COMET CENTRAL

Hey Fred, floors haven’t been touched. I have been really lucky, this car would have to be as close as ‘rust free’ as you are ever going to get in a 56 year old car. The struts are from an Aussie company RRS. I have heard mixed reviews about them but all of the people I have come across that have them in running cars are very happy with them. Hopefully my experience is the same.

Hey Jim, I started this build about 4 years ago. Surprisingly enough getting it into primer wasn’t too bad. The past couple of years have stalled somewhat while I saved up cash for components etc. on top of that I moved 5300kms (3300mi) from one side of the country to the other.

Anyway after the car was in epoxy all the front suspension and rack and pinion power steering was fitted out along with the front brakes and rotors.

Awesome build. Keep the pictures coming. Thanks for sharing.
tom

nice work mate, good to see you are getting into it & its all coming along so well, I remember speaking with you a couple years ago about the RRS front end. John

Hi John, correct, you also sent me pics of how you mounted your gauges in the factory dash panel. I haven’t been in here for a while. When I saw that you had given yours a birthday while mine sat lonely in the shed I thought I’d better pull my finger out. It’s gathering momentum now so hopefully I can maintain the rage till the end. Did you put new rubbers in your car when you put it back together? If so where did you get them from? I also need to source new trim clips for the trim on the sides.

good to see it motivated you a bit, will be good to see another Comet on the road here, I bought my rubbers from the Rubber Connection in Melbourne, Jeff & Heather are good to deal with & stock good quality bits, I bought all the rubbers from them for my truck, ranchero & comet, they have the clips, I saw them at Bendigo swap, I didn`t have a sample with me & there are a couple of types that look the same so you might have to compare them or maybe send them one to get the right ones, if you are after a new windscreen, they are cheap to get here, XP falcon sedan will be the same, I just put a new one in mine was only about $200. good to see the RRS front end worked out for you, some people have had issues, they used my other Comet to make the brackets off for the steering rack, John

Thanks for the tips John, I will get hold of them for the rubbers shortly.

With the front suspension in the car sat for a while why the engine was pieced together. This is where things kinda snowballed a little. I initially planned to build a 347 Stroker out of a 5.0 Windsor. Walking main caps and weak(ish) blocks seamed to be a common theme. I definitely wanted something with pretty decent horsepower and didn’t like the idea of stuffing a heap of good parts in an old block, with the potential to lose the lot if it all went pear shaped. Aftermarket block it was then. Still with keeping it 8.2 deck in mind I went about making a list and pricing up parts to build a tough 363. Didn’t take long to realise it wasn’t going to be cheap by any means. Nor did it take long to realise that building a 9.5 deck based motor was going to be roughly the same price. 9.5 deck it was then . So after deciding on a suitable list of known quality brands I pushed on as funds allowed. The result sits proudly in the engine bay now.

The accessory drive was never really on the cards until I saw a car at a local meet and decided I wanted one. Yes they are expensive. No I didn’t absolutely need it. But damn they look soo good.

Great build Jake! You won't regret going to the 9.5 block, looks like you have plenty of room for it after your shock tower mods. How many cubes did you go with? That front serpentine belt system looks real trick, they also function better than the old drives. Keep up the good work, you will be enjoying it on the road before you know it! Take care, Cary

Hi Cary, went with 4” stroke and 4.125” bore for 427ci. It was a really easy combo to piece together using all off the shelf parts. Block is Dart, crank and rods are Scat, with Wiseco pistons. Heads are trickflow hiports and a super victor single plane to top it off.

I was initially planning on bolting a T56 magnum behind the Windsor, the necessity to chop the tunnel out to make it fit swayed me back towards an auto. I bit the bullet and ordered an 800hp rated C4.

The next thing to get was the rear end. I had already decided on a 9” and was contemplating finding one and cutting it down to fit. Stuff like that in Aus is not particularly scarce but certainly not as plentiful as the US. After looking around for a while I wasn’t keen on anything that I looked at so bit the bullet and decided to have a new one built. That just left the choice of centre and ratio. At the star of the build I set a goal of having a 10 sec pump gas streeter with A/C that would stop and steer as well as it went. Obviously getting the car off the line was going to be a big part of achieving what I wanted. Something that would be made all the more difficult with a set of nice cruising highway gears. After discussing it with the diff builder we went with a 3.9:1 35 spline tru-trac. Diff sorted!

With the short diff gears and only a 26” tall tire highway cruising was always going to be a compromise. I did however have a plan for that.

Jake, I also opted for a C4, and am running 3:91 rear with 29" tires. I wish I would have sprung for a GearVendors unit too, it should make road cruising much more enjoyable! Let me know what you think of the OD unit once you get it on the street or strip. I'm not sure I could handle one more button on my shifter, as I have one for the line lock and one for the trans-brake already.
Take care, Cary