Taking Wagon Appreciation to New Heights: National-Level Autocross

Mmm, wagon.

Love it.

Sweet!

Glad to see it getting the attention it deserves!  I love the looks and performance of this wagon.

( Check out the sixth post down on this thread from 11 months ago  )

We had a guy in a old Falcon wagon show up and shake cones. Mighty cool. 

Needs moar Pinto.

What, no video?!!

Kreb said:

What, no video?!!

 

If someone gets video, I'll post it!

Love me some cone killing longroof.

Best I could do for wagon video.  Why won't  videos embed on this site?  

https://youtu.be/zxho7Yk6rg8

In reply to Toebra :

You’ve got use the button to the right of picture icon, that has a “+”...

That was GREAT!  Thank you for sharing that...

Picture from this morning

One more...internet is slow here!

Sorry, have to drop the cliched "Wagons are built to haul things. This wagon was built to haul ass." 

So many places for camera mounts... I love it.

Sunday runs

Not sure how I missed this build. Very, very cool!

CyberEric said:

Not sure how I missed this build. Very, very cool!

It'll be at SCCA Solo Nats this year. Expect to see it in a future issue of GRM. 

I have auto crossed wagon before. I have a 95 subby i did a few times and then in 2015 and 2017 i did the challange with the 02 outback wagon.

There was a little ford wagin that was tracked a couple of years ago and did the first ever rally cross when it was brought stateside also.

I keep pestering Jack to update his build thread on the wagon, which he promises to do soon.  In the mean time, I thought I'd throw a couple of updates out there.

He freshened the worn-out pickup truck engine in June and went for a little more cam along with some Chinese aluminum cylinder heads.  On the dyno with a real conservative tune and boost, he's at about 320WHP with a long, flat torque curve.  We think we'll see about 375-400 when the engine is broken in and we get more aggressive with the tune.

When we ran it last weekend, we had RideTech coilovers on the front and used RideTech coilovers on the rear as "helper springs" for the stock leaf springs.  The car handled better, but obviously wasn't ideal.  It lifted the inside front tire quite a bit.  Earlier this week, we modified and installed in a full RideTech Mustang 4 Link in the rear and will be really upping all the spring rates, so we're expecting much better handling to come.

We felt kind of nervous as we cut up that nice Mustang subframe, but that's what we had to do to get it in the Falcon.

We'll be setting final ride heights soon, but the rear has come down a couple of inches and we'll probably bring the front down a little too.

We'll be at the CAM Challenge in Grissom August 9-11.  Anyone else going?

Having fun at the CAM Challenge at Grissom this weekend. We're the only wagon this year. 

Did your improvements tame the under brake squat in the front?

Best part: Jack and Carl are two of the nicest, most helpful people you'll ever meet.  Great "ambassadors" for the autocross community.  

noddaz said:

Did your improvements tame the under brake squat in the front?

 

We've still got a lot of tuning to do with the suspension.  We've got it better, but it's still an issue, and we're not loving the handling yet.  Of course, it is a 50 year old station wagon so we've got to consider how high we set the bar.    On Saturday at the CAM Challenge, we were pretty frustrated.  Sunday, we made some changes, the car felt better, and we took quite a bit of time off, which at least validated the direction we're heading.  Next stop is the Solo Nationals, so hopefully we'll have it dialed in better.

In reply to kazoospec :

Gosh, you're making me blush.  I have to say that you were one of the ambassadors that welcomed me and Jack into autox, so I hope you're blushing a bit too.

Didn't get to watch it on Sunday, but it did not look good on course on Saturday. Just hop-skipping it's way through everything. Looks like the damper is not controlling anything at all either from hitting hard parts or just bad valving. Should get a lot faster with that figured out.

Hmmm......is this the inspiration for V8Kid and his father to pursue a similar path elsewhere in the forum and put the 'LARK' on hold????  news at eleven......and long roofs are always a welcome addition in whatever floats ones' boat....