1972 Ford LTD

Vehicle Overview

1972 Ford LTD, turbocharged Ls, 4l80e and built Ford 9in. My great grandparents bought the car new. My mom grew up riding in the car and learned to drive in it. I originally built the Ford 400 turned out later the block was cracked. So I started down the LS Swap road that quickly turned into a turbo build. I started out by buying an lq4 and 4l80e with a harness. I got that running and it was great. I was getting 21mpg. Then the cam and turbo I wanted were on sale, so the perfectly good running cheap swap was pulled out to do a turbo build. It started out as a sbe with gapped rings, cam, Deka 80s, Pac 1218s, and 1 Walbro 450. Got a dyno tune and went racing bent a road and cracked a piston. I put a new used gen 4 rod and piston back in and went back for a road tune. It broke again. Then I bit the bullet got it built into a short block by a good machine shop with forged rods and pistons. I then added a flex-fuel sensor and a second fuel pump. I was off to a new Tunner. New bottom end new heads everything was new other than the stock computer and wiring harness. We had trouble on the dyno but worked it out. We made 628hp and 640tq to the tire on 91 but couldn't get the flex to work in the OS. Drove it home all was good. I took it back next weekend for road tune and drivability. We were almost back to the shop. We pulled off made a pass and blew a head gasket at 120mph... Got it back to his shop where I tour it down to find a burnt gasket and head. We got the head fixed and I got it all back together started it up and it smoked out of the catch can. I had to leave it there the tuner thought it was just coolant burning off. He completely retuned it again. When I picked it up it was smoking badly. This tuner was great to work with. He helped buy parts, and he never pointed the finger at me and said it was my fault or I had bad parts. I did all the work. I'm not sure what the problem was but I decided to ditch the stock computer for a Terminator X Max and he agreed. While I worked on rewiring the entire car I had the machine shop rework the block it burnt 3 forged pistons and beat all the bearings out of the thing and fried the freshly worked 243 heads. So I had to get all new bearings, new pistons, hone the block, and new heads. I finally got it all back together and I'm running a tune based on a Sloppy mechanics tune file that is very close to my build. I'm loving the Terminator and can't wait to get back to racing!

Vehicle Story

Future Plans

Build a roll cage, install new carpet, a vintage air unit, and start doing race week events.