It’s a well-known fact that the Ford Windsor small block, while a very stout piece, has limitations. It is generally accepted that once you start overing around the 500 horsepower arena and start putting that power to good use, that sooner or later you are going to split the block. For a street engine, they do well. For a race engine…they do OK if you have invested in the prep, or have made the decision to utilize an aftermarket block based on the Windsor design to cure the one fatal ill from the program. Or, you could listen to legions of racers who have jumped ship and have cross-bred Ford and GM products into race machines. We’ve seen them in action…a 5.3L and a turbocharger can do some wonderful things. But we also hear it from the purists and the anti-LS committee about how there are options that don’t involve mixing DNA together to make some unholy union.

A Ford-powered Ford can run. Getting a few hundred horsepower to push a light box-top Fairmont shouldn’t be too hard, right? Some good down-low torque, some gears and maybe a bit of the old bottle and you’ll have a heroic monster on your hands that nobody at Ford would’ve dreamed of when they were trimming down the box that the soup crackers came in to make the first prototypes.