In an old issue of Vintage Motorsport magazine I came across this "as told by Sam Posey" sidebar. Posey might have been the only driver in the '69 Trans Am season to have driven both a Penske Z/28 and a Shelby American Boss 302. Here's Posey's take on the two cars:
"In 1969, Ford was coming off a poor showing in the previous year's Trans Am series, caused largely by problems with 1968's experimental 'tunnel port' heads. Because the Shelby American team's regular driver Peter Revson was busy with the Indy 500 on the same weekend as the 1969 Lime Rock 2.5 Hour, an up and coming local driver named Sam Posey was tapped to substitute for Revson. Posey not only substituted; he won. Here's what Posey had to say about his '69 Boss 302 race car:
'When I drove the Shelby car at Lime Rock in 1969, that one-off ride when I won? Boy, was I stunned by how good that engine was! The Ford 302 was far better than the Chevy. I would never have realized that, if I hadn't driven both cars. The Ford just moved out in the high rpm ranges in a way that the Chevy did not. The Chevy was torquey in the mid-range, but it didn't have the Ford's straightaway speed.
'The Mustang was so strong. It could take being over-revved, it could take beating on the transmission, it could handle whatever Parnelli [Jones, of the Bud Moore team] could dish out. That hadn't been true in 1967, but by 1969 they had learned how to build strong cars. Bud Moore built a car to suit Parnelli's aggressive, physical style. To his credit, Mark [Donahue, driving Camaros for the Penske eam] was willing to slug it out with him. Especially in 1969, it had become Mark versus Parnelli in cars that could go the distance without a breather.'"
Here's a post from an earlier thread on this same subject:
"In the 'Trans-Am' DVD that's out for sale right (basically a tribute to Mark Donohue and Penske). If you watch closely you can actually see the Boss 302's driven by Parnelli and Follmer pull the Z-28's and Javelins on the straightaways.
"The difference in top end power was astounding.
"I have a friend who has talked to Donny Araki about the series. He tells of Posey coming into the pits and the tattel-tail on the tach registering 10,500 rpm."
If two engines have the same displacement, it's unlikely that the one with the higher peak horsepower is the one with the lower redline. This would be even less likely if the high-hp unit had an intake valve of 2.23" and the other's was 2.02".
I also have a reprint of a road test of a '68 Z/28 from the November 1968 issue of Super Stock & Drag Illustrated. Jere Stahl -- who afterwards went on to set many S/S records with his own '68 Z -- took the car to the strip and got a 13.7 @ 107. That was with open headers and a dual point dizzie. All the 302 ci Z's came standard with a 11:1 CR, a 750 Holley DP, and the same "30/30" or "Duntov" solid lifer cam as the 327/365 Vette, so they didn't need aftermarket help in any of those departments. The test car also came with a 4.30:1 Posi rear end. Curious about the ability of the 302 to redline in top gear, Stahl did a banzai run starting 100 feet before the tree. He hit 117.53 through the lights. To quote from the 1968 SSDI story, "Stahl reported that at no time did the car show signs of giving up, though he was taching over 7000 rpm" at the lights.
I'm putting all this stuff up here just because I think it's fun and interesting, not to fan the flames. This whole thing started, after all, over the misuse of the term "pent roof head," by a guy who thinks it's important not to admit he has misused a term in an on-line message board. Kinda silly. We're all on the same side after all -- gearheads to the bone.
That doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out.
This guy's gettin to be more fun than dynamite fishin in a fish farm pond..................
What you wanna bet we scared mercurycapri off the Classic forum forever? 
