TERMINAL ILLNESS —
SERIAL MODIFIER’S TWIN-TURBO GALAXIE
When a man can’t help but modify his cars, what’s to be done? Some would say that the cure is an easy one — simply buy a car that’s already had those modifications done to it. Steve Walker tried that, and the fact that you’re now reading about his latest build means that it was an idea that didn’t work. Some of you may recognize his name from a feature we ran on his tough ’67 Mustang fastback a couple of years ago. Powered by a stroked 427ci Clevor backed by a Toploader four-speed, the Mustang was loud, fast, and tough as hell — everything that he wanted it to be. However, with a young family, priorities had to be accounted for. The impractical Mustang was sold, but, the moment it left the driveway, Steve was left feeling a little empty and found himself on the internet browsing Craigslist. It was there that he came across this 1964 Ford Galaxie and contacted its owner, Jesse, to find out a bit more. Things all looked good, so he had Craig at Kiwi Shipping take a look at the car, snap some photos, and put a report together. “Once I got that info, the deal was done, and the car was on the water, along with a load of parts for other projects,” Steve says. The Galaxie was big, had a manual box, stock 289 Windsor, and a mean stance on airbags and Foose wheels. What more could he possibly want from the thing? As it turned out, getting it to drive nicely would have been a good start. “The original column
WE GOT HOLD OF THOSE TURBOS AND PUT TOGETHER A PLAN TO WAKE THE THING UP
shifter was hopeless, and finding the gears was a nightmare,” Steve explains. “It ran OK but was no rocket ship, and the airbags needed some work, as it had sticky solenoids and air leaks. The first thing I did was get our local LVVTA Certifier, Shane Speight, to check out the suspension and sort out what to do.” The front end was relatively straightforward, requiring the addition of bump stops, relocating the shock mounts, and bracing the lower control arms. However, the rear was a bit of an exercise in head-scratching. “It had a ladder-bar and Panhard set-up, but we couldn’t get enough axle articulation, so we went to a Ridetech triangulated-link set-up,” Steve says. “This meant [that] we had to re-mount all the shock mounts, move the airbag mounts, and set up bump stops.” With that all taken care of, Steve took the Galaxie for a recheck, passed with flying colours, and lived happily ever after … Hang on, something’s not right here. Scratch that last bit — we were supposed to mention that Steve owns Mikes Engines in Whangarei and wanted to give the big Galaxie a bit of get up and go. “I had a 390 FE in the workshop that we could have used, but I wanted to do something a bit different, and [I] knew of a guy who had a couple of turbos and some of the plumbing that was practically new,” he explains. “We got hold of those and put together a plan to wake the thing up.” The 289 Windsor’s bores were thus punched out 40-thou (0.040 inches), with oversized pistons attached to 302 rods, and a 302 crank upping the cubes a touch. A camshaft was profiled and ground by Henry van Vugt at Auckland Cams to suit the turbos, and it produces a nasty idle that doesn’t sound much like your stereotypical turbo V8. In pursuit of a boost-friendly compression ratio, Steve already had a pair of old 351 Windsor big chamber heads laying around. These were ported,
with particular attention paid to the exhaust side; machined for screw-in rocker studs; and fitted with stainless valves and Comp Cams roller rockers. Mindful of the need to retain family-friendly usability, the Quick Fuel blow-through carb that got the whole shebang running was swapped out for a FiTech EFI set-up. This was done with an MSD 6A ignition controller and Pro Billet distributor. “We locked out the distributor and ran the timing through the FiTech unit, which is great,” Steve reveals. “When you’re cruising along, not on boost, it’s sitting around 34–35 degrees, but, as soon as you hammer it, it’s pulling timing out. It pulls about a degree out for every pound of boost, so, with 10psi, the timing is down at 24 degrees — she certainly has a bit of wang!” And with a bit of wang under the hood, a Hurst Indy shifter sorting the manual shift action, properly set up suspension, and a fresh LVVTA cert, Steve hasn’t been shy of driving the thing. It was bought to be a driver, built to be a driver, and sure gets used like one.