what a pain!

[Lloyd Smale]

put long tube headers, cat delete mid pipe on my challenger yesterday or is should say my son in law did a i could lay under a car for 6 HOURS! Getting the old manifolds off was the biggest pain in the but. We've been talking new school vs old school and old school would have surely won this contest. I've put headers on a small block chev in not much more then hour and was driving down the road. I think my son in law broke a record for the amount of swearing someone can do in an hour.  Nice thing is I did a data gathering run so i can send the results to the shop that tuned it to get any adjustments it needs and they will be precise and at every rpm level and to turn off the trigger for the check engine light for not having cats. Something we did back in the day with a half inch wrench a timing light and a screwdriver and some various jets. Our technology ended with looking at the color of the plug after beating the crap out of it for a few minutes. I hated to waste the money on a dyno tune as i plan on doing cam and heads next spring at the same shop that has the dyno in green bay. The owner told me that he did one just like mine and with long tubes cam and heads and a bigger throttle body it put down 525 rear wheel hp and was as mild to drive down the road as a stock one and the owner still got 25 mpg on the highway. That's probably equivalent to what would have been called a 650 hp naturally asperated motor back in 70 the way they rated hp then if one could even have existed that was street able. Bare minimum is you'd have power nothing it wouldn't idle and you'd need REAL race gas.   I guess the kid in my will never go away. My wife is shaking here head but at least isnt butting heads over it. She did get riled up when i mentioned they do an all forged 426 stroker motor for 12k. Told her im to old and banged up for a snowmobile or a harley anymore but i can still bang a gear in a car and am not giving up on life and hanging out with the old guys for coffee talking about how they used to have fun. That's a fast way to a coffin. I dread the day when im so old i can no longer do anything but talk about cars. Im allready there for snowmobiles for sure and for the most part motorcyles, for sure dirt bikes. I could drive a bike maybe a 100 miles in a day on a harley but the season is so short up here its hard to justify 20k for new harley to put 2k a summer on it at most.

[Bob Riebe]

Not all old school cars were that easy.
When I put headers on my Boss 302, I had to disconnect the motor mount and jack up the engine to get them on because of the steering set-up.
I did this in a old garage with fifty year old screw jacks .
Had just enough room to slide under the car.
The worst part were bolts you could not see , in a tight area, so it was by feel and by guess and by gosh.
I did it in one day but I had bloody hands.

The long tubes are much better all around than shorties.

I was in a antique/women's junk shop yesterday and saw an old Sun engine tuner, I mean old this one was probably from the fifties for 300 dollars.
Assuming it still fully worked if  you ever need to check your compression, fuel pump pressure along with other items pre-computer cars had it would be handy  plus it had cabinet space for spare parts,  but that is priced way, way, way to0 high and unless you have all the cables and manual, best to leave for some one who simply wants it as a decoration.

The last most complete one's were the first to use digital tech. and with my 1978 Olds would be nice to have.
Now a Sun Distributor tester is always good to have as you can check and set a distributor quickly but  Sun is long gone, while King was still around 9 years ago but now is gone again.
Jay Leno uses a King on his cars.

[Lloyd Smale]

i too had one of those sun diagnosis machines. I got it cheap from a garage that went broke. Wasnt long though before it was just not worth the space in the shop. My buddy who owns the local repair shop knew i had it. he has a garage at home thats fixed up with old gas pumps from a few different companies and lots of vintage stuff. he asked me if he could buy it for his garage and i gave it to him. Heck bob i can remember when some of us carried a timing light in the trunk. By the way im not a ford guy but the boss 302 and 429s were the coolest thing ford ever did. Personally if it weren't for the money given a choice id take a 302. bet youd really like to have that little jewel back in the driveway! One of my buddy's owned a blue one. Other then a 302 Z that motor had about the coolest sounding motor on the road. I love the look of the 69-70 mustangs. They didn't have the im a secretary look of the earlier 60s cars and after that got bigger until the gas crisis hit and we got things like a pinto framed cobra with a 155 hp. My buddys a big ford guy and ive allways told him that if the right price was on a for sale sign for a 69 mach 1 id be awful tempted. Even one with a 351 just for a cruiser. Hes got a 73 mach one and it just doesn't push my buttons. Came from the factory with those huge ported Cleveland heads and in fords wisdom they slapped a 2 barrel carb on it and a 3 speed auto. thankfuly that carb and manifold are in a box in his garage. The tune should be here today. I kind of anxious to see if there's any improvement over the factory short tube headers that come on it. Ive been afraid to really get on it because i dont want to burn a whole in a piston. he said id likely see 20-25 hp. Might not even be enough to really tell but he said if im going to to heads and cam then they will make a big difference. you should have seen them though. compared to the old hookers and hedmans we used to buy these shiny stainless things with there thick flanges and perfect weld were like jewelry but they there priced about like jewelry too!