Be Gentle...

[Fawkes]

Just wanted to say hi, and introduce myself.

While I love all muscle cars, my heart belongs to Chief Pontiac, and more specifically Firebirds. However, my wife has a soft spot for Mustangs.

We had a '98 GT that she loved almost as much as me... at least that is what she told me.

It met an early demise, and now we are in the process of looking for another Pony (this time an early one) to add to the roost (or corral depending on which one of us you ask). I'm sure that I will be asking many questions in the future.

[StangFlyer]

Fawkes - Don't worry... you're more than welcome at MW! All automotive enthusiasts with a mature attitude and a mutual love for performance vehicles are. I myself learned a lot about building engines from my eldest brother, who is a die hard Pontiac guy, owns three GTO's, and has been building mainly Pontiac and Chevy engines for at least 25 years. As he says... It doesn't matter what brand it is. A motor is a motor once it's apart and they all go together pretty much the same way. It's just that Chevy vs. Ford vs. Pontiacs just like different things to make power.

Enjoy!

welcome to the site dude

[mustangII460]

Sorry to hear you have a Pontac.

But, the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. You have taken that first step.

With help from us, [Ford Lunatics] we will help you anyway we can. It shouldn't take long for you to come over from the "Dark Side." Hell, least it aint a full blown Chebie product!


O-yeah, Welcome to MustangWorks

[Fawkes]

Thank you very much for the welcome.

I will always be a "darksider", as I just have too much heart into my Pontiacs. The '68 GTO was my first love, and I just can't turn my back on that bottom end TORQUE.

It won't be long before we have another Stang, but the chances of me getting much seat time is slim.

[Dark_5.0]

Welcome, When I was much younger my dad had a 69 Firebird with a 400 BB and that thing would flat out fly. I wanted it so bad but he traded it for a boat and I got stuck with an 86 Dodge Charger 2.2L POS.

I used to have a 96 Formula Firebird that was a decent vehicle.

Its cool that you are a Pontiac guy but dont get mad when your wife starts showing you some tail lights. Your car is a heavy bastard

[Fawkes]

Dark 5.0 - The way I see it is that as long as she is into "some" kind of performance car, it makes it easier on me when I want to go play in the garage or at the track.

Yes, my car is a tad on the heavy side, but I have something that I will make sure that her car never has... displacement. I currently have a 400 Pontiac in the car that has no where to go but faster.

It came out of a '73 Catalina, and was rated at 185 hp from the factory with a lame @$$ cam, and a 2-bbl carb. The cam, and carb are being replaced this winter with a 750 cfm Q-Jet, and a custom-grind cam from Comp Cams.

I've got a line on a set of heads that flow better than my current set, and with a smaller combustion chamber, should increase my CR from 8:1 up to a smidge over 9:1. This should put me close to 400 hp, based on similar setups.

[StangFlyer]

My brother's original GTO, the blue one in the photo below, is a 1969. He is the original owner, it has never been wrecked, and it still has original paint. He has a 455 punched out to a 469 cid roller motor. It has race ported Ram Air III (48) heads and makes over 600 HP naturally aspirated. His red car is a show piece and is a total part number 421 job...

[Fawkes]

Dan, those are some nice looking cars! Something about a tri-power setup that makes me all giddy. And 600 hp will certainly get the job done. I'd like to play with a 455 someday, but I want to see how far I can push this 400. I'm hunting for 12's.

And for Mustang content, I just got a call from my wife that the lady that does her nails has a '66 coupe for sale. Guess we're going to take a look tonight.

[StangFlyer]

Sweet! If you ever need a nice motor, let me know and I'll hook you up with my brother. He's "the man" around mid-michigan for Pontiac stuff. He just got done building like 15 different motors for people over the past couple months. He also does it TOO CHEAP. I've told him for three years he needs to DOUBLE what he charges to build engines for people!

[Fawkes]

I will keep him in mind. Does he frequent any of the Pontiac boards? I'm a semi regular at classicalpontiac.com, and transamcountry.com, as well as one of the dreaded Camaro sites, nastyz28.com.

Now all I need is to start visiting a Mopar site, and I'll have the bases covered.

[StangFlyer]

Naaaww, not that I know of... Unfortunately, he's an old timer ( big bro!) and he's computer un-savvy. They have a PC and a cable modem, and are online, but he's not much of a "web surfer". Actually, he's always building engines and wrenching because he's pretty in demand. Like I said, he's "known" as the man to see about Pontiac stuff. He didn't get the nick name "Fast Eddie" (his name is Ed) for no reason!

We also built several of my engine combinations together for over the years... Like I said, although I learned all the Mustang/Ford specific and EFI stuff on my own over the years racing and building Mustangs, I learned to assemble engines from him. As a matter of fact, I sold all my old 302 parts to one of his customers and he just built my old 302 combo (but, naturally aspirated) for him. The guy just put it in a 60's Mustang fastback. It was just finished last week. I talked to my brother today, and he said it runs really good even with the 2.73 gear he still has in it. Although he's about to put in a 3.55 (he has a C4 for trans with a decent stall).

Kinda neat to see my old motor, albeit a somewhat different combo, still put to some good use and moving some Ford muscle!!