedal box without removing the dash altogether, it could be possible but I think removing the dash was pretty easy, just a process really. Getting the dash out is actually quite easy. The only problem is that you have to remove a whole heap of trim parts to get to it out. And for some stupid reason Ford decided to integrate the handbrake into the centre console, which I don't really understand cause the handbrake is bolted to the floor and the centre console is held in at enough points to firmly secure it. Anyway, the reason it's a bit painful is that you have to remove the drivers side seat to get to the handbrake bolts so that you can then remove the centre console. So once all the plastic trim parts are removed and the centre console is out there are only something like 8 bolts holding the dash in. They're all pretty easy to get to apart from one which is at at the top of the dash underneath the windscreen. This bolt was a *beep* to get out so I didn't end up putting it back in. I've driven the car a fair bit now since the conversion and there are no rattles or anything so I would recommend leaving it out unless you really want it back in. The electrical system needed to be unplugged but it was easy. Most of the major electrical plugs are in the drivers and passengers kick panels with the only other plugs running to the pedal box, the air con unit and the BCM. There is one sneaky plug on the transmission tunnel near the bolt under the BCM. The pedal box is really easy to get out once the dash is removed. Just 2 wiring harness plugs, 2 nuts securing the box onto the body and 4 nuts securing the box onto the brake booster. Oh and one thing I did right from the start was to label every single nut, screw, bolt, wiring harness plug, pipe, hose, everything. I just used some masking tape and wrote descriptions for each part. One of the best things to do is not only label the part but decribe where it is and which way it goes back on. This was pretty handy on the boost pipes and radiator pipes etc. It feels like overkill when you're taking stuff off but after a few months between removing stuff and putting it back on it was an absolute lifesaver. Believe it or not the only bolt I had left over after the whole conversion was the one I mentioned earlier that mounts the dash behind the windscreen. Apart from that I didn't have any leftover bolts or parts.

Just quickly I reckon doing the swap the way I did was the easiest way to do it primarily for the electrical side of things. So the wiring harness from the ute only had a few extra wires and these were for the boost control stuff (boost sensors, wastegate actuator etc). I compared the wiring harness from the wagon to the ute and this was really the only difference. The wires ran from the ECU to the boosted bits, hence there was an extra plug on the turbo ECU. The only other difference in the wiring harness was for the fog lights (which the wagon doesn't have). This was confirmed by the engine bay fuse box which had an extra fuse for the fog lights. By swapping the BCM in the dash means that the whole wiring system is from the ute. So in the end the whole electrical system that controls the motor believes that it's still in the ute, if that makes sense. Because of this, my mate from Ford bought his laptop around with the program for the BA's and we had the car going within 10 minutes. The longest part of the job was coding the BCM to recognise my keys. I kept my dash and steering column etc, so therefore I kept my wagon keys. Once he had the keys coded we turned the key and it fired up straight away. I've read a few blogs and forums about doing the electrical side of things and it seems that there are a few ways to do it, but they all seem to be properly painful. I'll post a bit more about the wiring stuff later.

Now is probs the best time to explain what I actually changed over. I've come across heaps of different ways to do the swap and they all seem to be a fair bit harder than the way I went. Here's the parts list for the swap: Engine (obviously) Radiator (mine had the oil chamber for the 4sp auto) Intercooler Wiring Harness ECU BCM (this worked out well cause I ended up getting a 6 stacker, Yewwwww! Yes I'm probably the only person in the world who would get excited about this.) Manual Pedal Box T5 Manual gearbox 3.46:1 LSD Diff Two Piece Tailshaft (note this was one of only two parts that I had to get modified - aka shortened) Exhaust (this was the other part I had to get modified) Couple of extra random bit's I swapped, or am yet to swap: A-pillar tweeters (these were pretty easy to install cause I had the dash out) Sports steering wheel (I bought a leather one from a Fairmont a while back so I'm not sure whether I'll use the ute one just yet). XR dash (I don't think I'll use this unless I can get the k's to match the wagon odo). Oh and in addition to calling my mate from the local Ford dealership for advice, I used an online repair manual from this website. https://cardiagn.com/2003-ford-falcon-ba-service-repair-manual-pdf/ Absolutely recommend using it. Sometimes it can be a *beep* to find what you're after, but given some of the conflicting advice I've found on the net, it was good to refer to the manual to see which opinions were correct.

Alright, time to get back to my previous statement where I said the donor ute 'ran and drove ok and looked completely stock under the bonnet'. Well it was completely stock under the bonnet, so that wan't a lie, but 'driving ok' was a slight overstatement. It started fine from cold, didn't blow smoke and didn't idle too roughly. So that was a good start. However taking it for a drive proved a few issues which would later come back to bite me. Firstly we noticed that one of the boost pipes had come loose. So we tightened that up and went for a quick spin. On the first proper foot to the floor takeoff it went ok for a few seconds but then the pipe blew off again and we just assumed that the clamp wasn't holding properly on the old oily pipes. When the pipe blew off it obviously dumped heaps of fuel into the system cause the smoke cloud out the back was pretty epic. The engine bay was insanely greasy, we didn't have any tools on us and the route that we were driving was a one way loop with heaps of container trucks using it (we were near Port Botany) so we just drove back to the yard and left it at that. However after I swapped the engine into the wagon I had the same issue. This time the pipe hadn't blown off so it turned out to be a more serious issue after all. More on that later. The other issue I came across was a really crappy shift into second gear. Of course there's heaps of reasons why gears may not engage in an old T5 and I just assumed that it was either a crappy old clutch, lack of oil (or wrong oil) or maybe a synchro. The gearbox worked well in every other way and once it went into second it stayed there so I wasn't too worried about the overall condition of the gearbox. Anyway, both of those issues would be the biggest pain in the arse once I'd done the swap.....More on that later. At this time I rang a good mate who works at a local Ford dealership and asked him a few questions. Whist it had been a fairly long time since he'd worked on a BA turbo he gave me a few pointers and alerted me to a few issues that the ute had. Always good to know someone who can help out along the way and he proved to be good value when it came to showing me which bits to swap over etc and when it came to starting the car up he had the program that made it all run. One of the things I was a bit worried about was a really horrible vibration. I was starting to suspect the worst cause it felt really bad just sitting in the car. However he pointed out that the turbo's were prone to melting the driver side engine mount. I couldn't get under the car too well but I assumed he was correct. Turns out he was, once we'd removed the engine the mount was completely in half. Looked like it had been that way for a loooooooonnnnngggggg time.

After photos! Not too much fancy stuff to see here, just heaps of new gaskets and other boring bits. Which you can't really see New powdercoat on the rocker cover was a worthy investment. I got it done at a local powdercoater for $200 which I thought was ok given that they needed to sandblast it back then paint it up. The old rocker cover had really bad staining from what looked like brake fluid or something so getting it coated was a good decision I think. The actual coat isn't heat rated or anything. Apparently the standard powdercoat goes up to about 180 degrees, so it should be pretty safe. Getting the heat treated stuff increases the temp rating up to something like 500 degrees but I only had a choice of black or silver. As I wanted it to look factory I just went with flame red. So far it's held up ok. Might not fare to well in summer but I reckon it'll be sweet. Only time and a few more k's will tell. Oh and I bought the cold air intake from this seller on Ebay. https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/LOWER-COLD-AIR-INTAKE-CAI-SUITS-FORD-BA-BF-CAI-FALCON-XR6-TURBO-NEW-GENUINE-PART/261401727491?epid=1224864114&hash=item3cdcc1d203%3Ag%3AGEYAAOxySE9Q5nNa&_sacat=0&_nkw=ba+turbo+typhoon+air+snorkel&_from=R40&rt=nc&_trksid=m570.l1313 Not a bad upgrade I reckon. Once again, it helps with the full factory look but probs adds a couple of sneaky killerwasps with a tune. Which I havn't done yet but maybe one day. Also, I didn't realise for a while, but the factory air intake snorkel on the turbo motor (I.e. the one that runs from above the radiator to the air box) is a bit bigger than the n/a one. There isn't much difference but it's definitely there. Easiest way to tell which one is which is that the turbo one has a small 'dint' in it near the corner of the engine block. Oh and to deal with all those extra horses I decided to upgrade the front rotors to bigger 322mm BF falcon jobbies from the 289mm turd sandwiches that came on the BA's. Which I was obviously in the middle of doing when I took these pics. But more on that later.

Couple of pics of the engine bay. Before I attach some after photos of the engine bay I thought I'd provide some before photos. Not too much to see here. Only mod's were a factory Ford cold air snorkel, that came on the FPV Typhoon's I believe, which fitted straight onto the factory airbox with only a few cuts of the grinder and a set of redback extractors and 2.5 inch exhaust. Both of these mods pretty much made no difference to the power output without a tune. But they kept me entertained whilst I saved for the turbo exchange. One thing I noticed with my engine bay was that it was painted black. Not sure whether that's something that came on the MK2's but the ute and a few other wagons I've seen all have the engine bay painted the same colour as the rest of the car. I reckon the black engine bay was a much smarter choice. The amount of oil leaks that come out of the old 6 banger leave a lot to be desired.

Righto well here's the fully sick donor ute. Complete with a dint in every panel, every other piece of interior trim damaged, ruined tyres and gutter bashed rims. Whoever owned this thing was clearly into destroying cars, however they could. It was actually a statutory write-off so it couldn't be rego'd again. Not really sure what drugs they were on cause the revs check said 'heavy structural impact, front driver side but apart from a broken bumper, smashed headlight and ruined guard it was all good underneath with no damage to the chassis or suspension at all. However the thing ran and drove ok and it looked completely stock under the bonnet. Buying a stock xr6t was paramount for me.

After photo. Lowered on superlow pedders springs (front) (about -50mm) and lowered pedders rear springs (about -30mm) with 1 inch lowering blocks (-25mm). I couldn't find any company that made superlow rear leaf springs to match the superlow front springs, so I chose to go with the lowered leaf springs in combination with lowering blocks. Being in a regional area there wasn't really much of a choice for getting my leaf springs reset. The suspension setup works quite well and has the car sitting nice and level. It actually still rides quite well too (I think so anyway but I'm probs used to the stiffness now). The rims are 19 inch FG-X Sprint Rims that I purchased brand new from ebay. Rims are staggered, being 8 inches wide up front and 9 inches out back. Pretty massive purchase but I'd been eyeing them off for over a year and couldn't find another rim that I liked anywhere near as much. I'm hoping that cause they're off the final falcon model that they'll hold their value if I ever want to sell them. Tyres are 245/35/r19 front and 265/30/r19 rear. I made a pretty stupid mistake buying bigger rear tyres that didn't fit (I bought 275/35/r19). I thought the 275's would be ok but they fouled pretty hardcore on the guards. Initially I thought about rolling the guards but they also fouled on the rear plastic bumper so it was more trouble than it's worth. I ended up swapping the tyres out for smaller one's and it solved my issue nicely. Anyway I found out the hard way so I would recommend using a tyre comparison site rather than just taking a punt like I did. This website was pretty useful cause it lets you compare up to 3 tyre sizes. https://www.tyresizecalculator.com/