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I'm committed. I pulled the carb today, recorded all the ss#s, jets, powervalves etc.. boxed for shipment to Holley Monday. I'm pretty confident they handle all the little pieces correctly. I was more worried about the setup and calibration which we so painstakingly work on for a year. We'll wait and see.
The engine and carb aren't original to the car. It originally had a 389 with tri power carbs.
Today it has a 455 HO with the Holley.
I really would like the original setup but what we got is an incredibly satisfying alternative.
I'll keep you posted.
CJ
But I don't really know for sure since the books I have aren't very clear on this...this is why I said quite clearly that I don't know which engines went into which cars at which time in the midyear switch. There was a definite product/model change mid-year and this makes the issue unclear to me (and apprarently to others as well).
Anyway, if someone has the definitive book on the 1970 Falcon engine codes, please share this resource with us and help out the original poster.
I can tell you that the drag pack option adds about 15-20% additional value to the car over and above usual price guide numbers for that car/engine.
I'll snoop around---I have some contemporary publications from that era that might say something further.
You have a rare and appealing car, but like most "budget supercars" it's under the radar of most enthusiasts. Your best bet is to find some guys who bleed Ford blue. When I owned GTOs I hung around purists who knew more GTO esoterica than any book (or at least claimed to).
Budget supercars were introduced because the better-known musclecars were getting expensive and too well-known to the insurance companies. The Road Runner was the best known and most successful, but there were others, like the Olds F-85 W31, Pontiac GT-37, Buick GS 350, Olds Rallye 350, Super Bee and 340 Road Runner/Super Bee. The Judge was originally planned as a lower-cost pillared-coupe GTO.
Whoever bought your car new was mighty serious about going fast. The gearing alone would separate the men from the boys.
I myself always find criticism or challenges to my knowledge much easier to assimilate and consider when a) nothing is personally directed and b) there are some facts, references, etc. to look at.
Nothing starts fights faster than a post like "FORD RULES!" or YOU IDIOT!
Aside from the youth issue, I think many people have learned bad manners on other Internet message boards that are not as closely hosted as Town Hall.
Given the chance and some direction, most people online act very well toward their new-found, faceless and often culturally diverse electronic acquaintences.
Later, my dad sold it to my oldest brother, who was in college at the time, for $1000, and this is where the story gets interesting. As a passenger in this vehicle, usually relegated to the back seat due to my little brother status, I saw my life pass before my eyes more than once. It really wasn't that fast, but if you stood on it long enough, it would go well over 100 mph. The brakes were terrible, 4 power drums. If you stopped hard once from high speed, 100+ mph, they completely faded away. The handling was pretty good compared to all the other vehicles we were used to. I remember once returning home from a drive in movie at about 2 am listening to the Stones 8 track "Through the Past Darkly", driving on a 2 lane blacktop country road at about 90 mph when the road suddenly took a 90 degree turn to the left, my brother was driving and not looking at the road, but was fiddling with a cigarette or something, anyway he just had time to yank the wheel over and the Camaro did a 4 wheel drift across both lanes of the road but he managed to keep it pointing in the right direction and between the ditches. After that he stopped and we all had to bail out of the car and piss because we all were scared out of our pants.
Anyway that Camaro was beat pretty hard and eventually rusted away and was sold to another college kid, who abused it some more. In stock configuration, these cars were not as good as some people make them out to be, but if you buy one today and pour a ton of money into it, you can buy just about anything on the aftermarket and make it better than it ever eas from the factory.
We both agree that it's a miracle that we survived the sixties. Neither of us ever wrecked a car, but it's a wonder we didn't...
Oh, but speeding tickets? I must hold the world's record and he isn't far behind!
Wondering if anyone knows how common this car was, or what something like that might go for? Body looked straight and pretty rust free, but needed a paint job (especially the bed), and the interior looked somewhat tired.
I always wanted an El Camino in the old days, and do see a fari number of them around, but hardly ever see a Ranchero anymore.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
When I was 18, I got NINE tickets in less than a year.
Three of those were recieved in the same week, and
two of those three were in the same DAY by the same @%&* motorcycle cop!
Then there was the dark night, in Palos Verdes...I was trying to catch up with my buddy in my '62 Impala SS. I could see his tailights...I was catching up...70 - 75 - 80- 90, I was almost up to him....What!!
Somehow, a cop had gotten between the two of us!
It was a cop's tailights I was chasing!
Not a good night...!
Sounds like it was a good thing we didn't know each other!
Three tickets in one night? Shirley was a slower learner than I was!
(1) 1962 Impala SS with the 409-425hp engine;
(2) 1963 Ford Galaxie 500 with the 406 engine;
(3) 1966 Nova SS with the 327-350hp engine;
(4) 1969 Camaro SS with the 302 engine; and,
(5) 1985 Buick GNX (turbo 3800-intercooled).
Thanks, jpstax.
http://www.voicenet.com/~peterskm/
best,
shifty
In our town, there is a guy who runs around on nice days with a black '68 SS Camaro with a 396!
Same thing....Nice!
. Awesome but not production vehicles from the factory....unless you allow heavy modification to stand as "production".
I'd guess the fastest production car out of the box is/was the Viper.
Or you might be thinking of their March '65 road test of a Pontiac 2+2, a hi-perf version of the Catalina, with 421 tri-power. That car got to 60 in 3.9 seconds. This time the article admitted that the 2+2 had been blessed by Royal, and driven to the racetrack and down the strip by their tuners.
Royal had their fingers in most of the GTOs tested, but that was part of the genius of Jim Wangers. The story is that he was ticked after one of the first GTO road tests, of a bone stock '64 convertible with 2-speed AT that a dealer's wife was driving, made the GTO look like a slug. Never again, he said, and from then on magazines only got "optimized" GTOs to test. The other manufacturers started doing it too, which is why road test numbers have to be taken with a grain of salt.
Royal had been tuning Pontiacs since I guess the late '50s, and you could either buy the good parts in what they called the Bobcat kit, or you could have them breathe on your own Pontiac. Pontiac was an interesting story in the '60s: part engineering, part styling, part buzz and no Azteks. What happens when car guys run a division instead of brand managers.
Nice thing about Chicago -- I asked 'em if there was any way I could take of the ticket right away and they wrote me up for running a stop sign. I gave 'em $25 and went on my way.
135 mph in a Dodge Charger sounds pretty frightening...I presume Uncle Fred wasn't well at the time?