charchri4

Thank YOU! My plan was to use the semi gloss black as a base to clean up the body then paint it blue next summer but the take no prisoners black is really growing on me.

Ah the good old top loader. One would be hard pressed to find a more loved trans than that one. I had an overdrive version out of a 79 pick up in a 65 mustang and it was epic. She was a rocket to about 80 then a huge jump from 2nd to 3rd and 1800 rpm in 4th. Fascinating background on the TKO coming from that one. Every so often Ford really gets it right!


Truer words were never penned!

Sunshine Guy

Many of the younger generation of car buffs have no idea how dramatically the landscape of automobile performance was forever altered by digital, engine control electronics.

The late '60's were the epitome of American, big inch/brute force muscle car performance. 1970 was a banner year for performance. Then the first round of smog laws uhered in the "Dark Ages" of the 70's. In 1971 the smog requirements lowered compression ratios and shortened cam timing, dropping power and efficiency. The real "sharp teeth" smog regs applied in 1972, when compression ratios dropped off a cliff, cam timing was laughable, all kinds of half-developed gee-gaws were added to try to reduce emissions, and the carburated fuel systems used all manner of weird, Rube Goldberg approaches trying to get the engines to (sort of) run leaner.

In reality, they barely ran at all. Harder starting, weak power, reduced fuel economy, and miserable drivability were standard equipment across the board. My buddy bought a new, 1971 Doge Charger with a 318 2-barrel. A year later I bought an identical 1972 Charger with a 400 2-barrel. (4 barrel anything was few and far between in the Dark Ages). My buddy's 318 would outrun my 400 in a drag race; his got 18 mpg in normal driving while mine got 12. Ah, Government-mandated efficiency! Until the advent of digital engine management to regulate fuel/air ratios, many of us sadly thought factory performance cars were forever dead.

Ford enthusiasts proclaimed a resurection of the messiah when the light weight, 1979 Mustang (and its sister Mercury Capri) were announced to be available with a real, American V8. The V8 had previously disappeared from the Pony stable for several years. I immediately placed my order for a V8 Capri Ghia with manual 4 speed and the "performance" 3.08 (versus standard 2.73) axle. The four speed was probably the same box as in your '79 pickup!

With ratios of 3.07, 1.72, 1.00, and .70, just as you described, revving to full tilt and banging third felt like jerking on the parking brake. By contrast, the TKO 600 sitting in my garage has ratios of 2.87, 1.89, 1.28, 1.00, and .82. You can see that shifting the old Top Loader from 2nd to 3rd is nearly identical to shifting a modern 5 speed from 2nd to 4th! No wonder...

Yet you woulda' thought that lightweight, '79 performance king would've pulled like tractor despite the huge ratio gaps. After all, it was a huge, chest-thumping, 302 cubic inch V8, 2-barrel wonder belting out a screaming 140 maximum HP at a stratospheric 3600 rpm, with pavement wrinkling torque of 250 ft./lb. at a lofty 1800 rpm. No joke...those were the specs.

I spent a good deal of time and money "sorta" fixing it by installing a 3.73 gear with limited slip, a moderate hydraulic cam, headers, dual exhaust with turbo mufflers, a four barrel, 500 cfm AFB carb on an Edelbrock Performer manifold, and Ford DOOE small chamber, high compression heads from a 1970 351W, pocket ported and valve seats opened up for bigger, small block Chevy valves. Probably gained about 70 HP, so with somewhere around 210 crank HP I had one of the hottest "new" cars in town.

How times have changed! Today we can drop an electronically controlled, bone stock '90 - '93 version of the same engine into our Miata and enjoy complete tractibility, way better fuel efficiency, 20% more HP than my old, modified engine, and it runs far cleaner for the environment to boot!

God bless America!

charchri4

I thought about this thread on the way in to work today. I was running late and set the cruise at 100 to cover some ground but interesting to see in the 18s MPG over about a 5 mile stretch at that speed.


My donor 02 Camaro SS could have pulled this off but no other muscle car I have owned could have touched these numbers. The long term trim numbers show she's running just about dead on 14.7:1 AFR over the last minute or so and no carb could ever pull that off. Add to that I could have down shifted from 6th to 4th and barked the back tires loose if I had a mind to and no question they don't make them like they used to!

PS I bought my wife an 84 Mustang GT convert for our 1st anniversary that was about the same game as your 79. It was a wonderful car!