Kenyan-born Obama all set for US Senate (Archived 2004)

"Nooo, I regret to say that I never owned a 427 cammer, I DID own a 427 Side Oiler that resided between the fenders of my '63 Galaxie..."

The side oiler's dry sump like my Zcar, right?
Same mill Carroll put in his ACs, too.
I wonder if the SO'ers weren't, if nothing else, more reliable than the cammer cars mk?
Not unlike the 440 vs. the 426 Hemi: Want to race get a Hemi, want to cruise get the 440.

"...the ironic thing is that I could have bought a cammer from a mechanic in Kensington Maryland that needed cash in a hurry and was willing to let it go for a mere $1000 and of course I was about 950 bucks short dammit..."

HA!!
I can remember when a $1,000 was all the money in the world, mk. Whatta codger I am.

"But you never ratted him out did ya?"

Nope, didn't know it at the time but I was destined to be a real diplomat. Was an "amicable", albeit unspoken, agreement between ol' Myron & I. We saw nuthin' said it all. LOL!!

>Say mk, the *lore* back in the day was cammer 427 was prone to snapping one or the other cams. To your knowledge was there ever any truth to that?
"To the best of my knowledge, that was just a bad rumor with no basis to it HOWEVER, because the 427 Cammer engine was based on the standard 427 block design, it required a dummy shaft and cam gear to ride in the standard position where a camshaft would ordinarily reside in the block, I heard (don't know for sure) that those dummy shafts had some issues once you got up over 6000 rpm."

I'd bet that explanation's at the root of that aged-old rumor. In fact, I'd give good odds on it. LOL

"...(the 427 SOHC was conservatively rated at 616 horsepower at 7000 rpm with the dual 4-bbl Holley configuration). The Cammer was originally intended to challenge Chrysler's Hemi in NASCAR (it was said that Chrysler intended to introduce the Hemi into NASCAR competition, and the Cammer (being a true Hemi design as well) was the equivalent of the Soviet 'Doomsday Machine', i.e., "if you race your Hemi, we'll unleash this even more awesome and destructive SOHC Hemi"..."

Lemme guess, NAZZZZZZCAR wouldn't allow it.
Geshhhhh.
So tell me, Ford's 429 was also a hemispherical head design, did compete in NASCAR and really gave MOPAR's --Plymouth or Dodge-- Hemis all they could handle. Of course by then GM had withdrawn from participation, IIRC.

>Only Boneass' car had a 390, not the cammer and really not enough HP to move all that Detroit iron. Certainly not in the same league as the uber lightweight Dart 340, any way.
"That's odd, the 390 traditionally had plenty of oats to move those big Fords around, I've had a few of them and except for the bore diameter, they're very similar to the 427. (427 = 4.23 bore x 3.78 stroke, 390 = 4.05 bore x 3.78 stroke, the difference, yea the BIG difference was in the heads and breathing)"

I'd have thought so, bore-wise.
But being a Ford guy whose actually built cars, I'd bet your take's spot on. As I said (didn't I?) Boneass bought the car already built from this Osmond character. Not to bash the kid, but he was different so who can say WTH he did to the motor besides the obligatory cam, lifter/spring package, over-sized carb & the obligatory Cherry Bombs.

Here's what I can remember...the thing could barely wind to 5K! Struggled, seemed --to ME-- like something was holding the whole shittin' caboodle back. Does *that* description sound familiar? Only thing I could say was I experienced something similar when the heat riser in my '80 Corvette was stuck, impeding exhaust evacuation.
Felt much just like that; though, time's distorted everything else so take it FWIW.

Now the other neighbor kid adjacent to our house, his folks bought a then new '69 Torino GT 390 with a 3 Hurst (IIRC) speed manual. "Gordy's" claim to fame was *speed shifting*, primarily because most of us had autos and wouldn't have gone far if it meant we had to work a clutch. LOL

But even his stock 390 4bbl, which I'll guess was the 325HP version, wasn't all that swift. But it did have a hood scoop, like the Mach 1s, *looked* awfully cool to teenagers like us. LOL

Obvious;y the people I ran with simply didn't know WTH they were doing, that is all 2 of 'em and one's car was his folk's. LOL

Like the 383 *or* 396 FTM, I'd always had a healthy respect if only because they had the cubic inches over my paltry small block 340, y'know?
That's why I was more than just surprised to blow the doors off these cars, badly. Came around to thinking the success was mainly due to the HP to Wt ratio so skewed in my favor.

>One night Boneass...was probably stewd, he loses control of his beloved Galaxy 500 390...
"I will lower my FoMoCo flag to half-mast in belated memory."

HA!!
Kidding aside and in spite of Boneass not being the sharpest knife in the drawer? He must've really hurt inside, bad. Trust me, that's one subject I never razzed 'em over even tho' I could, if need be, KHA.
Was sad then & still sad in memory. Y'know?

>...that broken car sat across the street for a longest time, front end slightly elevated.
"A true indignity to all Ford lovers."

Yea and then consider this, mk.
That 390 was all dressed up. Fancy valve covers, carb yadayadayada. Mags, tranny & shifter etc not to mention the trim, most body panels all straight. To the best of my memory he sold it for scrap, or hos old man did after getting sick of seeing it sitting. Ouch.

Great family photo, mk.
Thanks a million for sharing.
Your Pa, a BIG man indeed.
And you partner, a li'l shaver!!
Awfully cute kid, mk.

Explains your good bride buying you that model car, obviously was & remains the best tack for keeping ya around as long as possible. ;^)

"Nooo, I regret to say that I never owned a 427 cammer, I DID own a 427 Side Oiler that resided between the fenders of my '63 Galaxie..."
The side oiler's dry sump like my Zcar, right? Same mill Carroll put in his ACs, too. I wonder if the SO'ers weren't, if nothing else, more reliable than the cammer cars mk? Not unlike the 440 vs. the 426 Hemi: Want to race get a Hemi, want to cruise get the 440.

Actually the side oiler was a standard wet sump design, the term referred to the enhanced block casting which incorporated a long high volume oil gallery running the length of the block which fed the main bearings first, and the camshaft, lifters, rockers, etc., second. (the original design was called a 'top oiler', the oil flowed from the pump to the top of the engine, then made it's way down to the crankcase). Of course all 427s had what was known as 'cross bolted mains', the three center main bearing caps bolted to the block with two vertical bolts going from the bottom of the main caps up into the block casting, with two more bolts, coming through the SIDE of the block casting (just above the pan rail) screwing into the side of the main caps, it was virtually bulletproof, it tied the block casting together into practically one unit and the only limiting factor was the structural integrity of the crank, rods and pistons (and oiling, which is why they moved to the side oiler adaptation).

"...the ironic thing is that I could have bought a cammer from a mechanic in Kensington Maryland that needed cash in a hurry and was willing to let it go for a mere $1000 and of course I was about 950 bucks short dammit..."
HA!! I can remember when a $1,000 was all the money in the world, mk. Whatta codger I am.

Yeah, me too pal.

"But you never ratted him out did ya?"
Nope, didn't know it at the time but I was destined to be a real diplomat. Was an "amicable", albeit unspoken, agreement between ol' Myron & I. We saw nuthin' said it all. LOL!!

Hank Williams Jr & Ray Charles "I didn't see you, you didn't see me, and we didn't see a thing!" LOL

Say mk, the *lore* back in the day was cammer 427 was prone to snapping one or the other cams. To your knowledge was there ever any truth to that?
"To the best of my knowledge, that was just a bad rumor with no basis to it HOWEVER, because the 427 Cammer engine was based on the standard 427 block design, it required a dummy shaft and cam gear to ride in the standard position where a camshaft would ordinarily reside in the block, I heard (don't know for sure) that those dummy shafts had some issues once you got up over 6000 rpm."
I'd bet that explanation's at the root of that aged-old rumor. In fact, I'd give good odds on it. LOL

More than likely.

"...(the 427 SOHC was conservatively rated at 616 horsepower at 7000 rpm with the dual 4-bbl Holley configuration). The Cammer was originally intended to challenge Chrysler's Hemi in NASCAR (it was said that Chrysler intended to introduce the Hemi into NASCAR competition, and the Cammer (being a true Hemi design as well) was the equivalent of the Soviet 'Doomsday Machine', i.e., "if you race your Hemi, we'll unleash this even more awesome and destructive SOHC Hemi"..."
Lemme guess, NAZZZZZZCAR wouldn't allow it.

You got it! LOL

Geshhhhh.
So tell me, Ford's 429 was also a hemispherical head design, did compete in NASCAR and really gave MOPAR's --Plymouth or Dodge-- Hemis all they could handle. Of course by then GM had withdrawn from participation, IIRC.

The Boss 429 Mustang(in full Holman Moody race trim) was arguably the most powerful NASCAR vehicle ever built. Unfortunately Ford pulled out of NASCAR after the '69 season so full development of the 429 potential was never realized. But don't let anyone compare the 'race' version with the tuned-down 'street' version, it's like the difference between a .22 auto and a .44 auto mag, LOL

>Only Boneass' car had a 390, not the cammer and really not enough HP to move all that Detroit iron. Certainly not in the same league as the uber lightweight Dart 340, any way.
"That's odd, the 390 traditionally had plenty of oats to move those big Fords around, I've had a few of them and except for the bore diameter, they're very similar to the 427. (427 = 4.23 bore x 3.78 stroke, 390 = 4.05 bore x 3.78 stroke, the difference, yea the BIG difference was in the heads and breathing)"
I'd have thought so, bore-wise.
But being a Ford guy whose actually built cars, I'd bet your take's spot on. As I said (didn't I?) Boneass bought the car already built from this Osmond character. Not to bash the kid, but he was different so who can say WTH he did to the motor besides the obligatory cam, lifter/spring package, over-sized carb & the obligatory Cherry Bombs.

One of the basic mistakes any kid makes in hopping up an engine (and I learned the hard way) was to put in too much cam, and not enough gear in the axle. Longer duration valve timing bumps the engine's power producing peak to higher rpms (which is what you want in a performance motor) but you end up with a corresponding drop in torque (which is what wins your street light competitions, lol). And unless the cam'd up engine also receives a decent set of headers and dual exhaust, it's going to end up choked. And then there is always the error of putting more carb on the engine than it can take, the Holley 780 was probably the best all around carburetor ever made, but a properly tweaked and jetted Holley 600 would produce more horsepower (and vacuum secondaries were the way to go, not with mechanical linkage and all that 'double-pumper' nonsense.

Here's what I can remember...the thing could barely wind to 5K! Struggled, seemed --to ME-- like something was holding the whole shittin' caboodle back. Does *that* description sound familiar? Only thing I could say was I experienced something similar when the heat riser in my '80 Corvette was stuck, impeding exhaust evacuation. Felt much just like that; though, time's distorted everything else so take it FWIW.

Sounds like too much cam, not enough exhaust or the cam could have been installed a degree or two retarded which will DEFINITELY affect overall power output.

Now the other neighbor kid adjacent to our house, his folks bought a then new '69 Torino GT 390 with a 3 Hurst (IIRC) speed manual. "Gordy's" claim to fame was *speed shifting*, primarily because most of us had autos and wouldn't have gone far if it meant we had to work a clutch. LOL

Well a 4 speed (or even 3 speed) and clutch is great but for consistent bracket racing performance, an automatic with a proper high stall torque converter, manual valve body, etc., is pretty hard to beat and you CAN drive it on the street if you don't mind the harsh shifts.

But even his stock 390 4bbl, which I'll guess was the 325HP version, wasn't all that swift. But it did have a hood scoop, like the Mach 1s, *looked* awfully cool to teenagers like us. LOL

That 390/325 was a good solid motor but it wasn't much different than the run of the mill 390-4bbl that you would find in any number of LTDs, Country Squire & Sedan station wagons, etc. The 390 from the factory (by the end of the 60's) needed some work to deliver any kind of really decent street performance.

Obviously the people I ran with simply didn't know WTH they were doing, that is all 2 of 'em and one's car was his folk's. LOL

Sometime I'll tell you about this friend of mine who tried to turn his Dad's 4 door Oldsmobile into a 'race car', lol

Like the 383 *or* 396 FTM, I'd always had a healthy respect if only because they had the cubic inches over my paltry small block 340, y'know? That's why I was more than just surprised to blow the doors off these cars, badly. Came around to thinking the success was mainly due to the HP to Wt ratio so skewed in my favor.

The old saying "there is no substitute for cubic inches" remains true, however it is more important to have a favorable weight-to-horsepower ratio and you certainly had that in spades, I would gather. :)

One night Boneass...was probably stewd, he loses control of his beloved Galaxy 500 390...
"I will lower my FoMoCo flag to half-mast in belated memory."
HA!!
Kidding aside and in spite of Boneass not being the sharpest knife in the drawer? He must've really hurt inside, bad. Trust me, that's one subject I never razzed 'em over even tho' I could, if need be, KHA. Was sad then & still sad in memory. Y'know?

I do indeed know. One of my Galaxies (I've owned a few) was one strong runnin' SOB, but I didn't know that the previous owner had bored out the 390 a full .125 and had to put a sleeve in one of the cylinders. (The maximum a block should be overbored is .060) Anyway, I was driving one of many girlfriends through the Virginia countryside one afternoon and that sleeve let go not far from Tyson's Corner, and I had to call up a wrecker service to tow it home, that was a sad way to return home although the girlfriend was very sympathetic (but not THAT sympathetic dammit lol).

>...that broken car sat across the street for a longest time, front end slightly elevated.
"A true indignity to all Ford lovers."
Yea and then consider this, mk.
That 390 was all dressed up. Fancy valve covers, carb yadayadayada. Mags, tranny & shifter etc not to mention the trim, most body panels all straight. To the best of my memory he sold it for scrap, or his old man did after getting sick of seeing it sitting. Ouch.

That's almost always the way it is, you never get out of a car what you put into it, I've only had that happen to me ONE time in my life, and that is a hilarious story I'll save for another time.

Great family photo, mk.
Thanks a million for sharing.
Your Pa, a BIG man indeed.
And you partner, a li'l shaver!!
Awfully cute kid, mk.

I'm still trying to figure out where that kid ran off to, I keep thinking about that bumper sticker that says "inside every 50-something man, is a 19 year old kid screaming "WTF HAPPENED?!??!?'"

Explains your good bride buying you that model car, obviously was & remains the best tack for keeping ya around as long as possible. ;^)

Well so far so good, she wanted to get a 2009 Dodge Challenger and I found myself arguing AGAINST it (what was I SAYING?!?), in favor of a low mileage Chrysler 300 (the older style before they went to the new 'box' design), I guess that makes me officially an OFBTW (Old Fart Behind The Wheel), lol

Have a great evening Brother Landru, I may be a bit tied up for a while, trouble shooting a neighbor's computer and proving again that "no good deed goes unpunished", LOL

Later!

"Actually the side oiler was a standard wet sump design, the term referred to the enhanced block casting which incorporated a long high volume oil gallery running the length of the block which fed the main bearings first, and the camshaft, lifters, rockers, etc., second. (the original design was called a 'top oiler', the oil flowed from the pump to the top of the engine, then made it's way down to the crankcase)."

Unreal, would you believe you're the FIRST person, Ford guy or otherwise who satisfactorily explained WTH all the Ford jargon meant insofar as the legendary 427 goes??
It's true, mk.
It ain't so much I been living a lie, but I STH been believing one LOL!!
Fascinating, beyond words.

So tell me, you a Mechanical Engineer by any chance? Your in-depth knowledge/insight of the nuts & bolts, ability to explain in lay terms what all this historical Ford stuff meant is nothing short of remarkable

If you're not a MW, work in the field in some capacity? It'd shock TS outa me. You STH could've easily written tech docs for anything I designed any time, better than I ever did! ;^)

"Of course all 427s had what was known as 'cross bolted mains', the three center main bearing caps bolted to the block with two vertical bolts going from the bottom of the main caps up into the block casting, with two more bolts, coming through the SIDE of the block casting (just above the pan rail) screwing into the side of the main caps, it was virtually bulletproof, it tied the block casting together into practically one unit and the only limiting factor was the structural integrity of the crank, rods and pistons (and oiling, which is why they moved to the side oiler adaptation)."

That, is simply amazing. The crank had to be held stiffer than a two peckered billy-goat in such a fashion. Honestly, you've given me totally new insights into what the Ford engineers tried accomplishing, as such I have gained a new respect for Ford I never in my life had.

>We saw nuthin' said it all. LOL!!
"Hank Williams Jr & Ray Charles 'I didn't see you, you didn't see me, and we didn't see a thing!'"

HA!!
Knew someone had to have had the shtick down before me, that it'd have been HWJr & RC doesn't surprise me. I feel as though my thoughts were in good company even if a few decades late. LOL!

>Lemme guess, NAZZZZZZCAR wouldn't allow it.
"You got it"

Figures, proves the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, eh? Only difference between Sr & his offspring brat is the snot nose. And now they're standing around wringing their hands wondering "WTF happened" as ratings, interest & popularity tanks. ~sigh~ Welcome to the future.

>So tell me, Ford's 429 was also a hemispherical head design, did compete in NASCAR and really gave MOPAR's --Plymouth or Dodge-- Hemis all they could handle. Of course by then GM had withdrawn from participation, IIRC.
"The Boss 429 Mustang (in full Holman Moody race trim) was arguably the most powerful NASCAR vehicle ever built."

OK, so how many of these H/M cars were really made? Are you saying all the "429 Boss'" built weren't of the same pedigree? Would explain why the guy up the road with the survivor Boss 429 wanted nothing to do with me, if that'd be the case.

"Unfortunately Ford pulled out of NASCAR after the '69 season..."

Is that move what was behind Richard Petty leaving Ford the one & only season he switched? Those early years for me are fuzzy.

...so full development of the 429 potential was never realized. But don't let anyone compare the 'race' version with the tuned-down 'street' version, it's like the difference between a .22 auto and a .44 auto mag"

Really?
The next door kid, "Gordy", the guy whose parents had the Torinio 390? His folks also had a '69 LTD and it had a 429. Was only a 2bbl. Still, I'd always wondered why the car didn't perform better given the displacement.

In fact when the car was only 3 months old, *Gordy* would put the thing in Neutral on 124th Street, let'er roll down the hill backwards & then slam it in Drive. We'd watch the tires smoooooooke. Thought it sooooo cool.
'Til one day his old man, "Virgil", LOOKED at <2K bald tires!!
I was there, Virg slapped Gordy in the head so hard it sounded like someone socking a watermelon
BWWWWWWHAAAA!! ~Another story for another time. LOL!!

>Not to bash the kid, but he was different so who can say WTH he did to the motor besides the obligatory cam, lifter/spring package, over-sized carb & the obligatory Cherry Bombs.
"One of the basic mistakes any kid makes in hopping up an engine (and I learned the hard way) was to put in too much cam, and not enough gear in the axle. Longer duration valve timing bumps the engine's power producing peak to higher rpms (which is what you want in a performance motor) but you end up with a corresponding drop in torque (which is what wins your street light competitions, lol). And unless the cam'd up engine also receives a decent set of headers and dual exhaust, it's going to end up choked."

Bingo, my friend.
Your analysis sounds frightfully similar to how that car performed. It *should've* been hell on wheels, but wasn't. The strange --albeit well meaning-- kid who built it simply didn't understand the big picture as you've described. Osmond...& I *ain't* talkin' 'bout Donny. LOL

"And then there is always the error of putting more carb on the engine than it can take, the Holley 780 was probably the best all around carburetor ever made..."

Have one on my '80 L48 Vette, it is a great all-round carb. Too bad I don't drive it much anymore, she just sits in the 3rd bay. Pity.

"...but a properly tweaked and jetted Holley 600 would produce more horsepower (and vacuum secondaries were the way to go, not with mechanical linkage and all that 'double-pumper' nonsense."

Who at 16 would've thought that? Back then more was better. Now my other pal, "Hog Knees'", his '60 L-88 427 had a 950 double pumper. But that gas guzzling sow really needed the fuel.
~Not a 390.

>Here's what I can remember...the thing could barely wind to 5K! Struggled, seemed --to ME-- like something was holding the whole shittin' caboodle back. Does *that* description sound familiar?
"Sounds like too much cam, not enough exhaust or the cam could have been installed a degree or two retarded which will DEFINITELY affect overall power output."

May sound like [that] to you, but it sounds like Osmond to me. LOL!! The kid meant well, just no clue. Wonder what # DUI he's working on. LOL!!

>Now the other neighbor kid adjacent to our house, his folks bought a then new '69 Torino GT 390 with a 3 Hurst (IIRC) speed manual. "Gordy's" claim to fame was *speed shifting*, primarily because most of us had autos and wouldn't have gone far if it meant we had to work a clutch.
"Well a 4 speed (or even 3 speed) and clutch is great but for consistent bracket racing performance, an automatic with a proper high stall torque converter, manual valve body, etc., is pretty hard to beat and you CAN drive it on the street if you don't mind the harsh shifts."

We know that NOW, but back then an auto was for old geezers!! THAT was before the old man brought home the Dart 340 w/ a 727 Torqueflite. Wow. I saw the light with that tranny. Tight as hell. Annnnnnnd *I* couldn't break it even when I tried. LOL!!

>But even his stock 390 4bbl, which I'll guess was the 325HP version, wasn't all that swift.
"That 390/325 was a good solid motor but it wasn't much different than the run of the mill 390-4bbl that you would find in any number of LTDs, Country Squire & Sedan station wagons, etc. The 390 from the factory (by the end of the 60's) needed some work to deliver any kind of really decent street performance."

That'd explain it.
In the day all we were concerned with was cu in.

>Obviously the people I ran with simply didn't know WTH they were doing, that is all 2 of 'em and one's car was his folk's. LOL
"Sometime I'll tell you about this friend of mine who tried to turn his Dad's 4 door Oldsmobile into a 'race car'..."

Can't wait! LOL!!

>Like the 383 *or* 396 FTM, I'd always had a healthy respect if only because they had the cubic inches over my paltry small block 340...
"The old saying 'there is no substitute for cubic inches' remains true, however it is more important to have a favorable weight-to-horsepower ratio and you certainly had that in spades, I would gather."

Well that, & I hung with nincompoops driving "Pa's" car. LOL

>Was sad then & still sad in memory. Y'know?
"I do indeed know. One of my Galaxies (I've owned a few) was one strong runnin' SOB, but I didn't know that the previous owner had bored out the 390 a full .125 and had to put a sleeve in one of the cylinders. (The maximum a block should be overbored is .060) Anyway, I was driving one of many girlfriends through the Virginia countryside one afternoon and that sleeve let go not far from Tyson's Corner, and I had to call up a wrecker service to tow it home, that was a sad way to return home although the girlfriend was very sympathetic (but not THAT sympathetic dammit lol)."

BWWWWWWHAAAAAAA!!!
Oh I understand the code words just fine.
You po' thing. LOL!!
Really, least she could've done was comfort a fella whose car had just fragged. Women are so cruel. LOL

>To the best of my memory he sold it for scrap, or his old man did after getting sick of seeing it sitting. Ouch.
"That's almost always the way it is, you never get out of a car what you put into it, I've only had that happen to me ONE time in my life, and that is a hilarious story I'll save for another time."

I got you on record, pal!!
You WILL tell that tale, y'hear? LOL!! ;^)

>Awfully cute kid, mk.
"I'm still trying to figure out where that kid ran off to, I keep thinking about that bumper sticker that says 'inside every 50-something man, is a 19 year old kid screaming 'WTF HAPPENED?!??!?'"

BWWWWWHAAAAAAAA!!!
For sure, man.
This growin' old crap STH ain't for sissies, like the old dame said.
Still, we got some fabulous memories & I for one wouldn't trade for anything for 'em. Honest. We laughed often and a lot and it didn't require any kind substance, whatsoever. Just *life*.

>Explains your good bride buying you that model car...
"Well so far so good, she wanted to get a 2009 Dodge Challenger and I found myself arguing AGAINST it (what was I SAYING?!?), in favor of a low mileage Chrysler 300 (the older style before they went to the new 'box' design), I guess that makes me officially an OFBTW (Old Fart Behind The Wheel)"

Whaaaaaaaaaaaat????
You passed on an opportunity she who must be obeyed suggested???? OMG...
Now don'tcha think that's taking this "conservative" jazz a tad too far? LOL

"Have a great evening Brother Landru, I may be a bit tied up for a while, trouble shooting a neighbor's computer and proving again that "no good deed goes unpunished", Later!"

Happy trails, my friend.
Ain no other place I be.
C'ya when you're finish gettin' abused. ;^)

(yawn) 6:00 Eastern, I cannot believe I've been wrestling with this freakin' system all night except for about an hour's nap (groan)...

Unreal, would you believe you're the FIRST person, Ford guy or otherwise who satisfactorily explained WTH all the Ford jargon meant insofar as the legendary 427 goes?? It's true, mk. It ain't so much I been living a lie, but I STH been believing one LOL!! Fascinating, beyond words.

Wow. I'm kinda surprised and honored, the Ford approach to high performance has never been a secret although a lot o' folks used to (and still do) hear or utter that infamous 'F-ound O-n R-oad D-ead' mantra and let it go at that, lol (I always countered that with 'F-irst O-n R-ace D-ay' and/or 'F-inest O-pportunity to 'R-ide D-ecently' ;)

So tell me, you a Mechanical Engineer by any chance? Your in-depth knowledge/insight of the nuts & bolts, ability to explain in lay terms what all this historical Ford stuff meant is nothing short of remarkable.

You again honor me, and I thank you. I am unfortunately not an M.E., just had a lifetime fascination with how things go together and how to tweak 'em, lol

If you're not a ME, work in the field in some capacity? It'd shock TS outa me. You STH could've easily written tech docs for anything I designed any time, better than I ever did! ;^)

Bullseye! One of my many incarnations in the work force was a technical writer, mostly in the computer support field, I never had a degree or anything, it was a case of necessity being a mother, I had to document a data center (this was pre-PC days) and was forced to start from scratch with "enter the operations room and turn on the light switch" lol

[regarding 427 'cross bolting']
That, is simply amazing. The crank had to be held stiffer than a two peckered billy-goat in such a fashion. Honestly, you've given me totally new insights into what the Ford engineers tried accomplishing, as such I have gained a new respect for Ford I never in my life had.

LMAO, I never saw a two peckered billy-goat until after the election of '92 when that hyper-libido'd Emperor Billigula started sliming up the Oval Office, what an SOB he was.

I've always liked Ford's kinda (not always) direct approach, the one thing that gained my admiration was their putting the distributor in the FRONT of the engine, instead of the back like GM (Chrysler was similar with front placement although they tilted the distributor on some of their engines (383?), lol

We saw nuthin' said it all. LOL!!
"Hank Williams Jr & Ray Charles 'I didn't see you, you didn't see me, and we didn't see a thing!'"
HA!!
Knew someone had to have had the shtick down before me, that it'd have been HWJr & RC doesn't surprise me. I feel as though my thoughts were in good company even if a few decades late. LOL!

Speaking of, if perchance you've not seen that movie about the life of Ray Charles, 'Ray' with Jamie Fox, it is time well spent, the scene where Ray Charles is in the recording studio for the first take of 'Mess Around' is not only hilarious, it is one fantastic tune, a great 'road' tune!

Lemme guess, NAZZZZZZCAR wouldn't allow it.
"You got it"
Figures, proves the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, eh? Only difference between Sr & his offspring brat is the snot nose. And now they're standing around wringing their hands wondering "WTF happened" as ratings, interest & popularity tanks. ~sigh~ Welcome to the future.

IMHO, the most stupid thing NASCAR ever did was to introduce carburetor restrictor plates. And among the greatest racers, mechanics and crew chiefs of all, was Henry 'Smokey' Yunick, I actually visited his 'Best Damn Garage in Town' in Daytona (this was in the last couple of years before he closed it in '87) and one thing I burned into my memory was something he said about when a driver is headed for an accident, i.e. (paraphrasing now) "when a driver sits back in the seat with his arms extended TO the wheel, and is comfortable, he's not going to wreck. But when he starts leaning forward, getting up on the wheel, tensing up, the clock is ticking on him" and I believe (not sure now) that he said that about the famous Fireball Roberts (Yunick was his crew chief, put him 'on the pole' THREE times), before Roberts crashed and died in '64.

But as they say 'alas I digress', lol

OK, so how many of these H/M cars were really made? Are you saying all the "429 Boss'" built weren't of the same pedigree? Would explain why the guy up the road with the survivor Boss 429 wanted nothing to do with me, if that'd be the case.

I'm not exactly sure how many H/M cars were built, I know that the total number of Boss 429 Mustangs was 1358, with NASCAR requiring that 500 of them be sold to the public to qualify them for the racing circuit, so I'd go out on a limb and say that Holman Moody probably worked over MOST of them, as they were the official Ford go-to guys for NASCAR, their famous 'Competition Proven' logo was said to be worth at least an extra 10 horsepower if you had one on your car, LOL

"Unfortunately Ford pulled out of NASCAR after the '69 season..."
Is that move what was behind Richard Petty leaving Ford the one & only season he switched? Those early years for me are fuzzy.

Actually Petty switched to Ford for that '69 season because Chrysler refused to give him a more aerodynamic Dodge Charger for NASCAR, wanted to keep him in the Belvedere/Road Runner body which had all the aerodynamics of a brick. Petty announced that he would accept Ford's offer to race their new Torino instead, and pissed off everyone in both Chrysler AND Ford camps, lol (part of that might have been that the Petty team basically had nothing to do with Holman Moody, which was kinda like the Israelites deciding to head for the Promised Land but leaving Moses behind with the Egyptians.

But don't let anyone compare the 'race' version with the tuned-down 'street' version, it's like the difference between a .22 auto and a .44 auto mag"
Really? The next door kid, "Gordy", the guy whose parents had the Torinio 390? His folks also had a '69 LTD and it had a 429. Was only a 2bbl. Still, I'd always wondered why the car didn't perform better given the displacement.

The Boss 429 for the street had a hydraulic cam, single 4-bbl carburetor, it was 'corked up' at the factory most likely (again, IMHO) to prevent any rich kids from wrapping themselves around telephone poles and bringing down the wrath of the already hostile insurance companies regarding performance cars. That's just my take on it. The 429 was actually a de-stroked 460 Lincoln engine (known as the '385' series due to the crank stroke of 3.85 inches), the 429 had a stroke of 3.59 which made it capable of high revs and the rocker arms were independently mounted, unlike the shaft configuration of the 390-427-428 'FE' series.

' In fact when the car was only 3 months old, *Gordy* would put the thing in Neutral on 124th Street, let'er roll down the hill backwards & then slam it in Drive. We'd watch the tires smoooooooke. Thought it sooooo cool. 'Til one day his old man, "Virgil", LOOKED at <2K bald tires!! I was there, Virg slapped Gordy in the head so hard it sounded like someone socking a watermelon BWWWWWWHAAAA!! ~Another story for another time. LOL!!

"Never mess with a man named Virgil" - Virgil 'Gus' Grissom. lol

Bingo, my friend.
Your analysis sounds frightfully similar to how that car performed. It *should've* been hell on wheels, but wasn't. The strange --albeit well meaning-- kid who built it simply didn't understand the big picture as you've described. Osmond...& I *ain't* talkin' 'bout Donny. LOL

Donny got a bad rap I think, but I could picture Marie in a NASCAR jump suit, Whoo hooo! lol

... the Holley 780 was probably the best all around carburetor ever made..."
Have one on my '80 L48 Vette, it is a great all-round carb. Too bad I don't drive it much anymore, she just sits in the 3rd bay. Pity.

If you don't have one, I think you can still get the larger 50cc 'Reo' accelerator pump kit (factory Holley accelerator pump is only 30cc) with all sorts of little plastic 'cams' for the throttle shaft to allow you to adjust exactly 'when' the squirt hits the venturis, lol

"...but a properly tweaked and jetted Holley 600 would produce more horsepower (and vacuum secondaries were the way to go, not with mechanical linkage and all that 'double-pumper' nonsense."
Who at 16 would've thought that? Back then more was better. Now my other pal, "Hog Knees'", his '60 L-88 427 had a 950 double pumper. But that gas guzzling sow really needed the fuel.

Oh I would say so. I was always fascinated with the Holley 950 and 1050 cfm "3-barrel" carbs, instead of two rear secondaries, Holley just incorporated a great big flapper valve that flowed air and fuel like a fire hose, I finally picked up a 950 3-bbl about 10 years ago, and then never used it, dammit. Paid $200 for it from a guy advertising in Hemmings Motor News, had to sell it for $100 when money was a little tight, "that's the way it goes", lol

We know that NOW, but back then an auto was for old geezers!! THAT was before the old man brought home the Dart 340 w/ a 727 Torqueflite. Wow. I saw the light with that tranny. Tight as hell. Annnnnnnd *I* couldn't break it even when I tried. LOL!!

In my book, there were (and remain) three superior automatic trannys, the Chrysler Torqueflite, the Ford C-6 and the GM Turbo-Hydro 400, in that order. IMHO, those 3 transmissions will never be truly surpassed. (and in the 2-speed category, highly honorable mention for the GM PowerGlide, lol)

But even his stock 390 4bbl, which I'll guess was the 325HP version, wasn't all that swift.
"That 390/325 was a good solid motor but it wasn't much different than the run of the mill 390-4bbl that you would find in any number of LTDs, Country Squire & Sedan station wagons, etc. The 390 from the factory (by the end of the 60's) needed some work to deliver any kind of really decent street performance."
That'd explain it.
In the day all we were concerned with was cu in.

I was always a fiend for stroker kits, and for someone who did NOT have the budget for high dollar billet cranks and all that fancy stuff, there was always the tried and true "Speed-O-Motive" and they're still in business today!

http://www.speedomotive.com

"Sometime I'll tell you about this friend of mine who tried to turn his Dad's 4 door Oldsmobile into a 'race car'..."
Can't wait! LOL!!

I'll have to go dust off some dormant neurons and try to reconstruct that train wreck, lol

That's almost always the way it is, you never get out of a car what you put into it, I've only had that happen to me ONE time in my life, and that is a hilarious story I'll save for another time."
I got you on record, pal!!
You WILL tell that tale, y'hear? LOL!! ;^)

Oh I can tell that one right now. I was working for a government contractor in suburban Maryland and one of the computer engineers was driving a '71 Vega that literally died one morning on his way to work and he coasted into the parking lot from U.S. 29, I think if he had been armed, he would have shot the car to put it out of it's misery, lol - anyway, I had just that previous weekend picked up a '69 Mercury Marquis (with one of them notorious 429 2-bbls) for $100 bucks as a go-to-work/grocery-getter car. This guy (Chris) stood out a bit anyway, as he was into ballroom dancing and would kill two birds with one stone by wearing some of his dancing suits as business suits to work, a real stylish type in that Vega, heh-heh, ANYway, Chris asked me if I would sell him that car (and he had no idea what I paid for it), that he HAD to have a car and quick and had figured I wouldn't buy a car that wasn't reliable, and what did I want for it?

So off the top of my head, I said "$1200 bucks!" and he said "SOLD!" and proceeded to start pulling 100-dollar bills out of his wallet like some dancin' version of Monty Hall, and before I could say "wait a minute!" he said "you got a title?" I said "yeah, in the glovebox" and he said "let's go get it", and we proceeded to conclude the transaction right there in the parking lot, and he drove that damn Mercury for more than a year before he traded it in on something, I had a grand total of $100 invested plus tag and title and I was shaking my head. Fortunately for me, I was just about to ready to pull one Galaxie out of drydock and return it to service and that $1100 profit made that possible. And that was the ONLY time I sold a car and actually came out ahead. That won't happen again until Jesus comes back, I suspect.

Awfully cute kid, mk.
"I'm still trying to figure out where that kid ran off to, I keep thinking about that bumper sticker that says 'inside every 50-something man, is a 19 year old kid screaming 'WTF HAPPENED?!??!?'"
BWWWWWHAAAAAAAA!!!
For sure, man.
This growin' old crap STH ain't for sissies, like the old dame said.
Still, we got some fabulous memories & I for one wouldn't trade for anything for 'em. Honest. We laughed often and a lot and it didn't require any kind substance, whatsoever. Just *life*.

Right you are Brother, but getting old still sucks. I discover more aches and pains all the time but better to have the aches and pains than to wake up with a tag on your toe, lol

Explains your good bride buying you that model car...
"Well so far so good, she wanted to get a 2009 Dodge Challenger and I found myself arguing AGAINST it (what was I SAYING?!?), in favor of a low mileage Chrysler 300 (the older style before they went to the new 'box' design), I guess that makes me officially an OFBTW (Old Fart Behind The Wheel)"
Whaaaaaaaaaaaat???? You passed on an opportunity she who must be obeyed suggested???? OMG...
Now don'tcha think that's taking this "conservative" jazz a tad too far? LOL

No, it means that I'm helping to guarantee that SHE will be around long enough to take care of me in my old age instead of getting too enthusiastic with the go-pedal in that Challenger, lol

"Have a great evening Brother Landru, I may be a bit tied up for a while, trouble shooting a neighbor's computer and proving again that "no good deed goes unpunished", Later!"
Happy trails, my friend.
Ain no other place I be.
C'ya when you're finish gettin' abused. ;^)

Oh the abuse is just getting started. I arranged for this neighbor of mine to pick up a new PC from our local computer outlet, and I foolishly volunteered to transfer his data from his old Windows 98 (stop laughing dammit) system to an XP system, and it should NOT be this complex, I'm encountering XP-setup fatal errors stating that it can't "write to memory" and I'm beginning to think that it's the onboard VGA function on the motherboard that allocates main memory for the graphics, and then Setup comes along and can't find the memory it needs to complete installation but I'll figure something out.

I think it needs a bigger carburetor and a set of headers. ;)

"(yawn) 6:00 Eastern, I cannot believe I've been wrestling with this freakin' system all night except for about an hour's nap (groan)...Oh the abuse is just getting started. I arranged for this neighbor of mine to pick up a new PC from our local computer outlet, and I foolishly volunteered to transfer his data from his old Windows 98 (stop laughing dammit) system to an XP system..."

Win98 *to* XP??
Guess that'd rule out Win7, huh.
Let me count the ways I dislike uCrap. :^)

"...and it should NOT be this complex..."

The word *shouldn't* is the scourge of our times.
This I know. {g}

"I'm encountering XP-setup fatal errors stating that it can't "write to memory" and I'm beginning to think that it's the onboard VGA function on the motherboard that allocates main memory for the graphics, and then Setup comes along and can't find the memory it needs to complete installation but I'll figure something out."

Stupid suggestion born of empathy for your situation, but have you tried an uninstall-reinstall?
Well I didn't lie about the validity, so credit for intent counts for something.
Just know after beating my brains out for hours, sometimes days I'd start over & it'd work!!

Just keep muttering to yourself the ol' Confucius line, my friend: "He who does what he loves, never works a day in his life." LOL!!
Of course the old goat could afford to wax poetic, his time was 100s of years before computers. ;^)

"I think it needs a bigger carburetor and a set of headers.

There ya go, do pressure check the HD though. Could be a blowed computer. {Just teasing}

>Unreal, would you believe you're the FIRST person, Ford guy or otherwise who satisfactorily explained WTH all the Ford jargon meant insofar as the legendary 427 goes?? It's true, mk. It ain't so much I been living a lie, but I STH been believing one LOL!! Fascinating, beyond words.
"Wow. I'm kinda surprised and honored..."

As well you should be.

"...the Ford approach to high performance has never been a secret although a lot o' folks used to (and still do) hear or utter that infamous 'F-ound O-n R-oad D-ead' mantra and let it go at that, lol (I always countered that with 'F-irst O-n R-ace D-ay' and/or 'F-inest O-pportunity to 'R-ide D-ecently'"

HA!!
Yes, but you're a pAAAtizan!! LOL

>So tell me, you a Mechanical Engineer by any chance? Your in-depth knowledge/insight of the nuts & bolts, ability to explain in lay terms what all this historical Ford stuff meant is nothing short of remarkable.
"You again honor me, and I thank you. I am unfortunately not an M.E., just had a lifetime fascination with how things go together and how to tweak 'em, lol"

There it is, mk. I'm an electrical man. Controls the *specialty*; but, I never knew what'd drop in my lap, either.

It's no accident I chose the EE field, either. As far back as I can remember when and/or if I took something apart? It'd either never go back together, not work properly when it did and in both cases I always had spare aprts. Not good. Damaged my self esteem, so naturally I gravitated to theoretics.
So wouldn't you know it I wound up with a position in a department of Eaton Aerospace, called Specific Industrial Controls Division, the ONLY sparky among *15 ME gear-heads!! Was karmic revenge for past sins in a past lifetime, I reasoned. LOL!!

>If you're not a ME, work in the field in some capacity? It'd shock TS outa me. You STH could've easily written tech docs for anything I designed any time, better than I ever did!
Bullseye!

OK...your meticulous explanation of this mechanical, specifically Ford stuff, is the result of many years practice 8and* experience. And, it shows. ;^)

"One of my many incarnations in the work force was a technical writer, mostly in the computer support field, I never had a degree or anything, it was a case of necessity being a mother, I had to document a data center (this was pre-PC days) and was forced to start from scratch with "enter the operations room and turn on the light switch" lol"

HA!!
Not unlike when I was interning, had to go into a heat treating operation, open 7' high x 8' long Hoffman cabinets full of relays chattering away. They wanted it converted to CCCO, ie PLC ladder logic. It mattered not no one had maintained the docs, EWDs and that was if I was lucky!! Many times the map pouch in the door was empty.

You mention your lack of "formal education".
At one gig with Square D Automation Products I designed the darned systems. "In house" stuff where the client was using our Square D Symax gear?

After completed I'd turn over all notes etc to the company's "Tech Writers". When it came back I swear deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics was easier, never-mind some electrician at the site & after the sale trying to make sense of it all.
I calmly went down to the Tech writers office area, think a cubicle city not unlike a prairie dog town?
Probed the really nice guy who produced the mess, and lo' & behold mk, he was an English major from Notre Dame.
Good grief.

By the time I finished editing the thing it was usable, but ol' Landru left the guy's name on the doc.
Hope St. Pete takes the act of kindness into account when my time comes; which, I understand is *somewhat* presumptuous? LOL
Anyway, moving on...

[regarding 427 'cross bolting'] That, is simply amazing. The crank had to be held stiffer than a two peckered billy-goat in such a fashion. Honestly, you've given me totally new insights into what the Ford engineers tried accomplishing, as such I have gained a new respect for Ford I never in my life had.
"LMAO, I never saw a two peckered billy-goat until after the election of '92 when that hyper-libido'd Emperor Billigula started sliming up the Oval Office, what an SOB he was."

Well obviously you never worked at Square D, you'd have seen a bunch of 'em standing around uselessly grazing.
Yea, ol' Clintigual, whatta guy.
~sigh~
Now those were the days, albeit not good nor old since we got us a hyper-model, now.

"I've always liked Ford's kinda (not always) direct approach, the one thing that gained my admiration was their putting the distributor in the FRONT of the engine instead of the back like GM (Chrysler was similar with front placement although they tilted the distributor on some of their engines (383?)"

Yes!!
That Ford did, and even moi remembers thinking it *different* while pretty handy. Of course I knew better to touch 'em regardless where they were. {review above}

"Speaking of, if perchance you've not seen that movie about the life of Ray Charles, 'Ray' with Jamie Fox, it is time well spent, the scene where Ray Charles is in the recording studio for the first take of 'Mess Around' is not only hilarious, it is one fantastic tune, a great 'road' tune!"

Hmmmm, really?
Well I have to admit Hollyweird *&* the Hollyweirdites so jaded me today I don't give anything they extrude a chance.
Of course I'll bet I'm one of the few people, conservatives anyway, who really enjoyed & still do the runt Spike Lee's bio, 'Malcolm X.'

Ol' Spike was too young to have learned how to lie properly. As such & in his effort at being as real as possible provided valuable insight into the "Black" experience & particularly The Nation of Islam.
Boy they must regret that film every bit as much as 'Network'. LOL

"IMHO, the most stupid thing NASCAR ever did was to introduce carburetor restrictor plates. And among the greatest racers, mechanics and crew chiefs of all, was Henry 'Smokey' Yunick..."

Oh my, one of the great names of all time insofar as NAZZZZZCAR goes. -IMO, of course. Whatta man.

"I actually visited his 'Best Damn Garage in Town' in Daytona (this was in the last couple of years before he closed it in '87) and one thing I burned into my memory was something he said about when a driver is headed for an accident, i.e. (paraphrasing now) "when a driver sits back in the seat with his arms extended TO the wheel, and is comfortable, he's not going to wreck."

Old Iron Head drove like that, arms fully extended. I miss that man, his kid's been a lost soul ever since he unnecessarily had to leave this world.

"But when he starts leaning forward, getting up on the wheel, tensing up, the clock is ticking on him" and I believe (not sure now) that he said that about the famous Fireball Roberts (Yunick was his crew chief, put him 'on the pole' THREE times), before Roberts crashed and died in '64."

And of course one sees drivers hunched up on the wheel all the time, these days. Naturally, lots of wrecks, too. LOL

"OK, so how many of these H/M cars were really made? Are you saying all the "429 Boss'" built weren't of the same pedigree?
"I'm not exactly sure how many H/M cars were built, I know that the total number of Boss 429 Mustangs was 1358, with NASCAR requiring that 500 of them be sold to the public to qualify them for the racing circuit, so I'd go out on a limb and say that Holman Moody probably worked over MOST of them, as they were the official Ford go-to guys for NASCAR, their famous 'Competition Proven' logo was said to be worth at least an extra 10 horsepower if you had one on your car."

HA!!!
*great* marketing before marketing became a weapon. LOL

>Is that move what was behind Richard Petty leaving Ford the one & only season he switched?
"Actually Petty switched to Ford for that '69 season because Chrysler refused to give him a more aerodynamic Dodge Charger for NASCAR, wanted to keep him in the Belvedere/Road Runner body which had all the aerodynamics of a brick."

Amen, very true indeed. Pre-aero HP days.
Still I *loved* the styling, still do.

"Petty announced that he would accept Ford's offer to race their new Torino instead, and pissed off everyone in both Chrysler AND Ford camps, lol (part of that might have been that the Petty team basically had nothing to do with Holman Moody, which was kinda like the Israelites deciding to head for the Promised Land but leaving Moses behind with the Egyptians."

Good analogy; however, with Ford's "fastback" it sure served to motivate CC to make the required change(s); hence, the "new" Charger and later the winged cars.

"The Boss 429 for the street had a hydraulic cam, single 4-bbl carburetor, it was 'corked up' at the factory most likely (again, IMHO) to prevent any rich kids from wrapping themselves around telephone poles and bringing down the wrath of the already hostile insurance companies regarding performance cars."

Ain't that the truth, insurance companies were getting progressively surly, brought pressure on our august pols to do *something*. Not too long after, the Arabs decided to squeeze the begebbers outa the American driving public visa vi jacking prices to the moon. Odd that, the timing? Soooo remiscent of 2008's "meltdown", another catastophe delivering desired results? Nawwwwww. LOL

"That's just my take on it. The 429 was actually a de-stroked 460 Lincoln engine (known as the '385' series due to the crank stroke of 3.85 inches), the 429 had a stroke of 3.59 which made it capable of high revs and the rocker arms were independently mounted, unlike the shaft configuration of the 390-427-428 'FE' series."

Fascinating.
Gonna drive me to drinkin' if ya don't stop driving that hotrod Lincoln...OK, that was a while before. Granted.

>In fact when the car was only 3 months old, *Gordy* would put the thing in Neutral on 124th Street, let'er roll down the hill backwards & then slam it in Drive. We'd watch the tires smoooooooke. Thought it sooooo cool. 'Til one day his old man, "Virgil"..."

"Never mess with a man named Virgil" - Virgil 'Gus' Grissom."

HA!!
Same name, very different man. LOL

>& I *ain't* talkin' 'bout Donny. LOL
"Donny got a bad rap I think, but I could picture Marie in a NASCAR jump suit..."

Maybe so, but Donny never built Ford engines; while, the other Osmond, did. LOL
As for Marie, dressed in anything?
Go ahead, you first. :o)

>Have one on my '80 L48 Vette, it is a great all-round carb. Too bad I don't drive it much anymore, she just sits in the 3rd bay. Pity.
"If you don't have one, I think you can still get the larger 50cc 'Reo' accelerator pump kit (factory Holley accelerator pump is only 30cc) with all sorts of little plastic 'cams' for the throttle shaft to allow you to adjust exactly 'when' the squirt hits the venturis..."

And if you lived closer, we could enjoy a glass of Beam on the rocks & talk about it. Truth is the L-48's a pretty gutless mill. @ bolt mains vs. the L-82's anemic 4 bolt setup.

The car's a survivor, best left untouched which is why I saved the awful stock (Carter?) carb after replacing it with the 750.

>Who at 16 would've thought that? Back then more was better. Now my other pal, "Hog Knees'", his '60 L-88 427 had a 950 double pumper. But that gas guzzling sow really needed the fuel.
"Oh I would say so. I was always fascinated with the Holley 950 and 1050 cfm "3-barrel" carbs..."

First off, correction as I notice I mistyped the year, was a 1969. In any event at first Hog-knees was "King of The Hill", one of those kids whose parents gave him his own Mobile gas CC. Pretty heady stuff for those days.

But it wasn't long before Hog-knees Pa, owned a construction company, deep pockets, had the car sent to Jack Howe at The Corvette Shop located at that time wayyyyyy out on Mill Road.

Jack & Co were paid to removed the hi-rise manifold, that big carb & replaced it with something much smaller, though precisely what size I never did find out.

Salient point being even back then, when gas was ridiculously cheap, that car was expensive to operate.

And because the motor really was a race motor? The valve spring compression was out of this world. Only problem was, the engine had to be run hard, else those springs were prone to breaking. Naturally there was no such thing, then, as valve retainers so down into a cylinder it went & chewed the motor up horribly.

I know, it happened twice & once I was with Hog-knees on the freeway into downtown Milwaukee for an evening of fun & hijinks when it *sucked a valve*.
Yes deep pockets helped *if* one had to drive one of those Chevrolets.

"...instead of two rear secondaries, Holley just incorporated a great big flapper valve that flowed air and fuel like a fire hose, I finally picked up a 950 3-bbl about 10 years ago, and then never used it, dammit. Paid $200 for it from a guy advertising in Hemmings Motor News, had to sell it for $100 when money was a little tight, 'that's the way it goes""

Yes, play you pay. It hearkens back to your statement about losing money on parts et al and your firsthand experience, I reckon. ;^)

>We know that NOW, but back then an auto was for old geezers!! THAT was before the old man brought home the Dart 340 w/ a 727 Torqueflite.
>In my book, there were (and remain) three superior automatic trannys, the Chrysler Torqueflite, the Ford C-6 and the GM Turbo-Hydro 400, in that order. IMHO, those 3 transmissions will never be truly surpassed. (and in the 2-speed category, highly honorable mention for the GM PowerGlide,)"

Ooooo, now *that* one's an oldy. '53 Corvette came with nothing but to handle that 150HP from the Blue Flame Six! LOL
I should laugh, as awful a car as they were imagine having a copy, today?

"I was always a fiend for stroker kits, and for someone who did NOT have the budget for high dollar billet cranks and all that fancy stuff, there was always the tried and true "Speed-O-Motive" and they're still in business today!"

Yes, but you were a real mechanic. You've forgotten more than the fresh ME grads know, and that's no lie. I wonder WTH you're not working in the field, building race motors etc. The modern electronics really aren't a big deal; in fact, I dare say the technology affords much more flexibility to the "Tuner".

"Sometime I'll tell you about this friend of mine who tried to turn his Dad's 4 door Oldsmobile into a 'race car'...I'll have to go dust off some dormant neurons and try to reconstruct that train wreck..."

BWWWWHAAAAA!!
I understand, was one of those tales, huh.

>You WILL tell that tale, y'hear?
"Oh I can tell that one right now. I was working for a government contractor in suburban Maryland and one of the computer engineers was driving a '71 Vega that literally died one morning on his way to work and he coasted into the parking lot from U.S. 29, I think if he had been armed, he would have shot the car to put it out of it's misery, lol - anyway, I had just that previous weekend picked up a '69 Mercury Marquis (with one of them notorious 429 2-bbls) for $100 bucks as a go-to-work/grocery-getter car. This guy (Chris) stood out a bit anyway, as he was into ballroom dancing and would kill two birds with one stone by wearing some of his dancing suits as business suits to work, a real stylish type in that Vega, heh-heh, ANYway, Chris asked me if I would sell him that car (and he had no idea what I paid for it), that he HAD to have a car and quick and had figured I wouldn't buy a car that wasn't reliable, and what did I want for it?...So off the top of my head, I said "$1200 bucks!" and he said "SOLD!" and proceeded to start pulling 100-dollar bills out of his wallet like some dancin' version of Monty Hall, and before I could say "wait a minute!" he said "you got a title?" I said "yeah, in the glovebox" and he said "let's go get it", and we proceeded to conclude the transaction right there in the parking lot, and he drove that damn Mercury for more than a year before he traded it in on something, I had a grand total of $100 invested plus tag and title and I was shaking my head. Fortunately for me, I was just about to ready to pull one Galaxie out of drydock and return it to service and that $1100 profit made that possible. And that was the ONLY time I sold a car and actually came out ahead. That won't happen again until Jesus comes back, I suspect."

HA!!
Long time, I get it. LOL!!!

>This growin' old crap STH ain't for sissies, like the old dame said. Still, we got some fabulous memories & I for one wouldn't trade for anything for 'em. Honest. We laughed often and a lot and it didn't require any kind substance, whatsoever. Just *life*. "Right you are Brother, but getting old still sucks. I discover more aches and pains all the time but better to have the aches and pains than to wake up with a tag on your toe..."

HA!!
Boy, aches & pains and in body parts hereto not noticed.
I decided to challenge myself at 46, decided to pursue a Black Blet in a Korean form of Tae Kwon Do...kept me limber & the dogs of age at bay. Was working on my 2nd Degree when we moved [back] to WI. Closest studio teaching my form was in the center of Milwaukee's core. Yea, run by a 6th degree black guy named Eddie Murphy.
Go ahead, you laugh. LOL
Wasn't going to commute 60 miles *one* way 3 times a week and the fact I was *no* 'Bruce Lee' I had to stop so that was the end. Murphy moved to 76th (west) of the lake, but, too late. Have to be content practicing on my own, but it sure is easier having a moving target, or being one.
I know what'chu mean though, in any event.

>Explains your good bride buying you that model car...Whaaaaaaaaaaaat???? You passed on an opportunity she who must be obeyed suggested???? OMG...Now don'tcha think that's taking this "conservative" jazz a tad too far? LOL
"No, it means that I'm helping to guarantee that SHE will be around long enough to take care of me in my old age instead of getting too enthusiastic with the go-pedal in that Challenger..."

HA!!
Sounds like a great girl, mk.
She first worried 'bout you and now you, her.
The very essence of teamwork. ;^)

"Have a great evening Brother Landru, I may be a bit tied up for a while, trouble shooting a neighbor's computer and proving again that "no good deed goes unpunished", Later!"

Gotit.
Take care, sure hope you get this thing solved.

OBTW I pronounce this thread "Officially "Dead".
Means the dead thread group --a peculiar lot of thinned skinned individuals devoid any semblance of humor whatsoever -- should be along any time to feed off the carcasses of our dead words. LOL

"*Bookmarked* for later response (as if I needed a bloody bookmark? LOL)"

HA!!!!
You're right, mk.
I'm truly floored some dork hasn't told us not to "Get a garage!" by now. LOL!
Since the thread's been pronounced dead & buried simply look for the fresh dirt. LOL
Just hoping you've either cracked the uCrap nut, or are close. No way to live a Friday at our vintage, y'know? ;^)

"I’ll need to come back a bit later today (8:00 am Eastern time now), but I’ll leave you with a brief story about my Ford mentor, a fella named ‘Jay’ who looked a bit like Buddy Holly right down to the horn rimmed glasses and he could do to engines what Buddy Holly did for Rock n’ Roll..."

Black horn rimmed glasses, huh.
OK got-tit, *instant* image conjured in mind's eye. {g}

"I remember an occasion when Jay had recently installed a fresh engine into a Galaxie fastback of his, and when he started it up for the first time, he immediately noticed that there was no oil feeding the rocker arms."

Wow. Goes to show how well built the assembly was, mk.
Try running a modern IC engine today minus lubrication and it's *shot* in mere seconds.

"He determined the cause to be a cam bearing that had been installed incorrectly by the local machine shop and was actually blocking the oil passage that fed oil to the rocker arm shaft assemblies."

The man understood the inner design as well as the guys at Ford who designed it. Don't make 'em like that, anymore.

"SO, what to do? pull the entire engine out, diassemble it, take it back to the machine shop? NO! (was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbour?"

HA!

"Jay took the rocker arm shaft assemblies off, removed the radiator, water pump, timing chain cover, and timing gears/chain, pulled the camshaft out of the block (the Galaxies were unique in that if you trimmed away a small portion of a bracket that secured the middle portion of the front grille there was JUST enough clearance to pull the camshaft out of the block)."

UNREAL!!
What a trick in time savings alone, never mind if [it] worked or not. The man took the easiest, cheapest route FIRST.

Either Jay had one helluva mentor himself, or it's that mother thing you mentioned way back. ;^)
Either way a crying shame how America used to produce his kind of astonishing ingenuity. Creative thinking quite literally defining the word, "Creative". In little more than one generation America permitted the tradition to *evaporate*. I'd say we're gonna pay for that colossal mistake, in a myriad of ways too, mk; but, methinks we're already paying. I digress...

"Then he proceeded to take a long-ass drill bit and ran it down the oil gallery from the rocker arm shaft stand all the way to where that errant cam bearing was blocking the passage, drilled right THROUGH the bearing, then proceeded to use an emery cloth to burnish the edges of the new oil passage hole in that bearing, poured about a pint of kerosene through that oil gallery then buttoned everything back up. Drained out the straight 30W oil. Poured in a super light 5W-20 or something close to vegetable oil. Fired that rascal up, oil began pumping up to the rockers like it was supposed to. Ran the engine less than a minute, shut it down, drained out that super light oil, poured in fresh 30W oil plus a can of good ol’ STP 'The Racer’s Edge' and that damn engine ran for YEARS."

Nothing less than stunning, or whateverinthehell they call it 'round here. LOL!! What a great story, inspiring & I'll dare say the most uplifting I'll hear this year. LOL

"How the filings and aluminum bearing dust evaded the main and rod bearings, I ponder to this day."

I've a similar, albeit shorter, story. Since time's at a premium I'll omit what set-up why this happened, and that's a shame. Was better than the tale.

Took the old man's Dart out one Saturday evening, "my" time. Used to get to the end of the street --well out of sight of the house-- & pull over. Pop off the cheap hub caps *&* the air cleaner. I am now officially cool. LOL

The Carter --IIRC-- "Thermoquad" made one hellova howl at WOT, a sound I simply cherished at my young testosterony age; and, since it'd be at WOT often & a lot, well, you see the logic to compliment the testosterone level. LOL

Wound up at a "rumble" (& therein lies the real tale), remember what one of those were, mk? Lots of people milling *around* after we'd finished having our *fun*.

Anyway hopped in the Dart to split, hit the key & *POP*.
Sat there stupefied wondering WTF.
*Then* smoke starts pouring out between the hood & fender gaps.
I freak-out, FLY out & open the hood -- we got us a gut bustin' fire, Clyde!! LOL

Before my pal could throw his Bomber jacket over the carb, another asshole throws a handful of sand/gravel into the carb he'd scooped off the ground!!
The nincompoop was gonna *smother* the fire.

Tried fishing as much of that crap outa the carb --after it'd sufficiently cooled LOL-- before trying to start'er. It did start. Ran fine. No apparent errant sound(s).

OK...get the sucker home like *pronto*.
Park it, go to sleep & forget it ever happened!! Gezzzz.

The next day, a Sunday, the old man's gonna go to the bakery for whatnots as he always did. I see him standing with his hat off scratching his head staring at the hood.

I think, "oh-oh".

On the "Hemi Red" hood, mk, the paint. It had a distinctly black tinge deep in the pigment. Old man asked me WTH that was. I looked down & shrugged.

And believe me or not but that Dart never ran better. I swear. LOL!!!
Yea my fiend, they STH don't build 'em like they used to, eh? :^)

"I told Jay, 'nobody else on this planet could have gotten away with that' and he said 'what’s the worst that could have happened? I would have had to tear the engine apart anyhow, and as it turned out: I didn’t.'"

Except me now, kind of. LOL
See mk, Jay's attitude is really what made the Republic great. Be it on the battlefield or in the shop, American males seemed hardwired to be resourceful, and frankly men in the truest sense of the word. :^)
Ol' Jay still with us mk? Building Ford race motors if he is? Still your pal?

"Hard to argue with logic like that."

Even harder to argue with the results. ;^) LOL

C'ya later my friend, have a good one & KA on that software!

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