While the headline act from MPW Performance & Race Fab at this year’s Street Machine Drag Challenge will be Adam Rogash’s six-second Mk1 Capri, another belter has just rolled out of the stable.

Built for MPW’s head fabricator and manager Ayvon ‘Abe’ McLeod, this survivor XF Falcon started out as a budget build, but didn’t stay that way for long.

“As with everything with Abe, his attention to detail got the better of him, and that took over,” says Adam. “There’s so much 3D scanning, CAD and his meticulous fabrication in this thing; it’s well beyond a budget build now.”

At the heart of the XF is a Dandy Engines-built 7.3-litre Ford Godzilla V8. The boys originally planned to just run a stock one, but as the build escalated, this engine now finds itself with rods, pistons, a new stick, valvetrain mods and 16 injectors.

Feeding in boost is a pair of G42 compact 73/75 turbos, which on 21psi proved enough for 1500rwhp through the Powerglide, tuned by Adam with a Haltech Elite 2500.

“Its the Ford version of an LS; we haven’t hit any boundaries with it yet, but we may hit boundaries once we start ramping up to 25-30psi and chasing sevens,” says Adam. 

“The rest of the car is built to run mid-sevens, so we may find issues with the platform when we start pushing it that hard.”

The boys had the car out for its very first shakedown at Heathcote Park Raceway over the weekend, with the aim of bracketing the car in the 9.50s for the PSR 9.50 Radial class at Drag Challenge.

The team forecasted that taming the XF down to that number might be an issue, and with a 9.04@144mph on its very first pass, that did seem to be the case.

“That’s solid, now we need to start pulling boost out of it!” laughed Adam after that pass.

Before they sandbagged enough for a 9.50, Abe wanted to shoot for an eight, so for the second outing Adam upped the boost to around 18psi. That was good enough for an 8.69@162mph.

Two passes later the XF was sufficiently turned down to reel off a 9.503@143mph – bang on what the boys will need for the PSR 9.5 Radial class at Drag Challenge in a week’s time.

To see the XF in action, get along to Drag Challenge on 30 October – 3 November. You can buy your tickets here.