FAMILY VALUES
THIS CAPRI, UNCLE USED TO OWN STEVEN STOJANOVSKI’S WINDSOR-POWERED, DART 800HP BUT IT WASN’T THE IT IS TODAY! ELITE-LEVEL MONSTER
Steven Stojanovski turned this hand-me-down into a wild, nitrous-snorting showstopper
FAMILY can drive us berko at times, but it can also be a beaut source of vehicular awesomeness. Hand-me-down cars might seem daggy at first to teenagers wanting the latest and greatest, but often, these family heirlooms worm their way into our hearts and wind up being built into righteous street machines. Such is the case with Steve Stojanovski’s ’71 Ford Capri.
“My uncle bought this car brand new back in the day, so it has always been in the family right up until I got it from him in the early 2000s,” Steve says.
What Steve took over from his uncle was nothing like the candy-coated, tubbed, biginch Windsor-powered brute you see on the pages before you. “It was a four-cylinder model and he was going to get rid of it, so I got it off him and then I left it for maybe four years,” Steve says.
It wasn’t going anywhere fast until Tony Petrovski from New Age Customs got in touch with Steve. “Tony said to drag it around and we started working on it. It was just meant to be a nice street car at first, but Tony was building an elite-level twin-turbo ’65 Mustang for Joe Agnello. I saw that car and I wanted the Capri to be the same quality.”
This meant much of the Pommy sheet metal ended up in the bin, as the Capri scored a flat floor, recessed firewall, new transmission tunnel, six-point rollcage, rear clip and huge wheel tubs. “It is really only the exterior shell that is original,” Steve says.
Once the tinware had been massaged to an appropriately tough and clean finish, Steve took the shell down to Andrew Ash from AA Panel Craft in Bowral, and had him lay down the awesome House Of Kolor Copperhead Kandy.
Even though it looks right at home on the Capri, it actually took Steve some time to pick the colour. “I left the car with him and it took about six months for me to come up with that colour,” he says. “I actually saw it on a Matchbox car Andrew had brought back from the SEMA show in Las Vegas, and I loved it.”
While the colour punches you straight in eye, FRAER1 isn’t just a pretty face! There’s a ground-pounding 440ci Windsor built by Sydney Ford specialists BK Race Engines under the bonnet.
“I bought a motor from the USA but I ended up destroying that, so Bill [Kaglatzis from BK] ended up building me the motor that is in it now,” Steve explains. “He put it on the engine
dyno and it did 830hp, but I still have a 500shot of gas I can put through it as well!”
The Windsor swings 440ci thanks to a Dart block, Lunati Pro Series crank, CP pistons and Carrillo rods, with JE rings, Clevite bearings, Jesel keyway lifters and a Bullet roller cam stuffed into the block. The combo has been topped with Bk-ported Trick Flow 240 heads and an HRE sheet-metal intake manifold with billet runners, wearing a pair of Book Racing Enterprises 900cfm twinblade carburettors.
The oil system of the Capri isn’t dramatically involved, with a high-volume pump and a customised Moroso sump, while the 13:1 compression ratio means Steve prefers to run it on 109-octane VP Racing fuel. This is supplied to the dual carbs by a Magnafuel Prostar pump.
Steve wanted to drive his Capri on the street, so it needed a cooling system. To this end, a 75mm PWR radiator and twin 14-inch thermo fans keep a lid on temperatures, while the twin three-inch exhaust system holds the Windsor’s 800hp bark to a tolerable level.
Behind the monster Windsor is an ATI Supercase-fronted Pro Glide two-speed auto built by Protrans and fitted with a high-flow oil pump and a transbrake, plus a 5800rpm TCE converter. The drivetrain then turns a three-inch chrome-moly tailshaft wearing 1350 unis, ending with a nine-inch diff sporting 4.56 gears and 35-spline axles.
“When I get a chance I drive it on the street,” says Steve. “I want to take it down the track, but I just haven’t had time. I haven’t really taken it to shows all that much, but every show I’ve gone to I’ve won awards; I’ve got into the Top 20 at Summernats every time I’ve gone there. I didn’t expect the car to turn out this way. It took about five years to build once we got into it, but we didn’t rush it.”
And what does his uncle think of what Steve has done to the car he drove home from the Ford dealership 47 years ago?
“My uncle is impressed because it’s a long way from what he bought back in the day,” Steve says. “He won’t drive it, though!”