A couple of months ago I bought an 84 XE Falcon, 4.1L auto.
Its mint because it was owned by an old guy since new and always garaged.
It runs well but I'm looking at improving the power, just wondering where the cheapest place would be to start with it? Don't want to do anything too major as yet.
Also, there is a problem with the electrical somewhere as the temperature guage sometimes shoots up to high when I start the car then drops when the indicators or something turns on, it also raises when the headlights are on. Been told its a common problem? Anyone know what causes it? Think it might be a voltage stabiliser somewhere?
Cheers

clean and upgrade the earth straps especially engine to firewall and engine to battery.

run it on 98 and push the timing forward a few degrees. cheapest bit of power you can get

c1 head, extractors/headers, 2.25" exhaust, trim factory air cleaner housing and roll edges to make it into a sports air cleaner while retaining the factory pollution set-up. the list goes on.

xe's are known for their earth problems so yes it is common. do what rustyeb said.

Performance wise, the weber carbys that came on the xe's (assuming its not efi) are actually half decent i've heard, and can be tuned to give a bit of extra power. That or go for a holley 350, redline manifold etc. That's usually what x series owners go for on the 250 crossflow. Also upgrade the exhaust for sure; extractors and 2.25"-2.5" exhaust. Ditch the viscous clutch fan as it sucks up quite a bit of power. Chuck in some ef/el twin thermo fans. Then if you want, get a complete el diff with a 3.45 lsd. It would be a huge jump from the terrible 2.77 currently in it and will give you much better acceleration as well as handling.

I guess the cheapest place to start would most likely be to get your existing carby checked and tuned, then change the belt fan and go from there.

if you change diff then 3.23:1 was also available in xe 3.3 5speed through to eb series 1 as a direct bolt in. for ea-eb diffs you also need handbrake cables, for eb you need tailshaft also. tf you use eb2 or later then you need to change control arm bushes to the later wider ones. if you go ef/el then handbrake set-up is completely different. if you currently have drum brakes on the rear then the change to rear discs will also require a 4 wheel disc master cylinder to be fitted.

Depends on how far you want to go........$$$$$$$..........

 

 

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same thing happened to my xf bro, its the voltage regulator, black box on the back of alternator all fixed now

Yep i just wanted a bit more power out of my crossy and 12k later im happy

Put a cam in it and get the carby tuned.

I fitted a HS20 (30/70) cam to my XF (ED XR6 cam by similar spec is 26/64) - which really transformed it / woke it up - went very nicely off the line, pulled hard when you floored it at any speed and effortlessly ran out to 160 or so (as fast as I was ever game to go in it). That was with ignition timing and Weber float level tweaking only - ie. never actually messed with jets in the carby.

It took a lot of work - including XR6 cam - to get my ED going close to as well as that XF did - and it wasn't until JMM cam and 5 spd manual went into the ED that I was able to say it DEFINITELY went harder across the board than the old XF. The only reason I still traded to the ED after test driving it was I figured chucking a DECENT engine - ie. an old 4.1 - into it wouldn't be too hard - and of course the ED certainly handled nicer and was a newer and nicer car apart from the comparatively sluggish engine (recounting my thoughts at the time - back in 1996).

I hadn't even thought about the diff - if the XF had a 2.77 diff then holy cow - putting 3.23 or 3.45 in it would have been tyre frying territory!

i put 3.23 and t5 in mine and yes you are correct couldn't keep back tyres.

Cheers guys,
I been looking at putting in a 350 Holley and extractors/larger exhaust first off, that should give it a bit more go.
Then see where I'm at money wise and go from there.