A little back story before the good stuff. I built and ended up selling my last build (like i always do). It was your VERY cookie cutter turbo ls fox body build, that I helped the next owner build, then eventually purchased it back. Well since I lack IQ points sometimes, instead of just enjoying it, I ripped it apart and rebuilt a bunch of things. After it was all said and done, I again grew tired of the car, and decided it was time to figure out how to part ways. At the time one of my close friends bought an LTD that I would constantly drool over telling him how I'd love to have it to build a simple drag and drive car out of it. It was a Sargent car from the army, so I had really stupid dreams of getting interviewed by Kyle at 1320 (silly I know!). Fast forward a few weeks he found out I was in the midst of divorce, he unbeknownst to me, he purchased me a '71 Galaxie 500. He told me he purchased it, so I'd HAVE to finish it, and knew I wouldn't sell a gift. I eventually had to give the Galaxie back as life and the home situation got to be too much. A few months go by and he said to me he has a deal for me, and to make it work I have to give him the title and keys from the Galaxie and we'd have to drive to Missouri to get it.

As soon as it was home, it seems like my motivation hit like a ton of bricks. As I was looking over the car I noticed the solid engine mounts, and after some half behind measuring and some just stupid luck, my mockup block fit with the use of OBS chevy ls swap brackets and some spacers to take up the rest of the mismatched mount width. These cars had front sump oil pans originally and I knew i wanted to shove the engine as far down and back as physically possible. Seeing the original HVAC box was damaged and fixed in the past, I decided to just start sawing till I liked what I saw.

After a bunch of time and dust, I decided it was just best to remove it completely and push the engine back. I wanted to keep stock style AC, but it will now get a vintage ac style kit.

Last night I threw in my 4.Great to finalize mount placement, set myself up to build a transmission mount, and prep myself for the BFH message this trans tunnel is about to receive.

I will try to keep this updated, and also do my best to take pictures to share. I always forget the before shots. Ha

 

Sweet! That thing is awesome. I'm a GM guy, but in that era I LOVE the offerings from the big 3. Those nose on that LTD is killer. Reminds me of the cop cars in Dirty Harry.

 

This and the cars from "White Lightning" and "Gator" Burt Reynolds movie cars.

They only made that body style for 2 years so to me that makes them even better...

(I have a 1971 Ford Custom 500 ex Minnesota highway patrol car with the factory 429 Cobra jet in it.)

I cannot wait to see how this turns out!!

 

My dad always had a big ford like that. 429cid IIRC. That was a comfortable car to cruise around in.

I’ll be watching for this build.

 

So, this weekend I came across a deal on a set of Caprice exhaust manifolds and catalytic converters. I feel like I am getting old when I want to keep the cats so the car stinks less. HA. The manifolds clear everything great, but I'm still on the hunt for a long tube that fits. I have my eyes set on either xbody nova headers or tbss headers. Only time will tell.

I also took the firewall to pound town but may need to pull the engine I prematurely installed to get a better hit on edge of the firewall and the tunnel.


Not much progress, but like they say, it's like eating an elephant, you take one bite at a time.

 

With how far I moved the engine back, I was unable to reuse the original transmission mounting points. So after trimming a small portion of the body, i had a direct shot at the frame. Measuring the width, I was hit with a staggering 53 inches from rail to rail. So I ordered some steel from a local metal place and made a crossmember. After all was said and done, it has a little more wiggle than I like but I will revisit this as I want to continue moving forward.


Next I installed my radiator and fan from the last project, into the stock location. Plenty of room for activities for future plans. Luckily when I ordered an parts, I ordered extra fitting and hose, and those came in clutch when I had to make new ones that would reach.


As I said before I was on the hunt for a set of long tubes because I'm not quite sure if I'm going to go turbo AGAIN or maybe use my LSA blower set up. Well after spending a good amount of time looking at pictures, I bit the bullet grabbed a set of C10 swap headers to try. Low and behold, the fit AMAZING. May end up keeping them for round two.


Im trying not to take forever and lose interest, so I decided to rebuild the Holley black pump and regulator that were already on the car, add a China dual plane, OLD MSD 6010 controller and a Holley 600 cfm carb. Exhaust is straight tubing to some cheapo mufflers. Got a great deal on a Gbody driveshaft, but i need a slightly longer yoke. Next plan is a better shaft, but that's future Me's problem also, I realized I put the muffler on upside down. HA


I keep forgetting to document stuff until its already finished, but ill keep trying, and ill keep updating.