Ever seen those movies where the bad dudes are out in high-speed boats, picking up drugs from an airdrop? Once they bring their merchandise aboard, there's always that swarm of police and coastguard boats that line the horizon and move in with their lights ablaze and hooters, well, hooting. It's all Miami Vice kinda excitement.
Well Dean Ristic is a man that has also dabbled in a bit of "speed" trafficking. But he's not the type that wears terrible suits or crocodile shoes - he's into
speed gear trafficking! You see, if you live in Australia and want to build up a killer Ford V8, you often need to bring parts in from the US. And those freight and insurance costs can be murder. His solution was to persuade some fellow professional gymnasts to squeeze cylinder heads, pushrods, injectors, a cam and more into their luggage upon making the return journey home from a recent LA competition.
Hmm, this lot sure would've looked pretty suss passing through the baggage X-ray machine - Security must have thought they were parts for a bomb!
But Dean's one of those people that will go to no ends to make sure his car is absolutely the best it can possibly be. That's why he's spent so much time on attention to detail - on things most of us wouldn't even notice! But it's these things combined that make this car such a glamour. Dean says most people go about working the engine, and then bring the body and interior up to scratch - but he decided to go about it "ass-about".
As the second owner of this 1992 EA GL Falcon (or what used to be!) not much needed to be done by way of panel massaging and rust repairs - but there is a pile of other stuff that's been done. The body kit is the most obvious addition, with a custom mix of an EB GT wing, scoop and bumpers and a set of aftermarket side skirts. The fussy detailing of the EA was also improved upon by installing ED model C-pillar trims panels (minus the EA's grilles), ED lights in the boot lid (which also meant having to modify the lid), plus ED side strips, indicators and door handles.
The masterful red paint job is also the fruits of Dean's money and patience. After three below-par attempts at re-spraying the car to show quality, he's now happy with the lustrous coats of 2 Pak Standox Monza Red that were lovingly applied by Walker Paint and Panel. The car's been fully 'coded and it's a colour that's hard to pass without notice. Another act in the aesthetics show is the 16x8 ROH Sniper rims that fill the guards with aggression, while a set of Toyo rubbers fill the car's wake with thick, choking smoke whenever Dean gets a case of the throttle pedal twitches. One "home job" Dean carried out was lipping the guards to get enough clearance - a task that was carefully performed with a sledgehammer!
Even before the engine department got attention, it was the basic interior of the EA GL that got a boot firmly buried in it's behind. Dean figured the best route would be to swap it all for an ED Fairmont Ghia interior, with all the leather and velour and electronic whiz-bang. This all went in without hassle, including a pair of Ghia seats that look very similar to the mega-dollar GT's. The only deviations from the Ghia theme is a S-Pack dash cluster, GT steering wheel, plus the recent addition of the Autometer monster tacho and oil pressure gauge (suitcased in from the US of A). Musical sounds now also pour out from a pair of Kenwood 4-ways mounted on the shelf, which are fired up by a 100Wx2 Sherwood amp feeding from a Sanyo CD/tuner deck. The inside of the boot couldn't escape Dean's eye for detail either. It's now been tidied up with an Exactfit carpet, fire extinguisher and some MDF-backed velour coverings.
So with a car that looked mad and was cozier than his own bed, Dean moved on to making it haul. Big time. Step one was to say goodbye to the horrible stockie 3.9 litre six and a big hello to a 5.0 V8 extracted from a 1994 ED XR8. This was dropped into the nose of the Ford along with its electronic controlled 4-speed auto trans as well as a tried-and-tested 9 inch diff. Things were shining in Happyland, but Dean still had to find the extra power he was after. This is where the trip to America comes in. During a gymnastics competition in LA, Dean found the time to chase around for some stuff like alloy heads, cam, lifters, pushrods, rockers, intake, injectors, rocker covers and gaskets. Most of this came from an outlet called Performance Unlimited.
Back home, Dean fronted up to Maros Automotive with the job of screwing it all together - along with some of the best homegrown goodies. One of the most substantial local mods was stroking the engine to 347ci using a larger crank, rod and piston kit bought from Sydney Speed Supply. Dean says the stroker kit works well at pulling along a heavy car like the Ford. Exactly what he got in the kit was a polished crank, H-beam rods and 10.4:1 JE flat top pistons.
In addition to this are plasma-moly rings, Clevite bearings and the block was fully prep'd with o-ringing and a 30 thou overbore. The sump was also baffled just as a safety precaution. Atop this mountain was placed that pair of Edelbrock RPM alloy ported and polished heads, with their standard stainless steel valves kept in place. These flow vastly better than stock, with a Crane "baby cam", 1.7-ratio Gold Series rockers and Crane hydraulic lifters.
This combination inhales through a RPM Performance intake (with both upper and lower sections ported and polished) and a 70mm Edelbrock throttle body. The standard Ford airbox remains in place, but is bettered with a large diameter forward facing duct to ram air into its K&N filter insert.
Assorted bits under the hood have been HPC'd and the intake manifold, throttle body and alternator have all been polished to a brilliant shine. And keen Ford fans will notice how the battery has been rotated 90 degrees and an EB model coolant overflow tank has been fitted. Mated up against those wonderful Edelbrock heads is a heat-coated pair of Genie 4>2>1 extractors that flow equally as well, and pass it all on to a 2 ½ inch Y-shaped collector. From there it's 3 inch mandrel to the tip, with a couple of straight-through stainless steel mufflers. But it's still enough to "drive the neighbors mad"!
The engine management system has gone lap-top programmable with Haltech's latest E6S, which runs with a MAP sensor to allow for full induction airflow. Wired up to 30lb Ford Motorsport injectors, Darlington Auto Tune was able to map this computer and deliver a maximum of 212kW at the wheels. Dean's hand timed the car's 0-100 in the 4s and guesses it'll be capable of a 12 second pass. "It throws you right back".
The stock ex-are-ate trans was also beefed up to suit the power, with Kevlar bands and brass washers. In addition to this, there is a Stage 2 adjustable shift kit which teams up with a 2200 rpm stall convertor. MV Automatics are credited with the rebuild, which has lasted well so far.
The diff and tailshaft have caused a little more grief though. The last diff blew - causing a bent tailshaft! So to well and truly fix 'er up, there is now a 28 spline axle 9 incher with a 3.7:1 LSD, steel centre, twin carrier guts. Some modification to the Panhard rod was required to let it all come together though. The tailshaft was replaced using nothing less substantial than a 3 ½ inch diameter shaft with GT unis.
Part of the deal to keep the car a good all-round package with the potent five-o fitment was upgrading the front calipers to those used on the ED XR8. Suspension wise, there's the inclusion of a front camber kit, K-Mac lowered springs (about 3 inches lower), Koni adjustable dampers and XR8 swaybars and Nolathane bushes. But Dean admits he's "not really into handling", so most of it's there for looks.
There you have it folks - one of the best EA-based Fords in Australia. So remember, next time you see a line of Australian gymnasts in an airport struggling home with their heavy bags, please offer to help. They're bringing home the gold - or the alloy, or the cast iron.
Contacts:
AAA Exhaust
+61 8 8352 7444
Darlington Auto Tune
+61 8 8277 4222
Walker Paint and Panel
+61 8 8277 9033
Performance Unlimited (LA)
+1 310 837 9636
