Back To Basics: Michael Edds Uses A Simple Plan To Build A Fast Fox

Sometimes it’s the simplest formulas, the most common grouping of parts, and the easiest plans that give us the most enjoyment out of our cars. We live in an era where Mustangs are available off the showroom floor with over 600 hp if we can pony up the cash for them. 700 horsepower builds are commonplace and fast cars making more power than that seem to be everywhere.

High horsepower builds aren’t without their cost. Both the initial cash outlay to get to what are considered serious numbers in this day and age, and the cost it takes to maintain that kind of power can be staggering. The high powered cars that are still able to prowl the street can give you quite a thrill (in a perfectly legal way of course), and under the right conditions run mind-blowing ETs at the track. High powered setups can be prima donnas, often requiring strict maintenance, and sometimes not performing consistently. That’s why it’s refreshing to run across a creation like the Fox body LX hatchback of Michael Edds.

Your editor has known Edds for the better part of 20 years. In that time I’ve watched him go from oil change grease monkey at the local quick lube to one of the best technicians in the area. I also can’t recall a time when he’s gone without a Mustang in his possession for very long. From all out race car builds, to simple but effective street cars, big-blocks, small-blocks, nitrous, and superchargers, Edds has dealt with them all. This LX might be his best car ever.

You put it in gear, put your foot down, and have a good time. You can drive it anywhere, have fun with it, and drive it back home.

“This car just works,” Edds tells us. “You put it in gear, put your foot down, and have a good time. You can drive it anywhere, have fun with it, and drive it back home,” he says with a smile. This slick looking hatchback wearing Billet Specialties Street Lite wheels and Mickey Thompson drag radials didn’t always look this good. When Edds picked the car up it had a slew of issues, including several body panels in primer.

Edds traded an old pickup truck along with $1,200 for the car. It had been run off the road and the owner had installed a tubular K-member, A-arms, and coil overs due to the front end damage. With over 100,000 miles on the clock the car’s only other modification was a set of short-tube headers and cat-back exhaust. He would later add a set of generic parts warehouse upper and lower rear control arms, but has not made any other changes to the car’s suspension.

Edds is nothing if not resourceful. With the help of his father and some friends, the two got the looks of the Mustang straightened out. The hood was replaced with a fiberglass cowl model, and a fresh coat of gray paint was applied to the car’s skin. It’s no Ridler winner, but it looks good in any light, and most admirers are surprised when they learn that the work was done in a garage by the owner and not a paint booth at a body shop.

Simple Execution

Having experienced what it was like to campaign a heads up car, Edds knew he didn’t want to go that direction with this LX. “I’ve played that game, race and get beat by just a few hundredths, go back home and spend hundreds or even a few thousand dollars to upgrade something to try again at next month’s race, only to wind up doing it all again,” he told us. With the LX he wanted a car that he could drive on the street, take it to work, load up the kids and head out to the local cruise night, or drive to the track, race and head home without a trailer.

Under the hood is a stock short-block with a FRPP E303 cam, topping it off are lightly worked GT40-P heads from the junkyard, with matching intake. A Vortech V2 S-Trim blower pushes in 8.8 lbs of boost. The combination is good for 313 horsepower and low seven second eighth-mile ETs.

“I wanted to build a car I could have fun with, or that my wife would be able to drive without being scared of it,” he explained. The plan was hatched to keep the formula as simple as possible for the car. To that end the stock AOD transmission was retained, by stock we mean that other than maintenance and replacing the torque converter its never been cracked open. Edds added to that transmission a 3,600 RPM stall converter that he scored off of eBay. “I just put it in drive and pull up to the starting line. There’s no shifting, no transbrake to fool with, you just go.”

The rearend of the car remains mostly stock as well. A five-lug conversion from LateModelRestoration was used to swap out the axles, drums, and front brakes. The gearing has been changed to a 4.10 ring and pinion. While some shudder at the idea of that low of gearing in a pushrod car, Edds says he’s always been a proponent of lower gearing in a Mustang, especially in a car with an AOD.

With a family to take care of and bills to pay Edds knew he couldn’t spend a fortune on building an engine. So he took a proven approach to making reliable horsepower. A set of Explorer GT40-P heads along with their matching intake were sourced from the local boneyard. Edds dropped them off at Speed Machine in LaGrange, KY to have Steve Packer work some magic on them. Packer did some minor port work on the intake side along with installing a new set of valves and springs.

Back home Edds port-matched the Explorer lower intake manifold to match the work on the heads before installing it all on the stock Mustang short-block. The only other engine modification came in the form of that old standby Ford Racing Performance Parts E303 camshaft. The catalog cam, along with a new top end woke up the engine on the gray Fox and Edds soon had it running low eight-second ETs in the eighth-mile.

Already happy with the car’s performance it would seem that there was a really good deal around the corner for Edds and this car. “My cousin bought a Vortech S-trim for his car and popped a head gasket within a week. He didn’t have the money to fix the car, so he was selling the week old supercharger. I knew I’d end up helping him fix it anyway, so I bought the supercharger and helped him fix his car.” Edds gave his cousin $1,500 for the practically brand new supercharger kit, and aided in getting his kin’s car repaired.

Upgrading the fuel system with a BBK 255 lph fuel pump along with 42-lbs fuel injectors under the hood the combination is safe for the 8.8 lbs of boost that the Vortech V2-S series supercharger puts out. On the dyno at Blankenship Performance the gray Fox put down 331 hp to the rear tires. That may not sound like much in an era of “easy” 600-plus horsepower builds, but it has been good enough for a best eighth-mile ET of 7.16 at 95 mph. Edds will typically add weight to the car in order to slow it down and compete in Ohio Valley Raceway’s Friday night street car shootout, where he’s won the 7.60 index class on numerous occasions.

Michael Edds’ Fox body proves that you don’t have to spend a fortune to build a car you can have fun with. Nor do you have to make insane power levels to be successful on the drag strip. With age comes wisdom, and while we know this won’t be the last Fox that Edds builds, it will probably be the car he keeps longer than any other he’s ever owned.

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About the author

Don Creason

Don Creason is an automotive journalist with passions that lie from everything classic, all the way to modern muscle. Experienced tech writer, and all around car aficionado, Don's love for both cars and writing makes him the perfect addition to the Power Automedia team of experts.
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