I wonder if 'Grumpyvette' ever learned to spell straight?

(Massive amounts of good hard technical info however.

KS

Back in the mid-60s, I was regularly street racing my '65 Mustang. I ordered it with the K-engine and a Top-loader. Within a few days after getting it, I took the back seat out and replaced it with the fiberglas Shelby deck. I put the Shelby 'glas hood on too. I installed a Cobra intake manifold and a 715 Holley. And a set of Doug's headers and a Mallory ignition and a cam from a local outfit that was available from Gratiot Auto Supply. And finally I installed a Paxton VS 59 blower and did some suspension work. The car weighed 2800 pounds in final form.

There was enough traffic on Telegraph Road that trying to catch a light was a bit difficult but it was fairly easy to come up on a 396 Chevy II and set things up for a roll. I'd choose to be fairly high in first gear, probably about at 45 MPH. But the chevrolet would be into second by that speed and I'd still have usefulness before having to shift. I was running Pirelli Cinturato tires---225-15s as I remember. And a 3.50 gearset in the axle was just right with the close-ratio trans. The Paxton was designed for the FoMoCo racing program and would make more than 20 pounds of boost.

Chevy IIs never had a chance.

KS

'Back in the day', my '64 Custom/427 wanted BF 32s. That's what came in it from the factory, and that's what I used for replacement. BF 22s worked fine at the digs, but quickly fouled in street driving. BTF 1s were showing signs of fouling after about three runs at Detroit or Milan.

KS

Pardon my ignorance, but what exactly is a "SMX engine"? Certainly doesn`t look like a FE, or any other Ford engine that I have seen before.  Looks like a very nicely built car, but curious why somebody would spend so much money on a 4 door. Doesn`t seem like money was a concern !

Pardon my ignorance, but what exactly is a "SMX engine"? Certainly doesn`t look like a FE, or any other Ford engine that I have seen before.  Looks like a very nicely built car, but curious why somebody would spend so much money on a 4 door. Doesn`t seem like money was a concern !

The engine in question is a fresh design. It takes elements from, mostly Mopar and Chevrolet. The engine, complete starts at $75,000, and, I suppose, goes to the moon. It's a very impressive offering.

KS

I'll +1 on Jay's comment on the water/alcohol spray. For a time, I ran a 427+.030 engine in my '67 Cougar and built the engine with mostly 'parts-on-hand' and what I could scrounge. I made use of pop-up pistons and when I finally did the math I had about 14-1 compression. It did have a tendency to crackle under moderate load so I made a spray set-up using a windshield-washer pump and a nozzle I created by crimping the end of a small tube that fit into the hose. I used an adjustable Hobbs switch to trigger it.

I found a 'deal' at a local drug store and bought several cases of isopropyl alcohol for about fifty cents a bottle. That worked until we took the engine out and put it in a circle-track car to run the half-mile oval at Toledo, Ohio. We held the one lap record with that car that entire season, but that's another story. We used av-gas in the race car.

KS

I haven't used any of the newer Comp stuff, but can't go wrong with Harland Sharp

Actually, with all due respect, you can do much better than HS. Until recently, all of Comp's rocker assemblies were made by Jim Dove. They're perfectly adequate for much of the use they'll see in a street engine. They're almost identical to the HS offerings.

But Dove also made a much more robust version. They were wider, thicker in some necessary spots, and significantly stronger. I once asked Ray Paquet, who used the HD Dove pieces, what he thought of them. He simply said, "Put 'em in and forget 'em."

And of course, by now, the Dove parts are no longer available, and several other operations have come up with premium alternatives. As I stated above, HS are good street parts.

KS

Quote from: cammerfe on February 17, 2022, 10:22:43 PM

For a set of well-tuned, equal length headers, look at a big block Ford GT. But to use them, you'd have to have a rear engine, or run them through the firewall and along the trans/diveshaft tunnel to get them out the back. And drive from the back seat.

KS

     For that matter "all" Ford GT's had 180* headers.

Yup, I'm aware of that, but although the FE and small-block iterations are similar, they're not exact duplicates, and since both this site and this thread seem to be about FE engines, I narrowed my reply down just a 'scosh'.

KS