This is my 7.5L 1985 Mustang GT. After reading a Car Craft article about a big block Mustang swap in '93 I came across a $125 '71 Lincoln and an '80 Hatchback for $400. I ordered up the swap kit and went to work. After 2 years of driving that beater and a best et of 12.20 @ 111 mph I thought it was time to have a nicer looking car. I found this car sitting in a local junk yard with a wrecked front end and bad trans but no rust anywhere. I figured it was the perfect car with no sunroof or t-tops, it had a nice interior and was loaded with all the options, which all still work. My brother Lorne and I have countless hours in this project which started by replacing all the inner structure ahead of the shock towers and sectioning the framerails. We completed this car in August of '96. I thought I had enough time to get all the bugs worked out before my wedding in October but that wasn't quite the case. The morning of the wedding I had a p/s hose rupture just moving it in the driveway so we could wash it. The hose off my '89 GT was pilfered so I could still drive it. My wife never knew that until after the ceremony or I wouldn't be alive to type this. I have also brought both my kids home from the hospital in it so I have to almost consider it part of the family.
This car was built to drive and so far I have logged over 35,000 miles on it. We have been on 7 Hot Rod Power Tours in all and were members of the Long Haul gang in 2002. Click here for some of the more memorable pics on page 11.
July 2005 Update: I decided to put 2" Hooker swap headers on to see if the 1-7/8" ones were too small. They definitely helped power wise but are terrible for ground clearance. It went from 11.84 @ 114 to 11.76 @ 116 but is almost undriveable on most PA roads. Something has to be done. I had to remake one tube due to my motor being lowered and in direct path of the steering shaft. We discussed sectioning all of them but ran out of time before Fun Ford Weekend. I know I made the situation worse by lowering it but I'm not sure how good it would be even if the motor was where they intended. I've since had to section new tubing on the bottom on the bottom four from being smashed so many times.
Oct 2005 Update: I bought an adjustable Super Power Shot nitrous system years ago but was always too chicken to try it. With the 75hp jets at Norwalk it went an 11.61 @ 117.6 mph. The next pass was going to be in the low 11.50's but I lifted during eliminations. Went under my dial anyway so I shoulda just stayed in it. Oct 15th I went to Quaker City to try the N2O again. Off the bottle the car was almost 2 tenths and 3 mph slower compared to Norwalk so I was floored when the car ran an 11.42 at 118 on my second pass. The only changes made were adding octane boost, leaning the carb a little and only taking 2 degrees of timing out.
Oct 2006 Update: I went to Quaker City for their last weekend of racing and ran a new best of 11.33 at 119 mph. That was with the 100 hp jets. I had a perfect .500 light on one pass that got me a bye run. I used a whole bottle of N2O but went 4 rounds and got some money back to help pay for the refill. I thought that stuff would last longer than that. I was able to go once more in '06. Thanksgiving weekend it was 60 degrees here. I ran a new best of 11.29 at 122.4 mph. It spun more than usual or I think it could have been in the 11-teens. I am a big fan of the Jacobs Nitrous Mastermind Controller. It makes N2O tuning very easy. I think I got a little greedy with the rpm I had the N2O come in at.
July 2007 update: We just came back Norwalk from Fun Ford Weekend and ran a new best of 11.12 @ 122.1 mph. This was with the 125 hp jets. The only complaint I can think of is the fact that my first 6 passes of the weekend were mostly wasted trying to figure out a problem that ended up being a broken solenoid wire. Thank goodness it was on the N2O side. I lost a tenth on my 60' time by spinning on my 11.12 pass and I had 3 other runs that started out quicker to the 330' mark until the wiring gremlins took over. I tried the 150 jets on Sunday and it went slower ???????? I'll have to work on that.
Oct 2007 update: I made it to Pitt Raceway Park the last weekend of October. I ran a 10.95 @ 124 mph using the 150 hp jets. I didn't make any changes to the car at all since July so I figure it must have been the 30 degree temperature change that made all of the et improvements. The car kept getting faster each pass. I ran an 11.15 and 11.10 prior to my 10-sec run. The 1/8 mile time showed the car went 0-100 mph in 7 seconds flat. Unfortunately, my brother bent a pushrod and valve in his Big Olds powered truck so we trailered his and I drove mine the 90 minutes home. I wasn't going to trailer it home if I ever got a 10-second timeslip anyway, but it didn't need to cost him money.

I always wanted a car capable of being driven daily or cross country and would run 11's on the motor and 10's on the bottle. After 11 years and 2 months of trying, I finally made it.

 July 2008 update:  By far the most fun I've ever had racing was at Norwalk this year. I got a chance to go up there on consecutive weekends. July 11th-13th for the Fun Ford event and July 18th-20th when I went back up there for the Oldsmobile weekend. My car usually doesn't run that well in humid 90 degree weather so it wasn't much of a surprise when I ran 12 teens at FFW. I made it down to the final 16 cars in Quick Ford on Sunday. With the heavy rain in the morning some people headed for home but there were still over 200 cars that hung around. One of those runs included a .501 light that allowed me to beat a very good racer who had a .508 light. I ran a 12.23 on a 12.20 dial and he ran a 10.74 on a 10.69 dial. I lifted at the very end or I would have gone under for sure.

The following weekend was even better. I took off another Friday so the boy and I could drive the Mustang up to Norwalk to meet my brother, who trailered his truck, and race at 5:00 that night. It was the first time we ever had a vehicle that was missing motor parts hauled to the track, but it all worked out in the end. Check out page 6 for more info on Lorne's 455 Olds powered truck. After spending the better part of three hours and a full tank of fuel getting there I left it cool for a while. After the heads, intake, carb and headers were back on the truck I went to make a pass. I put in 5 gal of Sunoco 110, opened the bottle and ran a 11.05 @ 124.4 in 90 degree heat! I knew right then if it stayed together it was going to be a good weekend. I didn't know how much N2O was left in the bottle from last year and it proved to be not much when it petered out half way through the next pass. No biggy, the track speed shop has plenty. I had the bottle filled for the morning. Once again my lights were all pretty good, real good for me. It was very warm and it liked the 11 teens and twenties, a little slower but very consistent. I never did find out what it would've run naturally aspirated that weekend. After 2 time trials and 2 rounds I thought it would be best to top the bottle off and add 3 gallons of fuel before they started running in round robin and couldn't get to it. I ran in the stock class hoping for a 2' trophy and jacket. I made it down to 3 cars before we got dumped on bad from a storm that came out of nowhere. Since it was after midnight and there was so much rain they called it. My last 2 passes were 11.226 and 11.224 both on 11.22 dial ins! I wish we could have gotten the last 2 rounds in. I got a quarter finalist trophy and had a blast, so that's all that counts. I couldn't race on Sunday, Oldsmobiles only, but I hung around to watch Lorne and his wife race the truck along with all the other Olds powered stuff. Even better was the fact that Lorne's truck made 11 or 12 passes, a best of 12.60 @ 107 with Sondra driving, and the 150 mile trip home. That made it a perfect weekend of racing.  

Sept 2008 Update: I haven't had a good N2O pass since the Olds weekend in July. I ran 4 passes in August at Cruzin' Fews' Day at the Drags and had the surging problem that happens from time to time. What baffled me was that the car wasn't touched since the Norwalk race. I went to PRP on Sept 13th for their King of the Street race but didn't try the N2O since we had only one time trial and I thought maybe the bottle was getting low since it hadn't worked right the last itme out. It was really hot and humid and I only ran a 12.20 @ 110 mph. We decided to go back the following weekend so I got the bottle topped off and I figured I would try the N2O again. It only needed 6#'s so I wasn't too optimistic that the problem was solved. My two time trials were wasted trying to get a good N2O pass, without success, so I made a wild guess of 12.11 for my dial in. Luckily, the 9-second Camaro I had to race got anxious waiting to track me down and red lit. I ran an 11.99 at 111 mph. I have no idea where that came from. With that good of a motor pass I could have been in the 10.80's if the N2O would have worked properly. Obviously I need to check the wiring out again.

Oct 2008 Update: My bad experiences attempting the N2O continued on the last weekend of the year at PRP. I drove the 90 minutes there and ran a 12.03 @ 112.5 mph off the bottle on my first pass. I made that pass with only 1 fuel pump running. It would have been a solid 11.90 something had I not forgotten to turn the other one on. I figured that was a good run and would try the N2O the rest of the day. The next 3 passes were nothing short of frustrating. Two passes in the 11.90's and an 11.58 at only 115 mph. I think I've eliminated a wiring problem at the solenoid itself but am now suspect of the Jacobs N2O controller. I probably should unhook it again this winter and try in the spring. The traction was very crummy, which is usually very good. The first pass I had a 1.75 60' time but they got worse from there with my my last pass being a 2 something. I haven't had one that bad since I tried the BFG Drag Radials about 8 or 10 years ago. I guess I have all winter to stew on this and get some sort of a game plan for the '09 season.

Here is what the engine compartment looks like after a lot more engineering than what the swap kits give you. The Kaufmann swap kit came with a set of 1-7/8" headers made by Mike Hamm, a Canton 8-qt pan w/pick up but came with a motor mount set up that does not make this a streetable swap in my opinion. The headers were by far the nicest pieces in the kit. The pan had no prayer of a dipstick fitting without cutting the bung off and repositioning it and 1" thick aluminum spacers that connect the engine and frame mounts had to go. They made the engine sit at a bad up hill angle to where the distributor can rub the underside of the hood, a 14" fan and no shroud are some of the negatives. I replaced the alum spacer with a piece of 1/8" steel and lowerered the steering rack. It was the only reason the spacers so thick anyway. We were then able to lower the motor to the same water pump centerline as the 5.0L was originally. I now have a 18" engine driven fan with a modified '87-'93 5.0L shroud with no cooling issues. My intention was to make it look as factory as possible. I probably should have painted the motor the factory grey color with a black air clener but I liked the look of the dark blue so much better.

This pic was taken when we got to Pontiac, Michigan on our first Power Tour in May of '97. I kept it this way for a couple of years until my brother found a great deal on a set of Convo Pros.

They are on loan until his Mustang is on the road. In other words, he gave them to me. Someday he may need them back so I'm not going to sell the 10-holers. The Convo-Pros definitely made it faster.......looking.

I never considered show car quality but at one time it was in nice enough shape to be in a few magazines. It was never selected for a photo shoot or feature but instead got in from pictures I submitted in 1998. I'm aware this could be considered a form of cheating. I sent pics to Hot Rod first and they pictured it in the Power Tour news in the August issue. I sent Super Ford and Car Craft pictures taken at my local park on a near perfect day. Super Ford put them in September's issue. I really liked the 1/2 page layout they used. They pieced together an article from info I sent them but stated the car averaged 14 mpg on the Power Tour, not hardly. It did average 14, but only for one tankful worth going on Rt 70 in Ohio. The rest of the time it was barely 12 mpg. That was also after the rear gears were changed to 3.00's just for the trip. You have to love a 9" for that. Car Craft liked my Brush Creek Park background enough to use it for there "How to get in Car Craft" article in December.

Unfortunately after all this time since being finished, and the fact it has sat outside since 2005, it is needing redone badly. I hope sometime in 2009 to be driving one of my new projects. Speaking of projects, all of the garage stalls in the world can't prevent this from happening if you have too many of them.

These are the tracks I visit and my best times without N2O:
Quaker City Raceway in Salem,OH- 11.94 @ 112.73 mph in June '05
Pittsburgh Raceway Park in New Alexandria,PA- 11.84 @ 113.2 mph in Oct '00
Norwalk Raceway Park in Norwalk,OH- 11.76 @ 115.8 mph in Sept '05. The drive to Norwalk is about 3 hours each way in the Mustang. Since it's a lot cheaper and way faster, I've been trailering it the last couple of years. Way back in Oct. '00 when I still drove the car there I had an 11.85 @ 113.4 mph that I'm pretty proud of.

Engine Compartment/Undercarriage Pics-Page 2
Engine/Drivetrain Pics-Page 3
Exterior/Interior Pics-Page 4
Serpentine Belt Set ups-Page 5
Lorne's Truck-Page 6
'01 Big Block Mach 1 Clone/Other Projects-Page 7
Fun Pics & Links-Page 8
Friend's Rides-Page 9
My Side Work-Page 10
Power Tour Pics-Page 11