SLEEPERS
STORY KIAN HEAGNEY P HOTOS NATHAN JACOBSZ
ANE Heath is the mastermind behind Maxx
Performance, one of the leading specialists for all
things Ford and Barra. While the Maxx crew is capable
of taking on just about any project and engine, turbo
Barras are their bread and butter; they offer bolt-on packages
and dyno tuning that make them one of the best in the business
with the Aussie 4.0-litre.
It should therefore come as no surprise that Zane’s own
stealthy EF Fairmont is also hiding a Barra mill, but oddly, there’s
no turbo in sight. “When I bought the car around two years ago
it already had a Barra conversion with just a standard BA taxi
engine and auto,” Zane says.
The conversion wasn’t quite up to Maxx’s standards, so the
boys ended up redoing the whole lot, and then Zane started
using it as a test mule. “We do turbo Barras day in, day out, so I
wanted to do something different,” he explains. “What we hadn’treally explored was what works best with these motors naturally
aspirated, and how much power you can milk out of them.”
Zane spent lots of time on the dyno at Maxx, experimenting with
different intakes, exhaust and tune set-ups on the stock BA mill.
Long story short, he ended up with around 200rwkW (268hp)
aspirated from the 250,000km-old mill, with the help of a custom
exhaust, E85 and tune.
The boys then started playing with nitrous, and with a two-
stage wet shot the car devoured over 100 bottles of gas and
went a best of 11.8 @110mph, while still performing daily driving
duties. Eventually something had to give, and one of the standard
injectors cried ‘enough!’ and sent the BA Barra to the graveyard.
The replacement mill that’s in the car now is a fully reworked
LPG-spec Barra from an FG. The machine work was done by
Top Torque Engines, and the motor was assembled by Maxx
in-house.ZANE HEATH
1996 EF FAIRMONT
DANDENONG, VIC
While the ITBs are one of
the biggest drawcards of
this set-up, the sock air
filters are not to Zane’s
fancy. “They rob about
20rwkW, so I keep them on
there for daily duties, but
I want to sort something
else out long-term”