Damn you. I just want a damn job.
I'm thinking a couple guys have dyno'd these things at anywhere from 170-190 and the wheels with 300 or so ftlbs.
Got a link to his build thread? He hasn't been on DF in ages. I know he's still active else where though.

 

Speaking of insurance,... when I first got my license my dad had just died and mom didn't even have a drivers license so she did not renew the insurance on the cars we had at the time.

I was all on my own when it came time to get car insurance. Back then there was no mandatory insurance laws and a lot of folks just did not have insurance at all. Dad had always had insurance on his cars so I decided I should too.

My first legal to drive on the road car ended up being a '65 Ford Fairlane. It had a 200ci straight six and a three speed floor shift. It had also been rolled over but I fixed it.

I got my car insurance from the same dude dad had always gotten his insurance from, American Family.

It cost me an outrageous amount evenfor those days like $250.00 a month. That was for full coverage but still. The insurance droid said it was because I was a newly insured driver and still under 18 years old. After paying that for three months I decided there must be a cheaper place to get my insurance from. I ended up going to an independent insurance agent who found me a policy that covered my car at the same levels with the same deductible for less than $200.00 for three months. At that time, in Wisconsin anyway, you could only get insurance for three months at a time, never did figure out why but that's the way it was.

After the first year with no tickets or accidents my rate dropped around $20.00 for the period. I was still not quite 18 at that time. By the time I turned 19 I had bought a '69 Mustang with a 428 Super Cobra Jet and 4 speed. I thought for sure my insurance rates would jump and they did, but only because the car was so much newer. I guess the insurance company thought it would be more expensive to fix if the need ever arose. At first I planned to sell the Fairlane but after a few months I decided it was handy to have a dependable backup vehicle and besides my younger siblings were getting old enough to drive and I thought they could use it when needed.

Having the second vehicle on my policy actually dropped the rate even though I was paying more over all. I did a lot of street racing with the Mustang, rarely lost, and never did get a speeding ticket with it. I never actually got a ticket myself with that car but just a few days after I got it my older sister and her husband borrowed it to go out one evening. They had just left their driveway when a local county cop pulled them over.

He didn't even ask to see my brother in laws license before he asked to see the engine. Finally he did run the plate and the BIL's license through the radio and wrote him an excessive exhaust noise “fixit” ticket.

I did nothing to the exhaust but took it down to the sheriff department a few days later. The officer who wrote the ticket was there, along with several other officers including several of the town cops, and had them inspect it. They all said I had done a real nice job on quieting it down. They all wanted to see what was under the hood like they had never seen a big block before. The county was running mostly Dodges with 440's in them at the time. The city cops had mostly Fords with 302's so I suppose they might not have seen a big block before.

The Mustang was scary fast and darn quick when I got it but that didn't stop me from trying to get it to go faster. At the strip the best time I could manage was in the 14's. I did all manner of expensive modifications to the engine starting with headers and going through the list like having the intake bead blasted and the intake and exhaust ported to fit.

I tried progressively larger jets then progressively larger carburetors. I tried a bunch of different cams and specialty pistons and I started buying aviation fuel when I went to the strip, I even installed a little NoS injector thing. Back then the biggest tank of nitrous oxide you could get was about twice the length of a standard C02 cartridge. You would take your carburetor off and install an aluminum plate with two jets in the secondary's. Once you got through your gears and were pretty sure the clutch was locked up you would hit the NoS button and hold on.

With that I was turning 11's the heat gauge would go from a little over middle of the gauge to BOY AM I HOT NOW in just the few seconds it took to burn the NoS. The spedo would go from around 100 Mph to WOW ARE YOU GOIN FAST BITCH in the same amount of time.

Finally I sold all the 'racing' stuff I had put on the car and went back to pretty close to stock again. I had the original carb and intake and the iron exhaust manifolds and still turned 10's. Not sure why maybe I learned something? Reaction time got better? Who knows.

At the end of a street race as I was collecting the money or beer or whatever had been put up for prize for the race I would usually give the loser a little advice. It was almost always the same advice “Do your burnouts before the race, not once they drop the flag.” Worked for me. I guess most of the guys I raced on the street had seen to many movies where they always burn their tires after the flag drops.

While that's nice in the movies it adds unwanted seconds to your ETA. I had most of them beat before I shifted to second. Probably could have beat them with dads sedan.

 

^^ tl;dr

 

Awesome story. Love reading them.


And Gary, shut up.

 

Cool story bro.

 

my old man had a little 289 mustang back in the day that raped big blocks.

says a guy with a 440 6-pack raced him, lost bad and bet him he didn't have a small block under the hood. he popped the hood and showed the guy, guy threw his money on the hood all pissed off and got in his car and jumped on the throttle and left his rear end on the ground right there exploded his rear end.

the old man worked at a machine shop at the time running parts for all these different performance shops and had told them what he wanted to kill which was almost unheard of at the time (small block that could shut down big blocks)

one of the shops loved the idea and flat out gave him an experimental cam and crank for it, and said tell us how she does...another shop gave him pistons and rods. and he bought shelby drag race heads for it and put cheater slicks on for rear tires...(drag slicks he cut a groove in for "tread"

only time he had it on the dyno was when 2 cylinders were misfiring... it put over 400hp to the rears on 6 cylinders with 2 not firing. not bad for a 289ci...

he later had money issues and sold the car to his aunt and told her to never let it out of her sight.

well she didn't take that warning to heart and someone who had previously made a thread to him about that car made good on that threat. they put a stick of dynamite under the hood and blew the engine to pieces because they couldn't beat the car in street races.


whether the old man was full of sh*t or not I don't know cause I wasn't even born yet...but he has kept his story straight to everyone he has told it to..


now a days a feat like that isn't hard to do with modern technology. but back then the aftermarket parts world wasn't near as big, the internet didn't exist to share knowledge, and everything was done with vacuum and carburetors or big blowers and cops were far more lenient.

now a days you can make that kind of power out of a 4 banger and factory 4 and 6 cylinders are coming with well over 300hp. back then making more horse power than displacement was a rare thing and something to be impressed by.

 

I feel like it could be true, until you said someone blew the engine up with a stick of dynamite. That part seems kindve hard to believe but what do i know

 

It's far easier to whip big block cars if you're much lighter anyhow...most of the 440-6 cars were heavy as hell.

 

The internet's hilarious reactions to Dexter's godawful series finale have almost made it worth it

Seasons 1-4 were great and then the series went downhill.

Anyway, enjoy:

 

They are just that easy to install, I look on the dakota forums for used M1's thats seems to be where I am able to find them.

I do understand the work thing, but I always found the time to fix my own stuff, be it after work or late at night. I could just not hand out cash to someone else to fix/mod my truck, this also let me put money back into the truck instead of some guys wallet.

So I am thinking one of the R/T cams would be a good match for your truck.