Story started here: http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?t=688891
Its going to take awhile to tell this story. So for those who want to stick it out.
It will be a daily till its done.
I loved the 65-66 coupe since the first day I seen them. I been responsible for sending more then my fair share of them to the scrap yard after beating all the life out of them.
Back in the 70's there where plenty around and you could have a low mileage one in excellant condition for about 550.00 ( no one I knew cared about codes such as C, A ,K) in my neck of the wood's.
The street version of it's famous cousin was a dog or a all show, no go pony, and the owner's picked thier race's with care. You could build a coupe faster for less.
(This four cylinder outran it in 1986 in a magazine test:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_GLHS)
Keep in mind back then Ford race parts were expensive (you could get anything for a chevy) For a Ford you had a choice of valve covers, intake manifolds, 4v carb's, anything else was special order.
Almost anything you did to a 289, beyond a 4v carb would cause it to self destruct.
K code heads were rare and the the weakness was the pressed in stud's on the regular head's.
We did not have the internet , you got your news from T.V. , radio and the magazine of your choice.
I rarely watched T.V. , or listened to the radio and sure as hell was not going to spend my money or time reading about someone's else car.
The first time I heard that a 289 powered a world champion race car I was like
I loved it, after all my mustang had a 289 and I had bragging right's, but thats all I had.
I also picked my races with care.
Chevy's with a 283, 307 were fair game. Anything with a 327 - I played deaf and dumb.
No one raced the lowly Dodge's (my apology's to the dodge lover's).
The most I could do to a 289 was add the 4 barrel carb, header's and a dual point distributor.
I had learned a very expensive lesson, do not mess with the cam without the Hipo head's.
This all changed in the seventy's, on a trip to Nogales, Arizona my current tired 289 was on its last leg's.
The car was smoking, it needed a ring job and I knew it was not going to make it back to Phoenix.
My cousin's told me of a mustang across the border in Nogales, Sonora that was t-boned and I could have it for next to nothing. best of all it was a race car and very fast.
They actually called it a Trans-Am. To me back the a Trans-Am was a firebird made by pontiac usually with over 400 hundred cube's and not a car I wanted to race or own.
We set out to look at this "trans-am" I was sure it would be a wasted trip but secretly hoping it would be something with a 260-289.
The trans-am looked like a 67 mustang that someone had done a homemade job of customizing unlike any other 67 mustang coupe I had ever seen.
My apology's to the 67 mustang lover's (after all the car was t-boned), but a few minutes later we struck a deal the 67 mustang was mine . I told the owner he could keep the body,
after I pulled everything I needed for my 65.
I got a 289 with funny looking valve cover's, headers with cut -off pipes and cherry bomb muffler's attatched , a scattershield bell housing with a 4 speed toploader, the t-bird light's off the rear of the car (I was to dumb and young then to take the disk brake's, and the rear end ).
We switched everything over to the 65 and 2 day's later I was on my way back to Phoenix.
(rest to follow)
Its going to take awhile to tell this story. So for those who want to stick it out.
It will be a daily till its done.
I loved the 65-66 coupe since the first day I seen them. I been responsible for sending more then my fair share of them to the scrap yard after beating all the life out of them.
Back in the 70's there where plenty around and you could have a low mileage one in excellant condition for about 550.00 ( no one I knew cared about codes such as C, A ,K) in my neck of the wood's.
The street version of it's famous cousin was a dog or a all show, no go pony, and the owner's picked thier race's with care. You could build a coupe faster for less.
(This four cylinder outran it in 1986 in a magazine test:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_GLHS)
Keep in mind back then Ford race parts were expensive (you could get anything for a chevy) For a Ford you had a choice of valve covers, intake manifolds, 4v carb's, anything else was special order.
Almost anything you did to a 289, beyond a 4v carb would cause it to self destruct.
K code heads were rare and the the weakness was the pressed in stud's on the regular head's.
We did not have the internet , you got your news from T.V. , radio and the magazine of your choice.
I rarely watched T.V. , or listened to the radio and sure as hell was not going to spend my money or time reading about someone's else car.
The first time I heard that a 289 powered a world champion race car I was like
I loved it, after all my mustang had a 289 and I had bragging right's, but thats all I had.
I also picked my races with care.
Chevy's with a 283, 307 were fair game. Anything with a 327 - I played deaf and dumb.
No one raced the lowly Dodge's (my apology's to the dodge lover's).
The most I could do to a 289 was add the 4 barrel carb, header's and a dual point distributor.
I had learned a very expensive lesson, do not mess with the cam without the Hipo head's.
This all changed in the seventy's, on a trip to Nogales, Arizona my current tired 289 was on its last leg's.
The car was smoking, it needed a ring job and I knew it was not going to make it back to Phoenix.
My cousin's told me of a mustang across the border in Nogales, Sonora that was t-boned and I could have it for next to nothing. best of all it was a race car and very fast.
They actually called it a Trans-Am. To me back the a Trans-Am was a firebird made by pontiac usually with over 400 hundred cube's and not a car I wanted to race or own.
We set out to look at this "trans-am" I was sure it would be a wasted trip but secretly hoping it would be something with a 260-289.
The trans-am looked like a 67 mustang that someone had done a homemade job of customizing unlike any other 67 mustang coupe I had ever seen.
My apology's to the 67 mustang lover's (after all the car was t-boned), but a few minutes later we struck a deal the 67 mustang was mine . I told the owner he could keep the body,
after I pulled everything I needed for my 65.
I got a 289 with funny looking valve cover's, headers with cut -off pipes and cherry bomb muffler's attatched , a scattershield bell housing with a 4 speed toploader, the t-bird light's off the rear of the car (I was to dumb and young then to take the disk brake's, and the rear end ).
We switched everything over to the 65 and 2 day's later I was on my way back to Phoenix.
(rest to follow)