Jim Menelaou’s obsession with second-gen Aussie Falcons began at the tender age of 10, when he went for a ride in a rowdy XW owned by his older brother’s mate. “I remember everything so clearly; the whole experience,” Jim says. “I was obsessed and started doing my research, and quickly figured out that I liked the front and rear end of the XY better.”

First published in the August 2024 issue of Street Machine

Six short years later, Jim was the proud owner of a 302-powered XY Fairmont – the one you see here, albeit now made over as a Falcon GT tribute. Like any good P-plater, he quickly laid waste to the factory diff, which got him accustomed to engine and driveline swaps.

Jim breaks his XY’s evolution into five key stages: a standard car while on his P-plates; an engine swap to a 351ci V8; two different 393-cube strokers; and finally, its current iteration, which will prove nearly impossible to top. That’s because it’s powered by a head-kicking twin-turbo Ford Coyote that is believed to be the most powerful ’Yote in Australia!

Jim’s path to the Coyote was paved by gearbox problems he’d had with the second iteration of the 393 stroker motor. Built by Competition Engines, the stout aspo stroker had propelled the XY into the 10.80s, but between the heavy car, the heavy-breathing motor and Jim’s heavy right foot, C10 gearbox rebuilds were coming around quicker than Jim’s birthday each year. “I knew I needed a new auto, and I knew it was going to be a big deal,” he says. “I’d also grown accustomed to the power, so I knew I was either going to boost the stroker motor or build a new engine.”

Obviously, Jim eventually plumped for the second option. A good mate put the Coyote engine on his radar, and after taking a look at the way folks in the States had been leaning on these OHC V8s to run eights on stock bottom ends, Jim’s interest was officially piqued.

“We looked around for a local engine builder, but no one was pushing them as hard as we wanted to go,” Jim says. “We settled on RPG Racing Engines in the States, and I’ll admit I was a little nervous shipping a brand-new engine from the other side of the world. But between the RPG team and the MPW crew, I was confident I was in safe hands.”

Jim wanted to set the Coyote up for mucho boost, which is how Adam Rogash of Melbourne’s MPW Performance entered the picture. “A friend of mine had his HSV Coupe GTO turbocharged by MPW and spoke so highly of them,” Jim says. “I thought they only did Holdens, so I picked up the phone and gave them a ring. Within 10 minutes, I was down there with the car and Adam was poring over every inch of it – later I’d learn that he was taking mental notes and building the twin-turbo system in his head before we’d even put pen to paper!”

Jim admits that turbos weren’t his first choice. “I originally wanted a supercharger – something that sounded a bit tougher and that made the power instantly, but Adam promised me I’d never look back if I went turbos,” he says.

Adding the twin Garrett G40s to the modular Ford mill was not without its challenges, as Adam Rogash explains: “The physical size of the engines makes them difficult to install and fabricate around, and there isn’t a great deal of local knowledge about them.” However, thanks to the tenacity of Jim, Adam and the MPW team, the result is the most powerful Coyote engine on Australian soil at the time of writing: 1650hp at the hubs on 27psi, with plenty more boost in reserve.

“We started by 3D-scanning the entire front of the car, which allowed us to draw crucial elements like the radiator and intercooler in CAD and test their efficiency before we produced a single part,” Adam explains. “That’s what encouraged us to cut the front end up – notch the shock towers, move to a coil-over front end with a steering rack, and recess the firewall so that we could gain some space in the grille for the radiator and intercooler.”

This level of applied technology is crucial to delivering projects of this calibre and allows Adam and the team to make insanely accurate custom parts. “We 3D-printed the intake pipe using our scans to make sure it fit perfectly over the radiator and under the bonnet,” he says by way of example. While that part would ultimately be remade in aluminium, the custom centre console insert that neatly houses the Motion Raceworks shifter came from the same 3D printer and looks right at home in the factory-styled XY interior.

The forged Coyote engine uses a virgin-bore Gen 3 block with a billet crank, I-beam rods and forged slugs, with compression sitting at 11:1. CNC-ported Gen 2 heads lock the commotion inside the short block; they’re stuffed with custom-ground RPG cams that do away with the variable cam timing and help the mod motor sing well past 9000rpm!

Hot gases leave the turbos by weaving around the new coil-over front end, and exit through a custom MPW exhaust system, while the compressed air enters a giant front-mount intercooler that peeks out over the radiator, giving the boost a straight shot down the Coyote’s throat.

Beneath the customised trans tunnel is a manualised Turbo 400 with a ProTorque converter, while out the back, a nine-inch diff houses 3.25:1 gears and 35-spline floating axles, decorated with a Gazzard Brothers mono-leaf set-up and AFCO shocks.

The XY is currently configured to deliver a lazy 1000hp while Jim learns to respect the insane capability of the boosted mod motor. “For a week before I picked the car up, I was getting cold feet, worrying that I’d ruined the driveability of the car and that the old chassis wouldn’t handle it,” he admits. “But after a handful of launches, I was absolutely addicted – I’m never selling it!”

Adam says that the car’s suspension and brake upgrades offset the gargantuan dyno sheet and help tame its on-road manners. “It drives as if it were an XY Falcon released today,” he says.

As the driveline and suspension hint at, there’s track time in the XY’s future, although the Coyote combo has Adam and the team rethinking their strategy for the car’s drag debut. “Any other small-block V8 will make power until around 6800rpm, but these engines keep making power past 9000rpm,” Adam explains. “So, we’ll tighten the diff gears and dial in the 60-foot times, knowing it’ll have the legs at the top end of the track.”

As for Jim, he’s one happy camper. “It’s everything I wanted,” he says. “It presents so close to a standard car that I can race and drive on the street. Deep sevens is the goal.”

With the most powerful Coyote in Australia under this XY’s bonnet, those seven-second passes shouldn’t be long in coming.

JIM MENELAOU
1971 FORD XY FAIRMONT

THANKS
Adam Rogash and the MPW team; RPG Racing Engines; Cameron Wood at Rosebud Panels; George Lyras at KB Prestige & Restoration; my friends Alex Moshopoulos and Steven for recommending MPW; Frank Giotas for encouraging me to build a Coyote; Sami Mete for being a surrogate father to this build; my kids for being so invested in the build and my wife for being so understanding.