Street machines that are purpose-built for drag-and-drive events are plentiful in Australia nowadays, and Reuben Davison’s Barra-powered XF Fairmont is one of those in the thick of things. “I fell in love with drag-and-drive events watching Cleetus McFarland taking them on in the States, so during COVID, I decided to start looking for a car to build to do it myself,” he says. “I wanted an XE, but the price gap between them and an XF just didn’t stack up to me, so we got this XF.”

Reuben wasn’t interested in building a pretty machine to take on concours events; the only goal with this car was to turn it into a rough-but-ready drag-and-drive weapon. A turbo Barra naturally made the most sense for bang-for-buck grunt in a Ford, so Reuben swapped in a cheap turbo example from a Territory, along with a ZF six-speed gearbox.

“I had a lot of fun with that engine; almost more than with the built engines we’ve had since then,” he says. “There’s something about doing it with cheaper stuff that just makes it that bit more fun.”

With the Territory Barra in the car, it was all gravy – until it wasn’t. Reuben entered the XF in the very first Hardass 1000 event, and on the last day at Heathcote Park Raceway, that cheapy Ford six smashed itself to bits over the finish line.

“That was actually its quickest pass to date – a 10.03 before the rods came out!” says Reuben. “Building the car has been a massive learning curve, and we’ve gone through about three versions of it.”

As the owner of the Ford dealership in his hometown of Mildura, Reuben undertook the majority of the build outside of business hours in the workshop, along with his service manager and good mate Clinton Leavold. “He came with me on Hardass and Drag Challenge last year,” Reuben says. “It’s a fun weekend away and we love it, even if last year wasn’t all that easy. Al Cameron, who tunes the car, has also been a massive help; he’ll be along with us this year as well.”

Clinton and Reuben built the XF’s latest Barra. “We had a professionally built engine, but after paying a lot of money, they used so much silicone it blocked the oil pick-up, so we slapped this one together ourselves,” Reuben explains.

The current mill uses the earlier B-series block and sump, with an FG head. The block is half grout filled, with a Spool girdle clamping in the original crank. Rods are Spool I-beams, topped by CP pistons. The head was ported by the lads and now runs a pair of Crow Cams Stage 4 sticks. A Haltech Nexus R3 and the full Haltech suite controls the lot, fed by a Turbosmart 76mm turbo that’ll spin up 30-35psi.

“We haven’t had it on the dyno yet, but our butt dyno places it around 600rwkW [805rwhp],” says Reuben. “That should be enough to send it into the eights – way quicker than I’ve ever been before!”

Where most would choose a Turbo 400 or Powerglide to get all the Barra’s power to the ground, Reuben is still using a Falcon-spec ZF. “After a few dramas with those, I was ready to give up, but then Rob from Monsta Torque offered to build me one of his full Stage 5 boxes with transbrake, so big thanks to him,” he says. “I reckon we should finally see some performance out of the ZF now.”

Reuben’s debut DC campaign at the 2024 event didn’t go all that well for the XF. “We finished, but only just,” he says. “A fresh gearbox failed, and we exchanged numerous parts from wreckers on the journey to limp to the end. We fought some electrical issues at every track, and never got down the track properly once.”

That triggered a major revamp of the XF, with Mackielec Industries going through and wiring it from front to back with a Haltech PD16.

“I’ve driven it to The Bend and back [from Mildura], and all over town. It’s done about 1700 kays since the rebuild, so hopefully that puts us in good stead for this year’s event,” says Reuben.

Keep an eye out to find out how Reuben fares in the Speed Pro Six Cylinder class.

REUBEN DAVISON
1986 FORD XF FAIRMONT

Class:

Speed Pro Six-Cylinder

THANKS
Al Cameron for tuning; Rob at Monsta Torque for the transmission and other bits; Mitch at Mackielec Industries for the wiring; Ryan O’Donohue at Riot Lab for the rollcage and fabrication.