D-DAY
Speed Pro’s Marcus Cripps gives his XD Falcon the turbo Barra treatment and comes up with 1400hp
MARCUS Cripps and the crew from Speed Pro know a thing or two about fast cars, so it should come as no surprise that Marcus’s own XD Falcon happens to be a 1400hp, sevensecond street demon. The XD was originally purchased for a measly $1800 as a replacement for the Speed Pro XB Falcon, which was getting quicker than initially intended – a good problem to have, if you ask us!
“The XB went a 9.4 at over 140mph, and it was at that point where we’d have to ’cage it and fit a ’chute in order to keeping going with it,” says Marcus. Not wanting to chop up a car that had been in his family for generations, Marcus chose the XD as the business’s new development mule.
The XB’S 460ci Windsor found a new home in the XD, before copping some nitrous and comfortably wheelstanding its way to low nine-second passes with 1250hp on tap. A Speed Pro customer ended up purchasing the Windsor mill and the majority of the driveline shortly after it had a freshen-up at Dandy Engines, which left Marcus pondering what to do next with the red brick.
Enter the Aussie force to be reckoned with: the mighty Barra. “I was originally looking at doing a twin-turbo small-block Ford, but I thought a Barra would make a good interim engine,” says Marcus. “We had done the carby and nitrous stuff with the old engine, so we thought we’d try learning EFI and turbo things with the Barra.”
WITH 1400RWHP AND 40PSI AT HIS DISPOSAL, MARCUS QUITE COMFORTABLY RAN A 7.96@173MPH
The original plan for the Ford six followed a typical budget recipe: throw some valve springs, head studs, oil pump gears and the basic kit at an LPG green-top Barra and boost it to the moon. Those plans quickly snowballed though when Jason Ghiller from Tunnel Vision Turbocharging got involved, as he knows a thing or two about super-quick Barra XDS.
Frank Marchese from Dandy Engines also had a hand in the project, helping Marcus choose what size turbo to run and doing the majority of the machine work on the donk, ready for Jason to assemble. “Frank basically said we can choose something small and responsive for the street, or something bigger so we could focus on our times at the track,” says Marcus.
With the turbo size sorted and a goal of at least 1000hp set, a menu was drawn up for the mill. It consisted of a standard-stroke billet crank from Auscrank, Nitto rods and SPS pistons, all topped with a handported head wearing custom-grind cams. Both the drool-worthy intake and exhaust manifolds are custom-fabricated pieces made in-house at Tunnel Vision. The turbo is a Precision 88/91 sourced from Speed Pro, along with the majority of the engine internals and a Fueltech FT600 ECU to control the show.
It’s no run-of-the-mill Barra though, with Marcus and Jason opting to try some new things out with this build. The oiling system is supported by an external Savy pump, and the fuel system also uses a Waterman cabledriven pump. “We went with the oil pump to push Jason’s boundaries a bit, as he’d never done one before, and it helps with the oil pressure up top when we’re at the track,” says Marcus.
The driveline also scored a solid beefing-up to handle the new-found fury. A Protrans TH400 makes home for an SDE converter, while Marcus shipped the car off to All Race Fabrications to have the rear end renovated. “I’ve never been happy with the way the rear end sits on XDS, so I had the boys at All Race move the rear springs inboard, split the tub and set up the Strange nine-inch rear that we supplied,” he says. “It was just for looks at the end of the day; we’ve always run the 275s on the 15x10s, so there was no other advantage.”
The car was turned around in roughly two years, and with 1400rwhp and 40psi at his disposal, Marcus quite comfortably ran a 7.96@173mph on the car’s third pass – and in street trim. “It drove straight as a die, and we had the guys from Fueltech and Gazzard Brothers helping with the tuning of the engine and suspension, so it was a really good first time out for the car,” says Marcus.
The XD has been used as a showcase for all the products Speed Pro sells, as well as giving Marcus and his crew real-world experience and knowledge with the gear they offer. “Ninety per cent of the parts in the car were sourced from Speed Pro: the lines and fittings, wheels, brakes, suspension, engine parts, turbo, diff, seats – just about everything,” says
PLANS QUICKLY SNOWBALLED WHEN JASON FROM TUNNEL VISION GOT INVOLVED, WHO KNOWS A THING OR TWO ABOUT SUPER-QUICK BARRA XDS
EVEN WITH ALL THAT POWER, IT HAS GREAT MANNERS ON THE STREET. I USE IT TO TAKE THE GIRLS TO NETBALL
Marcus. “We’ve had people ring up and want to copy the set-up of the XD down to the fuel pumps and lines, so it allows us to advise customers properly on what best suits their needs.”
While the car was built with drag racing duties in mind, Marcus still makes sure it gets its fair share of street use. “Even with all that power, it has great manners on the street,” he says. “I use it to take the girls to netball, go for pizza runs and stuff like that; it’s still the tough street car I wanted.”
Marcus has already achieved his initial goal of a seven-second slip, so his next aim is to hunt deeper into seven-second territory and make his debut at Street Machine Drag Challenge. “One of the ideas for the build was to run Drag Challenge, so we’re hoping to go there, run a few sevens and just have a good time,” he says.