STICK THE BIGGEST
FORD IS NAIVELY SAYING THE BHP IS THE SAME AS A STANDARD GT- 300 AT 5400RPM. IT’S PROBABLY NEARER TO 380BHP
“THIS NEW, SOPHISTICATED HO TURNS OUT TO BE A FAR SUPERIOR ROAD CAR”
On paper, there’s little difference between last year’s Falcon GT-HO and the new Phase Three HO. The engineers at Ford’s Special Vehicles Division spent their hours merely making detail changes to the crankshift, exhaust, cooling, sump, head gaskets, brakes and equally subtle alterations to the suspension.
The refinement job was good. It is designed to let the HO rev more easily for sustained higher speeds, run smoother, cooler and more reliably. Which may or may not be the success story of Bathurst, ’71.
But entirely regardless, of what happens on the race track, this new, sophisticated HO turns out to be a far superior car on the road to its predecessor.
The engine refinements, while not producing great bags of power over the old HO, make it smoother, more f lexible and less of a “strainat-the-leash” beast.
It is now approaching the realm of an acceptable town car and is even more desirable as the quickest open-roader Australia can offer.
The changes to the engine are: greatly improved extractor exhaust, sump baff les, bigger 780 cubic feet per minute, Holley four-barrel carburettor (750 cfm in the Phase Two). The head gaskets are also new, and more importantly the crankshaft is now specially toughened and its damper has been enlarged. The radiator is bigger and overall cooling more efficient.
On the road cars, an electrical cut-out limits revs to 6150 – the track cars, properly blue-printed the balanced should run 7000 without complaint. Ford is still rather naively saying the bhp is the same as that of the standard GT – 300 at 5400 rpm. It is probably nearer 380 bhp.
Another important development in the Phase Three is the availability of close and wide ratio gearboxes, and three diffs – 3.25, 3.5 and 3.9 to one (the Bathurst cars will run the 3.25 ratio).
There have been slight alterations to the front and rear suspension, the rear brakes drums, the front
callipers and there’s now a power booster vacuum reserve tank.
Ford Special Vehicles man John Gowland says simply: “There are no big changes – we’ve just ironed out a lot of little things, smoothed the car out.”
We were the first journalists permitted to drive the Phase Three. Rather than try to see how much quicker it is around a race track, we took it through peak hour traffic and on a fast 400-mile run to see how it rates as a pure race car.
The “smoothing out” process is obvious. The engine idles at 900-1000 rpm, considerably lower than that of an average Phase Two, and is nowhere near as lumpy. Drivers may still blip the throttle at the lights, but the only reason for this is to listen to the magnificent engine sound.
The Phase Three almost
“HANDLING IS SUPERB. TAUT SUSPENSION MEANS THE CAR SITS VERY FLAT”
f lat in third. Tachometer is optimistic, true rpm is just over 6000. Note coolant operating temperature – a constant 180 degrees.
There is now no great drama about moving the car off from the lights. Where the old HOs needed care and a slipped clutch to stop them stalling, the new one asks for nothing more that everyday clutch and throttle action.
It is remarkably easy car to drive considering the incredible performance that’s only a throttle push away.
In city traffic, we trundled the HO up to 2000 rpm, gearchanges (that’s 16 mph in first, 24 mph in second and 34 in third) before dropping into top just under the 35 mph speed limit. It’s here the Phase Three shows its better manners – it will crawl along from 1500 rpm in top, although, of course, such a high performance 11 to one compression engine doesn’t entirely hide its displeasure. This sort of low speed f lexibility was non-existent in top in the older car. It bucked and shook at 40 or below.
Handling is superb. Taut suspension means the car sits ver y f lat. At the limit, understeer sets in, is broken by use of power to poke the tail around into oversteer. er.
The new smoothness continues right through the rev range with the only thing approaching a cammy feel at just over r 5000 rpm. And then it’s not nasty, just a greater surge e forward.
Our test HO had the
“UNDERSTANDING AND RESPECTING THE POWER IS THE NAME OF THE GAME”
3.25 to one Bathurst diff, but ran the wide ratios. The tacho was 500rpm fast, showing 6700 when the true rpm had stopped at 6150 because of the limiter.
In top, the HO runs to its 141mph limit incredibly easily – for instance, 100 mph to 120 takes only 6.8 seconds and 120-140 8.9 – and holds it, straining at the bit for more rpm.
Getting off the line for performance runs, we found dropping the clutch at 2700rpm was critical. Three grand was too much, resulting in the wheels spinning hard for more that 200 yards, and 2500 was not enough, letting the car bog down and wasting time.
Even so, the car was much easier to boot away hard than we’d expected. There was just one side twitch, held easily by a twist of opposite lock, then it was away with a magnificent sonic boom to lay 14.7 quarters (little better than Phase Two times) but a phenomenal 0-100 mph time of 15.2 seconds.
As a ver y fast touring car, the HO is superb. We found it easier to drive than a standard GT, mainly because of its greater precision, better, tauter handling and the ultimate in sensitive power application.
It hangs on incredibly in the wet (our test car ran Dunlop Aquajets at 30psi all round), and only a fool booting the power on hard tight bend on a low gear would get the rear to snake. Understanding and respecting the power is the name of the game.
The front and rear spoilers which begin to exert downward pressure from 90mph help make the car inherently stable at all times. But steering a little more sensitive at the straight-ahead would be a welcome addition.
The steering is lighter than an ordinary GT, a point that contributes, along with the light clutch, gearchange and light brake pedal, to the easy-to-drive feeling.
The ride is firmer than the standard GT, too, but we preferred it that way for the assured feeling it imparts. It is comfortable.
Things we didn’t like about driving such a fast car were the lack of a headlight f lasher for the otherwise excellent lights, and the long reach to the windscreen washers and wipers.
The fuel bill will also cause a few headaches – hard pushed, the car does a neat 8mpg. With slightly quieter driving it will give 10.4mpg – don’t expect much more.
As a fine, ultra-high performance car that will be beaten by nothing under $20,000, the only problem area we found was the brakes. While they stop the car fast and true in normal circumstances, two hard stops will have them fading badly. We brought this up with Ford and it says the reason is that the road cars are running much softer linings than will be used at Bathurst because of the hard linings’ high pedal pressures. Nonetheless, we think anyone who buys a HO (and one dealer at Orange in NSW has sold four already) would be well advised to fit the hard linings.