[SixClub] OFF TOPIC: Big Engines

[Pete]

Ok, my turn.

"Shirley" was my 1970 (B Bodied) hardtop black w/ gold pinstripe, Plymouth Road Runner. 440ci SixPack, .60 over, (balanced, blued, yada-yada) LONG duration cam, 14.5:1 Keith Black compression heads, Hookers to Thrush Cherry Bombs, Hemi CrashBox A-88 4speed, short-throw Hurst. 5.66's in the Dana 60 delivered the torque to 70 series rubber (for the street) on Cragers over Teflon leafs and pinion snubber. Sunoco best pump gas (insane octane by today's standards) resulted in regular 11.00/129mph tickets at Englishtown's Raceway Park's Friday Night Time Trials. This was the fastest street legal, (Criteria: registered, insured, tagged, & no foolin' around, inspected) car in NYC for some time.
Changing nothing for the track except to Goodyear slicks and lightweight Moroso's on the fronts, and burning H&H aviation fuel with even HIGHER octane, (114 maybe? Somebody help me out here, it's been 35 years) delivered 10.00 flat @141 through the top end traps.
With solid steel motor mounts, it shook like a washing machine but launched like a Saturn V rocket. The fronts came off the ground easily for ALL the changes except 4th.  =8-O ~••• (pee)
No power ANYTHING. Factory AM/8 Track wore out my Jethro Tull Aqualung album. Other than Tull & the roar (that literally shook the paint off the garage walls when we dropped the Thrushes) the only other sound it made was the trademark, "Meep, Meep!"
Sadly, the story ends the same as many. Marriage enforces practicality.
:-(
P.S. Hindsight advice to younger, single readers: Shirley would prove to have been more loyal.

-Pete / NL7XM

<ke5apj at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Being as everyone else joined in, in 1970 I had a Ford Torino GT coupe, 
> was fully equipped with exception of power seats, rear view mirrors & 
> headlight covers.
>