Mustang of the Week 12/14/01

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VMF Name: rsrxc700

I bought this car with only 36,000 on the odometer from El Paso TX. This was great because I know that the car was a clean, never-rusted, never messed with , original Texas car. It has had one re-paint that has to be at least 15 years old (lacquer paint) that is pretty good shape (not 100% show quality). It still had the origianal exhaust system (with a Midas muffler!) and dual exhaust tips and some Goodyears from the late 70's on the car. I had fun with the car and drove it for the rest of the summer.

Over the winter I decided to detail the engine bay. I pulled the motor and was just going to change gaskets and paint it. When I pulled the heads I found some rust in two of the cylinders. The car had obviosly been sitting for a long time. Well, I could not put it back together like that, so a full rebuild was planned. I had the original block bored .030 over, crank turned, mild Motorsport cam for the short block. After pricing a complete valve job, I decided to go with some Edelbrock aluminum heads. For the extra couple hundred bucks, I bolted on 50+ horse. A C9OX intake and original Autolite carb handle the induction duty. I also went with a set of JBA headers and custom 2 1/2 exhaust system.

The motor turned out very well with a very noticable increase in power. So much so, the original "one wheel wonder" was not up to the task of giving me any traction when trying to get "on it" I then installed rebuilt 3.50 Trac-lok. This helped things out considerably.

I really enjoy driving the car. I have kept all non-stock items so I can quickly change back to stock in the future if I want to.Now all that is left for me to do is some minor detailing of the original interior. I also need to get some new tires ( I have been trying to "fry" the old Goodyears but they are very tough! ). Debating weather to get a set of 17' Edelbrock wheels, or keeping the original's. I would like to increase the handling, the 14' tires suck! What do you think!