Phase 4 Engine

Gezza1er · 26-05-2012, 05:48 PM

Hi Guys

A mate of mine is installing light posts and power poles for Western Power up north and some of them go through Big blocks of land.

He told me he saw a XA 2door and the owner said it had a phase 4 motor in it.
I thought they were only released in the the phase 4 but from what i can remember there were only 4 made 1 crashed 1 unknown of location and the other 2 owned some where. the owner of the car said that they made excess engines and just put them in the early XA's?

So the reason i stared the thread is what was the phase 4 motor. What specs,info,pics or anything to identify it if someone stumbled across one... and dose anyone on the forum have on their car.

If there's even such a thing as the phase 4 motor

Cheers
Gerry

Road_Warrior · 26-05-2012, 06:12 PM

Ahh yeah, you might want to find that thread on the XA GTHO Ph4 resto (the green dentist's car) which should explain it all.

fordman302 · 26-05-2012, 06:13 PM

isn't that what the rpo83 was derived from in some form or another?

Nikked · 26-05-2012, 06:15 PM

Probally a RPO83

Not a full house spce Ho, but many of the parts that would appear in a HO.

You would have to compare the specs of the motor to the real HO to see whats what.

But, even then, its not a HO motor as such.

gtxb67 · 26-05-2012, 06:27 PM

one was crashed and the other 3 are alive. while i and many others have no idea where at least 2 of them are, they are not really unknown

was he actually saying it came out of a phase 4 or was it built to phase 4 specifications

either way, i seriously doubt he had one of the genuine phase 4 engines - maybe an rpo like nikked suggested, but not a phase 4

xbxd351 · 26-05-2012, 06:37 PM

My guess would be an RPO 83 or replica and I'm pretty sure they only got HM headers and a 780 Holley.

Other possibility is he was pulling your leg. I do that sometimes because so many people come up and start yapping with you when you have a coupe and mine is just a boring old GT mock up Fairmont so I sometimes tell people it is a one off special Phase 4 coupe with factory B&M shifter

jpd80 · 26-05-2012, 06:42 PM

RPO83 was the body, many years ago I remember reading a story with Ian Stockings
from FoA who indicated that the Ph 4 engines went into ZF Fairlanes.

Can anyone verify if that's a red herring?

Pinkbits · 26-05-2012, 07:03 PM

Myths that have been doing the rounds for years are that they had parts bins on the assembly line & whatever excess parts were available were placed on cars at random.

Nikked · 26-05-2012, 07:22 PM

It seems to be the case that the only constant RPO83 options were the carb, headers and sump, both in coupe and hardtop form. Just over 250 were made, as per homologation requirements.

It good to note that the RPO83 wasn't that last "bathurst special" that ford sneekly brought out...

FPV GTHO · 26-05-2012, 07:46 PM

I didn't think all RPO83's had the same extras. Some probably only got the wider wheels.

wicko · 26-05-2012, 08:32 PM

It could just mean its a V8 Ford - possibly even a 351.

ozrunner · 26-05-2012, 09:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jpd80

RPO83 was the body, many years ago I remember reading a story with Ian Stockings
from FoA who indicated that the Ph 4 engines went into ZF Fairlanes.

Can anyone verify if that's a red herring?

I seem to recall that many of the excess 4 parts were basically fitted to whatever was coming down the line at the time etc.

But to answer you question, yes some obviously went into ZF's as back then I was having a bo peep at a ZF getting a new recon Clevo fitted at my local machine shop. I then spied a dirty Clevo on the floor nearby that was in pieces and it looked odd. Closer examination showed it had 4 bolt mains and a twin eared sump

. I asked where did this come from and the reply was out of the ZF. The owner apparently didn't care either way as he just wanted a new recon engine fitted.

On asking I could have had the lot for $300. A week later I thought of it again and decided it would look good in my shed but as usual someone else didn't dither

k code · 27-05-2012, 01:24 AM

There is an yellow fire RPO with the engine out of crashed P4 that was recently sold on AMCS.So maybe that is the car..

Gezza1er · 27-05-2012, 09:37 AM

The only other thing that he told me was it had a 6 ltr sump pan and from memory don't the normal 351's have 4 to 5 ltr sump pans. The owner said that it came form factory like that (supposedly)?

castellan · 27-05-2012, 01:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ozrunner

I seem to recall that many of the excess 4 parts were basically fitted to whatever was coming down the line at the time etc.

But to answer you question, yes some obviously went into ZF's as back then I was having a bo peep at a ZF getting a new recon Clevo fitted at my local machine shop. I then spied a dirty Clevo on the floor nearby that was in pieces and it looked odd. Closer examination showed it had 4 bolt mains and a twin eared sump

. I asked where did this come from and the reply was out of the ZF. The owner apparently didn't care either way as he just wanted a new recon engine fitted.

On asking I could have had the lot for $300. A week later I thought of it again and decided it would look good in my shed but as usual someone else didn't dither

ZF fairlane only got a 351 with 2V heads and 2BBL carby.

Bossxr8 · 27-05-2012, 02:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jpd80

RPO83 was the body, many years ago I remember reading a story with Ian Stockings
from FoA who indicated that the Ph 4 engines went into ZF Fairlanes.

Can anyone verify if that's a red herring?

They never actually got to the point of building the Ph4 motors, they had ordered some of the required 250 sets of parts and some had arrived, but they never actually went into production. They cancelled orders for parts that hadn't been made yet, sold off stuff to the aftermarket they could (they did that with the detroit locker 9 inchers), and all the other parts were used on the line at random just to clear the rest of it off. The headers and holley carbs were probably the only bits they sent out that were organised to fit to a particular variant in the RPO83.

The other stuff was fitted to anything that would fit, i've heard of the eared sumps being found on Fairlanes, F100's and Falcons.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pinkbits

Myths that have been doing the rounds for years are that they had parts bins on the assembly line & whatever excess parts were available were placed on cars at random.

Thats the most likely explanation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ozrunner

I seem to recall that many of the excess 4 parts were basically fitted to whatever was coming down the line at the time etc.

But to answer you question, yes some obviously went into ZF's as back then I was having a bo peep at a ZF getting a new recon Clevo fitted at my local machine shop. I then spied a dirty Clevo on the floor nearby that was in pieces and it looked odd. Closer examination showed it had 4 bolt mains and a twin eared sump

. I asked where did this come from and the reply was out of the ZF. The owner apparently didn't care either way as he just wanted a new recon engine fitted.

On asking I could have had the lot for $300. A week later I thought of it again and decided it would look good in my shed but as usual someone else didn't dither

The Ph4's were never going to have 4 bolt mains, thats a myth. The Calypso Green dentists car doesn't have a 4 bolt block.

Quote:

Originally Posted by k code

There is an yellow fire RPO with the engine out of crashed P4 that was recently sold on AMCS.So maybe that is the car..

There would be a Ph4 engine floating around out of the Ph4 that was written off, rumour has it that it went into a Coupe. Plausable but very hard to prove unless they could somehow match the engine numbers of it to the wrecked Ph4.

bionic2006xr6t · 27-05-2012, 03:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

They never actually got to the point of building the Ph4 motors, they had ordered some of the required 250 sets of parts and some had arrived, but they never actually went into production. They cancelled orders for parts that hadn't been made yet, sold off stuff to the aftermarket they could (they did that with the detroit locker 9 inchers), and all the other parts were used on the line at random just to clear the rest of it off. The headers and holley carbs were probably the only bits they sent out that were organised to fit to a particular variant in the RPO83.

The other stuff was fitted to anything that would fit, i've heard of the eared sumps being found on Fairlanes, F100's and Falcons.

Thats the most likely explanation.

The Ph4's were never going to have 4 bolt mains, thats a myth. The Calypso Green dentists car doesn't have a 4 bolt block.

There would be a Ph4 engine floating around out of the Ph4 that was written off, rumour has it that it went into a Coupe. Plausable but very hard to prove unless they could somehow match the engine numbers of it to the wrecked Ph4.

That's correct the production phase 4 dose not have a four bolt block. I have a magazine around somewhere from the 80's maybe early 90's that broke down the history of all the phase 4's owners etc. The phase 4 that was written off actually had it's original motor removed years before it meet it's fate. One of the previous owners son's was an up and coming water skier and he actually put the original motor in his speed boat. A standard Cleveland was fitted to the car and the car sold. On another note I have seen and have photo's to prove it (somewhere) I will see if I can find them of a Falcon 500 ex police car with an engine code of "H" on the compliance pate. As you all know "H" was the ho motor. The motor looked like any standard Cleveland but I didn't get time to check if it was the original matching numbers unit. The car was very run down and abused so it may not have been.

Cheers Ryan

castellan · 27-05-2012, 06:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

They never actually got to the point of building the Ph4 motors, they had ordered some of the required 250 sets of parts and some had arrived, but they never actually went into production. They cancelled orders for parts that hadn't been made yet, sold off stuff to the aftermarket they could (they did that with the detroit locker 9 inchers), and all the other parts were used on the line at random just to clear the rest of it off. The headers and holley carbs were probably the only bits they sent out that were organised to fit to a particular variant in the RPO83.

The other stuff was fitted to anything that would fit, i've heard of the eared sumps being found on Fairlanes, F100's and Falcons.

Thats the most likely explanation.

The Ph4's were never going to have 4 bolt mains, thats a myth. The Calypso Green dentists car doesn't have a 4 bolt block.

There would be a Ph4 engine floating around out of the Ph4 that was written off, rumour has it that it went into a Coupe. Plausable but very hard to prove unless they could somehow match the engine numbers of it to the wrecked Ph4.

Detroit lockers came std in all P5 LTD i thought.
Don't think winged sump could of been in F100's as they are different shape ?
A lot of other stuff most likely were not original from new and just put in after.

RedHotGT · 27-05-2012, 06:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gezza1er

Hi Guys

A mate of mine is installing light posts and power poles for Western Power up north and some of them go through Big blocks of land.

He told me he saw a XA 2door and the owner said it had a phase 4 motor in it.
I thought they were only released in the the phase 4 but from what i can remember there were only 4 made 1 crashed 1 unknown of location and the other 2 owned some where. the owner of the car said that they made excess engines and just put them in the early XA's?

So the reason i stared the thread is what was the phase 4 motor. What specs,info,pics or anything to identify it if someone stumbled across one... and dose anyone on the forum have on their car.

If there's even such a thing as the phase 4 motor

Cheers
Gerry

Re: OP

I think you'll find that your friend was in fact talking about this car:
http://australianmusclecarsales.com....lcon-coupe-rpo
See the advert - claiming to have the engine from the Bruce Hodgson Ph4.

Otherwise - i'm sure we could all remember previous threads about the Ph4 and what is rumour and what is fact.

k code · 27-05-2012, 06:29 PM

Thats the coupe i was talking about..

Gezza1er · 27-05-2012, 07:06 PM

WOW what a nice car i wish i had the money to buy it... Anyway i think the owner must of been talking out of his hole. If i can i will c if i can get some photos of it to see if you guys can verify it . This i great info so far but don't stop the thread keep it going i would love to hear more info on the phase 4 motor

Cheers
Gerry

WMD351 · 27-05-2012, 07:40 PM

The phase 4 thread
http://www.fordforums.com.au/showthread.php?t=11284486

Bossxr8 · 27-05-2012, 08:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by castellan

Detroit lockers came std in all P5 LTD i thought.
Don't think winged sump could of been in F100's as they are different shape ?
A lot of other stuff most likely were not original from new and just put in after.

There's no way they fitted Detroit Lockers to LTD's.

As for the eared sump in F100's, I wouldn't know what shape they are, I just heard that some aussie built F100's ended up with some of the Ph4 bits, like any aussie built V8 at the time could have had.

ozrunner · 28-05-2012, 12:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

The Ph4's were never going to have 4 bolt mains, thats a myth. The Calypso Green dentists car doesn't have a 4 bolt block.

And many of these myths will probably go on forever.

But along with the eared sump this thing did have a 4bolt main block as I checked the engine number to actually see if it did come from the ZF and it was its original engine as it matched. The car was an old farmers and he didn't want to wait for his engine to be reconned and just wanted a quick swapover so he could get back to the farm.

Back then any significance to P4's etc wasn't on the horizon so it was just treated as an odd block and sump to be in a ZF, even by me. It was the strange looking sump that really grabbed my attention at the time.

Who knows maybe they were considering using them but changed their minds and as was the case with many other parts it also found its way into the ZF and we'll never know why or how but it did have the P4's eared sump.

XAllent · 28-05-2012, 04:59 PM

The story of the coupe with the phase 4 motor will be coming out in a future issue of Street Fords Magazine.

bigwil · 28-05-2012, 08:05 PM

Yes i cant wait for that issue of street fords, Roy did an awesome job on the phase 4, now im just waiting for the phase 4 book he said was in the works.

Nikked · 28-05-2012, 08:15 PM

I love that the "supercar scare" didn't really do anything...Ford got its RPO...Holden still went ahead with the XU-2 program and Chysler still got a V8 charger.

If anything, emmisons reg and oil prices had more effect...

XAllent · 28-05-2012, 09:11 PM

Yes, but not as powerful as they would have been!

Gezza1er · 01-06-2012, 09:08 PM

dose anyone know the specs of the ph 4 motor and what made it different form the previous engines.

Bossxr8 · 01-06-2012, 10:37 PM

There wasn't much different.

Biggest change was the machined combustion chambers, which got rid of all the rough casting marks the previous engines had to cop. They could have high spots etc that could cause detonation.

All 250 sets of 4V heads were going to be hand machined in this area, which shows the lengths FSV were going to go to to make the Ph4. Would have cost them a lot of money to do that if it had of gone ahead.