I have a chance to buy a 1973 V8 Comet and heres what I want to do, the idea is to make a street car out of it and the 2005 Ford GTR is my inspiration. Basically a very stripped down light as possible car that can handle AND run 13's or even 12's, the interior on the GTR is no frills, race seat and roll bar and a few switches, no carpet or anything else, and I have seen one in person and it is awesome, it's painted to match the car as well, anyway I can handle that part but need your ideas on these items 1. best springs,sway bars, subframes, etc to make it handle well. maybe a company that makes kits (Griggs?) like for mustangs? 2. Rims that will fit, something in a 16" or 17" without spacers 3. Inexpensive disk brakes conversion 4. Drive train ideas, gears, what C4 kits are good I have owned a couple 5.0 mustangs and know a lot about them and I have heard that stuff might swap in with some work, so if that stuff will work I'm all ears too. Hopefully I can get the weight down to around 2000lbs and have about 300hp, or at least those are the targets. I guess a road race Comet is what I'm talking about so if you have experience with what is worth doing and what isn't let me know Thanks Tom
1. springs from a fox mustang fit in the front of the maverick. you can use the fox body lowering springs. also pefrom the "shelby" drop. its where you relocate the upper controle arms one inch lower by drilling new holes. i think there is only one or two aftermarket sway bar options, i think one company is afco. you can get subframe connectors from southside machine, but id recomend having who ever puts a cage in the car puting in custom subframe connectors that are tied into the cage. for the rear i really sugest geting caltracs bars (www.calvertracing.com) the are intended for drag race use, but the alum bushing put in the front eye of the leaf spring really stablizes the springs in courners. they also can help you maintain traction and give you a good amount of adjustable preload for the rear spings. 2. wheels. pretty much need to go with aftermarket wheels if you dont want to use spacers. i think that you will want a 8 inch wheel with a 4 inch back spacing in the rear and im not sure if a 8 inch will fit in the front. 3. if you looking for light weight and inexpensive, i would put willwood breaks all the way around. you can get disk breaks for the front from newer mavericks/comets or granadas. there are lots of topics on this site that deal with breaks just do a search. 4. for a motor most all of your fox body motor stuff will work with a comet. the exhast is the only real difference. there are ony two real header choices that fit the maverick. hooker long tubes or thorly shortys. the c4 can be built to take the power that you can make from a 302 based motor, with your intrest in road course you will need to carefully select the proper converter and have a good external cooler and use the radiator cooler also. as for radiator do a search on here and get the driect fit radiator is popular on this site. the 8" diff will be just fine for what your talking about. i would recomend a gear ratio aroud 3.25 and a posi. to get the car to weigh 2000 lbs will be very hard. 300 hp will be very easy to get. i would try for weight of about 2500 lbs and 350 to 400 hp. you can get a carbon fiber hood from maverickman whos a member on here. gut the doors strip the interior of everything. get fiber glass bumpers. use aluminum heads on the motor, stroke it to a 347. a carb setup would be lighter than a fuel injection setup. good luck and welcome to the board. it will b
Thanks, thats a lot of info, good to know that a lot of Fox body stuff will cross over, figured on doing cam, heads, intake & exhaust, but nothing to radical, C4 rebuild with right converter and posi rear, just not used to leaf spring rears and how to get them to handle, but I know it can be done. I figure i will lower it a little and put Bilsteins all around with springs and sway bars. I want to stay with as much stock stuff as possible, don't need a computer or 5.0 swap I don't think, or a 5 speed, might do a floor mount B & M or Hurst quarter stick or something. What rear end comes in a V8 1973 Comet, is it a 9"?
Comets/Mavericks had 8" rears (baby 9)....With the leaf springs you will need to run a panhard bar (track locator bar) to keep it centered in the corners.If you plan to road race/auto cross the thing I would consider running a standard shift trans(lots more controll this way) over an automatic.If you are more into drag racing it then you wont need the track bar.
they might have. i last delt with there stuff when i worked at supershops back in the late 90s. so its very possible that they have gone by the wayside. they had good products for low prices. i personaly had custom subframe connectors made and welded on the car. i just had a cage put in and its tied in to them also.
Does the 8" rear have any type of posi / limited slip in it, and if not do they make one, and will it stand up to 300HP+? The C4 will work fine for me, something that will see some stop light to stop light battles, not see much freeway driving and will ocassionally go out to the canyons for some curves, but no real track or drag strip racing I plan on gutting the interior completly, and throwing in 2 race seats and a cage eventually, and it will be painted white with the Comet GT stripes on it, and interior painted white as well I take it Mustang Rims don't work without spacers, I do like the greyish Torque Thrusts that came on 2000's GTs, I do want somewhat modern styled wheels and tires I have been reading a lot of the tech articles here too, just like to get some specifics down first so thanks for putting up with the questions Tom
