Ford man's 1976 Gran Torino Brougham Project

[ford man]

Thought I'd share my project car with you guys. I bought this car in 06 or 07, can't remember right now, for 1100 dollars. Found it on the recycler website back when people use to use the recycler before they mess'd it up, but anyways. It was in Crescent Heights LA. The back window was smashed out and the vinyl top was ripped up. The guy had lean sale paper work witch turned out not to be a problem.

I wasn't sure I was going to keep it at first... After I looked it over I realized it had only 39000 miles!
I fixed the major defects: found a back window in the junkyard, rebuilt the carbuerator, por-15'd the floor pan because of surface rust from the no back window.

1976 Gran Torino Brougham. The Brougham is the top of the line trim package and comes with opera windows, vinyl top, tailpanel reflector, wide rub strips, hood ornament etc. Actually a very rare model, very few were built because if you wanted a luxurious 'midsize' most people bought the Gran Torino Elite. The Brougham accoutraments are not my thing however...



Optional s code 400v8. All stock.



I'm guilty of not taking enough photographs of the car when I first got it and the changes along the way but heres some of the opera windows and vinyl top being removed...Somebody wailed on the side of the car to fix a dent? I'm guessing

You can see all the HOLES left from the vinyl top trim aaaarggghh! Also the factory dosen't bother to fill the roof seams on a vinyl top car apparently.

Brougham specific reflector panel on the back eeengh



The drivers fender is nerfed front to back, but it's hard to tell in this picture. You see the trim holes around the roofs perimeter 2 on the door and if you look close you can see all the pegs where the beltline moulding was...

[Lincolnmania]

very nice! rare indeed, esp the power windows

[ford man]

Thanks Lincolnmania! Your right, the power windows must be pretty rare. Other options it has: crusie control(dosen't work), automatic climate control and power driver seat(dosen't work).

No cracks on the dash!

Here's the dual exhaust install I did. I used a 2 1/2 Hpipe I already had. Dynomax hemi mufflers and 2 1/2 Dynomax 94-96 impala tailpipes.


The impala tailpipes fit good. I put some torino station wagon springs in at this time to give it the stance I want. The stiffer springs helped alot with the wheel hop problem and traction too.

I have to smog this car in CA so I kept the catalytic converters at this time. I used 2 1/4 to 2 1/2 adapter pipes and band exhaust clamps to connect my exhaust. The c6 trans has a trans go shift kit I installed.

[87DeuceVic]

Nice!! 400 huh, damn should build that thing up. My buddies got a 74 Elite, has the 351.

[87LongroofCP]

Nice car man, I like it alot. Good luck with it,

[ford man]

Nice!! 400 huh, damn should build that thing up. My buddies got a 74 Elite, has the 351.

Thanks man! These pictures are a couple years old. I've done some stuff to the motor since then. More pics to come!

How does your buddy like his Elite? Anything done to his car? Wish mine was a '74 so I didn't have to smog it.

[ford man]

Nice car man, I like it alot. Good luck with it,

Thanks man. I like your Cougar. Are you watching the cougar build on 'Gears'?

[87LongroofCP]

Thanks, oh yeh! 'Gearz is very cool, that car will be over $100k when its done.

It's about time the first Cougars got noticed.

[1987cp]

Neat find! My mom had a '74 Cougar until it was wrecked in '83 and she and my dad allowed State Farm to take it off their hands (to them, "totalled" meant "not fixable"). I'd forgotten about the weird door-latch pulls.

[ford man]

Neat find! My mom had a '74 Cougar until it was wrecked in '83 and she and my dad allowed State Farm to take it off their hands (to them, "totalled" meant "not fixable"). I'd forgotten about the weird door-latch pulls.

Thanks man! Sorry to hear about your moms Cougar...

[ford man]

Gran Torino's 400 torn down for a horsepower revival. Putting on a Edelbrock Performer Intake and double roller straight up timing chain.





I threw my back out when I took the stock intake off. It was a HEAVY motherf*****! It was dumb not to call somebody to come help me...

When I got the motor torn down, I realized it had been rebuilt already because it already had a double roller timing chain in the straight up positon and was clean, clean, clean. The car only has 40K miles! There was a lady's name on the title, I bet she was old and got bamboozled into a rebuilt, but whatever, it's good stuff for me! When I did the shift kit on the tranny I could tell that had been rebuilt also!



Here she is buttoned back up. I painted the Edelbrock performer intake old ford blue for a more inconspicuous look. New water pump. Front of the motor all painted. I upgraded to the later bigger distributer cap with male terminals. MSD wires. I also played with the mechanical advance for more top end acceleration. The ford duraspark distributer is very tuneable, only problem is you have to remove it and take it all apart to work on it. I probably took it out 4-5 times before I was happy with my advance curve.



Edelbrock 600cfm 4 barrel. If I wasn't concerned about smog testing I would have considered putting a mild cam in. I probably could have got away with it... I would go with a bigger carb too if i didn't already have this one. It is richened up alot from it's base setting. But all in all the performance is night and day from stock. I am satisfied with the power now.

[1987cp]

Looking more like an engine in there! It does seem cruel that they made the early air-injection equipment and A/C compressors so terribly intrusive, but still.

Are there cams that are CARB certified for your application? I know there are lots for Windsors, but I know very little about 335-series engines.

[ford man]

Looking more like an engine in there! It does seem cruel that they made the early air-injection equipment and A/C compressors so terribly intrusive, but still.

Are there cams that are CARB certified for your application? I know there are lots for Windsors, but I know very little about 335-series engines.

Technically I don't think there are smog legal cams certified for this engine but I'm not 100% on that. From what i've read a mild cam like an edelbrock performer would still pass the sniffer though. Modern cam technology has come along way and whatnot. '76 is the first year you have to smog in California and the test is probably pretty forgiving. The 4 barrel carb is technically illegal and i'm not using egr either. My performer intake is the egr version though and I can aways put the stock 2 barrel and egr back on with a 2 barrel egr spacer- adapter if I need to. Technically a 4 barrel carb on a car that didn't originally offer one is illegal. It's a pain in the ass having to smog it, but it's only every two years. I haven't smogged it since my upgrades so we'll see how it goes...

[1987cp]

Smog manifold? Can always add a 4V EGR spacer, then. P72Ford passed CT emissions with this setup on his old '90 Vic.

I've heard of custom-cam guys willing to grind a cam with emissions requirements in mind. Don't think it gets smogged, but one SBFtech user has a Windsor with an economy-oriented custom cam that he says gets 28mpg (IIRC) while still putting down over 350rwhp.

[Lincolnmania]

good it was rebuilt.......i attempted a simple cam swap on one of my 351c cougars once and the cam bearings were wiped out