PISSING OFF THE PURISTS
CHOPPED AND DOUBLE-BOOSTED LS-POWERED XM
In a manner similar to the start of many builds in this country, Bradley May found himself stationed in front of a computer screen scrolling through the ‘Cars for Sale’ section of New Zealand’s favourite local internet auction site. It was there that he found a rather mundane-looking, stock-standard, blue 1964 XM Falcon. It had two more doors than it has now, two fewer cylinders, and three fewer power-adders under the bonnet, but it was just what he was looking for. Bradley promptly snapped up the Australian icon, shooting up to Christchurch to collect and road trip it back to his home of Invercargill — a round trip of 1000km, give or take; brave man.
The plan had been to enjoy the XM as he found it for a while as he decided what exactly he was going to do with it, but, after almost every exhaust manifold bolt broke on the way home, he decided that it needed a rebirth sooner rather than later. Wasting no time, he rolled the XM four-door into the shed and the build commenced. Having grown up on a diet of Australian car magazines — NZV8 wasn’t even a thing back in those days — Bradley liked the look of a Hillier brothers blown XP Falcon that blew up Summernats 12 when it was unveiled in 2011. Taking inspiration from that build, he decided the time was right to transform his XM into something a bit less boring. The Hillier build was classic pro-street and was just what Bradley had in mind: smooth lines, a supercharged V8, and a set of large tyres of steam-roller proportions.
The problem for Bradley was that his wage wouldn’t support what it would cost for someone else to build the car for him; therefore, he had to do it himself. Unfortunately, the problem with that decision was that Bradley didn’t have the skills to change what he had into what he wanted. He had to learn quickly how to do it all himself — and what a steep learning curve that would prove to be.
He says, “I learned the hard way — almost everything has been done twice — but I wouldn’t change it, as the skills I have learned along the way have been amazing.” Out came the spanners and out came the gas axe. First on the list was to remove the rear floor to fit the rather large 15x10-inch wheels that Bradley wanted. He sparked up a new rear clip, and those new (much) larger-than-standard rears were mounted to a narrowed eight-inch diff and slid into place. Next up was the removal of some unwanted ceiling space; two-and-ahalf inches of roof was rapidly sliced off.
Bradley was now “way out of my league here”, but he forged on regardless and promptly “warped the shit out of it when I welded it back up”. With his tail firmly between his legs, he found a donor roof from a wagon and did a much better job of securing that to the sedan. When he was happy, it was sent out for some paint.
The final bit of that stage of the build was replacing the asthmatic six-pot, which was chucked in the bin and replaced by a 347-cube Windsor topped with a 6-71 blower. The car was certified and ran in this guise for a number of years, and Bradley was a happy chappie — until around three years ago, when he decided that he wanted to change things up a bit more, and “annoy the purists on the way”, via an LS1 from an SS Commodore and a big-arse turbo.
With the controversial engine freshly installed in the engine bay, Bradley paid a visit to Muscle Car Madness. Seeing and hearing all the blown cars going past made him realise that maybe the turbo wasn’t such a crash-hot idea. Back into the shed went the Falcon, to have the turbo replaced by the blower off the Windsor, and an Enderle injection hat chucked on top — much better. At that stage, Bradley decided to perform a few more
necessary upgrades. He found a Mustang II front end and grafted it in place along with a pair of airbags. A WRX Impreza was robbed of its steering rack, while an MR2 gleefully donated its electric power-steering pump — Bradley might as well upset the import guys too, eh?! Here’s where things started to get a bit carried away. With Bradley’s constantly improving skills, now was the perfect time to really change the look of the car, as four doors was two doors too many. The B-pillar was moved rearwards and the front doors were lengthened to fill the now elongated spaces. When everything was nice and smooth on the outside, a fresh coat of rich black paint was squirted on.
Curious to see just how much power the blown LS combo was putting out, Bradley set off to the dyno, but things didn’t exactly go to plan. On the first power run, the driveshaft let go at 5000rpm and destroyed the TH350 and a large section of floor. The XM was loaded onto a trailer and hauled back to the shed in disgrace. Bradley found a TH400 ‘rebuilder’ transmission, which he promptly ripped apart, replacing everything inside that needed replacing; he also threw in a manual valve body and a transbrake for good measure. He ordered a 3000rpm stall converter from Freak Show Performance in the States to complete the new bulletproof transmission.
Always concerned that if an axle let go and one of the large wheels got loose it would not end well, Bradley decided to let the old eight-inch rear go while the XM was under the knife. He built up a full-floating nine-inch and filled it with 31-spline axles and a Truetrac centre. He then eyeballed the rear, deciding that there was room for more rubber and a pair of 15x14 Center Lines would look more appropriate, so out came the gas torch again and in went a new set of much larger rear tubs.
The refined, now two-door, XM was left in that guise for a while before the itch to change things up a notch or two again returned. Remember those GT35 turbos that used to be strapped onto the LS1? Bradley thought it would be rude not to utilise them, as they were just gathering dust. However, he recalled how unsatisfactory he felt with the sound of the initial turbo set-up and how much more he liked the blower hanging out of the hole in the bonnet. He just couldn’t force himself to ditch it, so he thought, What the hell, I will chuck the turbos on and have them feed the blower! As you can imagine, having all this artificial atmosphere crammed into an already-tight space has made for a massive game of automotive Tetris to get it all to fit. Needless to say, changing spark plugs is not as easy as it used to be.
FOUR DOORS WAS TWO DOORS TOO MANY
THERE ARE STILL A FAIR FEW PASSIONATE FORD PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO JUST DON’T GET IT
Undaunted, Bradley forged on and the fruits of his labour have resulted in a distinctive, albeit overflowing, engine bay that sees the turbos swallow up the air and then feed boost through the single throttle body and into the 6-71. The unusual set-up has been working reasonably well with the assistance of some remote tuning from Canadian Trevor Couture. However, performance testing has highlighted some issues in the form of excess heat exceeding safe levels, even with water-methanol injection, necessitating the Holley Terminator X to pull timing out to help stop the engine from grenading itself. Bradley knew from the outset that this set-up would be far from ideal, but he’s not planning on giving up. He is currently working on a way to have the best of both worlds. He knows the twins will easily give him the grunt to get the times that he wants down the strip just by themselves. He also knows there will be occasions when he wants to be able to chuck the blower back on and listen to the glorious whine while out on a quiet Sunday drive. Plans are under way to try to design a way to make transitioning between turbos and supercharger as easy as possible — and, rest assured, given the skills that Bradley’s acquired with this build, he will work it out. He is a regular attendee at Muscle Car Madness and jokes that each time he brings the car it has had a significant change; even his mates joke that they wouldn’t be surprised to see it turn up as a ute one year!
The XM was built to be different; it was never intended to be a show car “and probably never will be”, according to Bradley. If nothing else, it has taught him how to do bodywork, weld, and build transmissions and engines, and given him something to cruise in that nobody else has. It’s also a great conversation starter. Most people appreciate the extraordinary efforts that this home builder has put in, but, yes, there are still a fair few passionate Ford people out there who just don’t get it and, as Bradley puts it, “They would love to beat the shit out of me!”