Originally posted by Mulder
Hmmmmm--now what would Frued say about a guy who owns a muscle car?
Hehe, he'd probably say somethin' about the
way ya spell his name...
I had a '65 Ford Galaxy 2 door hardtop (not
exactly what ya think about when ya say
"muscle car") with a 352 bored .080. I added
a Carter 650 AFB w/manual secondary and a
ram air system from the grill.
It had a 3 speed "cruise-o-matic" trans, which
I had rebuilt and a shift kit installed.
Bought 8" chromed slotted wheels for it (60s
on the rear and 70s on the front) which didn't
clear the rear wheel wells very good. So I got
a new vinyl roof and paint job, and had the guy
cut out the rear wheel wells to match the front
ones so we could use the same chrome trim
as the front. It looked like a factory design.
The "cruise-o-matic" was a pretty cool auto
trans. It had "Low", "Drive" and "2nd" which
would shift into 3rd (for starting in snow or ice
with less slippage). The really cool thing was
that you could start off in "Low", wrap it as tight
as you wanted, slip it into "Drive" and soon as
it hit second, pull the shifter back to "Low". It
would then stay in second as long as you kept
it there, then slip it back to "Drive" to hit 3rd.
It would squawk those 60's when it hit second.
The Galaxy was a little heavy for a real hot
rod, but I did beat a couple of mustangs, one
with a 302, the other had a 352 (normally it
had a 390 but the guy stuck a 352 in while
getting his 390 rebuilt. He'd have killed me
with the 390...).
I stuck a high lift cam in it later which killed it
on take-off (no stall converter), but it'd run
87 m.p.h. in second gear. No tellin' what it
would have topped out at if I'd put heavier
valve springs on it, but the high lift cam started
floatin' the lifters (factory hydraulic) at about
115 m.p.h. (probably a good thing...).
Cool thread, this brings back some memories.
BTW guys, I think it was '68 or '69 when the
Feds put an 8:1 limit on compression ratio.
This made popups real popular (popupular?).
Cheers, Mac