440CI BLOWN & INJECTED WINDSOR
> WARSPEED, ST MARYS, NSW
MEMPHIS Raines may have used chemical supercharging to evade the cops in Gone In 60
Seconds, but while nitrous is nice, wouldn’t you rather be blown? Warspeed’s Troy Worsley has just finished buttoning up this 8/71-topped Windsor for a customer’s Eleanor-themed Mustang fastback build, and it looks pretty damn sinister.
Based on a Dart block with a 4.185in bore and 4in stroke, it measures in at 440ci. It packs a Callies Dragonslayer crank and Callies Ultra rods, with Diamond forged pistons that were custom-made to suit the application. The heads are Cnc-ported AFR 220 Renegade items, to which Troy has added REV valves, PAC dual springs, COMP steel rockers and AFR rocker stud girdles.
In the absence of a suitable aftermarket option, Troy teamed with Wayne Newby to piece together the blower hardware. “Windsors are traditionally hard to get blower manifolds for, so we took a carburettor manifold, and then Wayne chopped the whole centre out of it; we only really used the runners,” says Troy. “He then cast up the blower part, and then we’ve cut and welded and put the plenum onto it.”
The blower drive system is all from Newby, and the supercharger itself is a Blower Shop 8/71 with three-lobe Teflon strip rotors and a billet case. At a glance, it’s old technology in that it’s a pushrod V8 with a Roots blower, but there is a hint of modern tech within.
The Enderle bug catcher is loaded with a Joe Blo Speed Shop EFI set-up, with four ID2000 injectors. The mock barrel valve assembly houses a GM throttle position sensor, while the yet-to-be-fitted dummy distributor based off a VT Commodore item has eight triggers for the individual LS1 coil packs, as well as a cam angle sensor. Not only does this place ignition control duties in the hands of the MOTEC M800 ECU, but it also does away with the unsightly plug leads that normally run to the front of the engine on a Windsor.
Cleverly, the mill manages to combine the tough look of a mechanically injected blown V8 with the tunability and ease of operation of a modern, electronically fuel-injected vehicle. It’ll also be configured with flex-fuel, so that the owner can easily switch from pump fuel to E85.
“We’re thinking it should make around 800hp on pump fuel and if we step it up and put some boost into it on E85, I’d like to think that it’ll go 950-1000hp as an everyday streeter,” Troy says.