At times I.m forced to ask myself, just like most of us do at some point,
"are you going about solving the potential issues your facing logically"
John , one of my local performance car enthusiast friends,
was stopping over for a cup of coffee, and wanting to discuss his future project, choices.
I was struck by his questions simply because so few guys step back mentally and don,t start off the projects they are involved with, by simply starting the project ,
by looking over the car they own, and simply making a list of what they think needs to be upgraded , or modified on that car!
but John had the fore sight too question,what he might be getting involved in,
and even if he had an unlimited budget and all the help he needed,
too think, about the potential results.
John had purchased an abandoned previous project, at a bargain price,
it was a rather abused,
but mostly rust free 1970 torino , that was missing the interior and its original engine was a total basket case with many of the original component parts,
or parts the original projects owner had supplied, in non-re-build-able condition
.the car has been sitting for over a decade in a home garage.
the car should look similar to this but its black
the original plan was to swap a , much modified and upgraded, 460 ford engine into the car.
the problem, was that the original owner had passed and the guys wife had either lost or had most of the components,
that were too be used in the engine swap, and or performance upgrade at some point had gone missing
(probably due to family members stealing, borrowing or just taking anything they wanted without her knowledge.)
now he has basically a mostly rust free car, without an interior thats worth saving or re-upholstering, in a car that was originally going to be built into what was intended to be a very fast street/strip car with a roll cage and a 460 ford based engine.
the car has a good 9" differential, all the glass and most of the original body panels , gauges wiring, lights, look reasonably decent, the roll cauge is missing but at some point it was obviously partly installed but never welded into the car, the transmission is missing, the block he has is obviously not what the original car had nor is it even a performance engine, it looks like it was a salvage yard pull, that was dropped off when the performance engine that was being built was (STOLEN/SWAPPED) at some point after the original owner passed, but before he purchased the car project from the guys widow.
he asked me what I would do?
I asked him what he wanted too spend on the project and if he had the room and knowledge to build the car or if he wanted to basically follow on the original planed path or had some other ideas?
now I would not have any issues building a series 385 ford (429,460,514)
but its not cheap and its certainly not a weekend project,
you can complete in a couple months or for under $20-30K
if it to be done well and an impressive result obtained.
http://grantorinosport.org/70torino04.htm
https://musclecars.howstuffworks.com/classic-muscle-cars/1970-ford-torino-cobra.htm
https://www.myclassicgarage.com/vehicles/27474/1970-ford-torino-429-cobra-jet
"are you going about solving the potential issues your facing logically"
John , one of my local performance car enthusiast friends,
was stopping over for a cup of coffee, and wanting to discuss his future project, choices.
I was struck by his questions simply because so few guys step back mentally and don,t start off the projects they are involved with, by simply starting the project ,
by looking over the car they own, and simply making a list of what they think needs to be upgraded , or modified on that car!
but John had the fore sight too question,what he might be getting involved in,
and even if he had an unlimited budget and all the help he needed,
too think, about the potential results.
John had purchased an abandoned previous project, at a bargain price,
it was a rather abused,
but mostly rust free 1970 torino , that was missing the interior and its original engine was a total basket case with many of the original component parts,
or parts the original projects owner had supplied, in non-re-build-able condition
.the car has been sitting for over a decade in a home garage.
the car should look similar to this but its black
the original plan was to swap a , much modified and upgraded, 460 ford engine into the car.
the problem, was that the original owner had passed and the guys wife had either lost or had most of the components,
that were too be used in the engine swap, and or performance upgrade at some point had gone missing
(probably due to family members stealing, borrowing or just taking anything they wanted without her knowledge.)
now he has basically a mostly rust free car, without an interior thats worth saving or re-upholstering, in a car that was originally going to be built into what was intended to be a very fast street/strip car with a roll cage and a 460 ford based engine.
the car has a good 9" differential, all the glass and most of the original body panels , gauges wiring, lights, look reasonably decent, the roll cauge is missing but at some point it was obviously partly installed but never welded into the car, the transmission is missing, the block he has is obviously not what the original car had nor is it even a performance engine, it looks like it was a salvage yard pull, that was dropped off when the performance engine that was being built was (STOLEN/SWAPPED) at some point after the original owner passed, but before he purchased the car project from the guys widow.
he asked me what I would do?
I asked him what he wanted too spend on the project and if he had the room and knowledge to build the car or if he wanted to basically follow on the original planed path or had some other ideas?
now I would not have any issues building a series 385 ford (429,460,514)
but its not cheap and its certainly not a weekend project,
you can complete in a couple months or for under $20-30K
if it to be done well and an impressive result obtained.
http://grantorinosport.org/70torino04.htm
https://musclecars.howstuffworks.com/classic-muscle-cars/1970-ford-torino-cobra.htm
https://www.myclassicgarage.com/vehicles/27474/1970-ford-torino-429-cobra-jet
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