My New 1984 EXP! Maroon 1.6 HO 5-Speed

[@ivantuma7969]

Faux Fox Body ... I remember riding to school in one of these in the 80's (same color). My dad paid the kid down the street to drive me. He had his license and a new EXP that he was paying off with his part time job. I don't think I ever said a word to that kid, and visa versa - which was ... sad🙃 _I was 14 and he was 16 ... so different interests and all that._

[@styldsteel1]

@@ivantuma7969 can you clarify "faux". I know mustang and Fairmont shared the fox platform, I'm not sure what you mean. Thanks

[@ivantuma7969]

@@styldsteel1 They kinda made it look like a poor-mans Fox body Mustang - at least that's what it looks like to me. My dad had an '80 Mustang Fox body he used as his daily driver ... the EXP always reminded me of a Mustang on a (restrictive) diet :)

[@900108Chale]

Being a huge Ford fan since the 70s,I had totally forgotten these! *Great seeing you trying to rescue them!*

[@heisey-b7x]

Aint seen 1 of those in YEARS

[@lancenorton1117]

Seems like a decent car to hotrod. It won't ever be worth much and how often do you EVER see one?

[@TheREALOC1972]

My daughter had a 84 Mercury Lynx as her high school car, Her was green, she nicknamed it "The Frog", it was a good little car.

[@scottbrown7415]

She had a rare and elusive “Kermit Green” one! The introductory or “feature” colors are pretty desirable.

[@TheREALOC1972]

@@scottbrown7415 Yeah I've learned that

[@nb7466]

My mom used to drive me to school in one of those frog eyes. I remember it always smelled like burning oil. I remember sitting in the back on that metal too with like 2 other kids.

[@bgreasy6318]

that's a really sweet looking car

[@styldsteel1]

Ah yes. The experimental. I remember these well. Especially the frog face lol

[@danhuyck527]

I had this same car 1984 Royal blue. only good things about it was the huge hatch back area and the Kenwood stereo and EQ i put in it.

[@tomdelisle8955]

When you could by inexpensive fun little cars off an American Car maker.

[@saintlouis6798]

The 1.6 HO/ 5 speed power train was most commonly found in EXP and Escort wagons. Those were determined to be the ones that most needed the extra performance. The dealership i was working at was owned by a gentleman who liked the EXP and had a black, early 82 as his personal car. when the 83's came out he had a bright red one as soon as the HO was available. we were getting HO 5 speed wagons before we got any HO EXP. my guess would be that the proximity of the Wayne , Michigan assembly plant was the reason for the lag in HO EXP arriving to our dealership. The underwhelming performance of the basic 1.6 cvh was the impetus for the development of so many iterations and power output levels as well as the development of turbocharged versions. Both Roush and McClaren were contracted to develop higher output versions. Needless to say, Ford was having some issues getting up to speed with what the customer expected from their first domestic front wheel drive small car.

[@The_1982_EXPert]

@@saintlouis6798 the delayed arrival would be because 90%+ of the 82-83 EXPs & LN7s came from St Thomas and a very few from San Jose. Then for 84-88 they moved production entirely to Wayne. 1.6 HOs came out March 82 but yeah the 5-speeds weren't until the 83s were then were standard for EXPs for 84-85 (I think this was the same story for the 84-85 wagons too, mandatory HO). Well what's funny is the 1.6 (and even 1.1, 1.3, & 1.4 CVH) all had a number of different iterations in Europe with most out performing ours so I always assumed Ford was deadset on providing fuel economy with performance second. And a lot of it was just in the normal tuning, tweak the timing a tad and boom shaved a second off the 1/4 mile haha I don't get upset over the power figurea in these, just glad the HO existed so its higher compression pistons and better cam are available to the aftermarket to hop up lesser 1.6s, just those pistons+cam+header+carb, and basic port work tuned properly yield a total of 100hp in these 2200lb cars - 5-speed is a must though lol

[@brianrichardson2583]

WOW!! My 1st car!! So much fun. 5spd. I even had a ln7 parts car.

[@grabasandwich]

I've only seen a few in my entire 45 years. I'm not a Ford guy, so I don't know much about them, but the hatch looks almost the same as the Mercury Capri.

[@The_1982_EXPert]

@@grabasandwich they're pretty close! These are just a bunch narrower, hoping to have a side by side comparison with a Foxbody this year yet 👍

[@BillLaBrie]

OMG an EXP!

[@markbehr88]

Cool

[@ProtoType99468]

put together a 2.0 and slap a chinese supercharger on it

[@youtoobe169]

Do you have any driving POV videos of your EXPs?

[@The_1982_EXPert]

A very short one, will film one tomorrow just for you :)

[@youtoobe169]

@@The_1982_EXPert Oh, cool! The Ford EXP was the first car I ever test drove in high school when I was looking for my first car.

[@Flies2FLL]

Is there a web forum for these cars?

[@The_1982_EXPert]

@@Flies2FLL sadly not since 2014, the EXP website went down so it was promptly replaced by the current Facebook group - that remains the ONLY forum for EXPs & LN7s. I'm still fightimg to get EXPs and diesel Escorts a dedicated forum within the FEOA (Ford Escort Owners Association) forum but no such luck with the admins.... :(

[@Flies2FLL]

What about an LN7?

[@The_1982_EXPert]

@@Flies2FLL sadly an LN7 and a 2nd gen EXP (86-88) are the only cars missing in my collection - got enough cars to convert an EXP to an LN7 though :)

[@Flies2FLL]

@@The_1982_EXPert Cool!

[@Flies2FLL]

I had an '85 VW Scirocco turbo and I think it was much more of a cars than these.

[@ivantuma7969]

Callaway turbo Scirocco? ... $$$ those were rare - apparently they even used water injection from the windshield washer reservoir.

[@The_1982_EXPert]

@@Flies2FLL that's one rare bird! It would have to have fun in the name then because few cars are more fun than these - I have yet to find any that surpass these guys

[@Flies2FLL]

@@The_1982_EXPert It was, only 52 were built. The turbo was added at the dealership and was covered under the factory warranty. I kept having trouble with the exhaust, but it was fun to drive.

[@danielpeterson2675]

HI do you sale parts

[@The_1982_EXPert]

@@danielpeterson2675 no but I can help you find some I need all the parts off all EXPs to continue restoring them - they're so rare I have to resort to chopping up Escorts to save these

[@Skyhawk1987Turbo]

I’m assuming none of these run

[@The_1982_EXPert]

@@Skyhawk1987Turbo a few, most were parked for bodywork so should fire up fine - problem is relying on 40 year old machines without any preventative work is extremely ignorant+foolish. I went through 3 EXPs top to bottom mechanically and daily drive 2 of them, also slowly going through the red Escort wagon to add that to my daily driver roster. The ones I've gone through have yet to be unreliable in any way 🙂