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If you've followed this webmagazine
for a couple years then you surely are familiar with the red
'69 Mach 1 Mustang, owned by our veteran racer Victor Silva.
The Mach 1 started out in our magazine as "Project
FE", utilizing the originally equipped, and rare,
combo of the 390 motor and Toploader four-speed manual to
run as quick as 12-teens.
Then, two years ago, the need to rebuild the motor prompted
us to add more cubes in the way of a 428
FE powerplant. At this time Victor also decided to switch
over to a C6 auto transmission to gain the consistency required
for racing in the local Comp-Rod classes.
The 428 project had it's ups and downs. Working the ET's down
to an impressive 11.39 got us salivating for potentially our
first 10 second project car. But then disaster struck. At
a test and tune session to try out different carburetors,
the 428 decided it had had enough. The bottom end grenaded
at mid track, and the post-mortem would reveal potential oil
starvation at some of the rod journals. We got a lot of flack
from our readers about blowing up the 428 - after all FE's
already have a long-standing bad rap as an unfit race motor.
We got even more flack for deciding to abandon Project FE
and replace the 428 with a 460 crate motor.
The decision to go with a Ford Racing's 535HP crate 460 was
all Victors. We were more than willing to do another FE, but
Victor had decided that it was just getting to expensive,
and unreliable. For someone who races competitively week after
week, almost year-round, down time on a motor is not acceptable.
We estimated that to rebuild the 428, with all the proper
oiling mods necessary, would run near $5000 -again. The other
option was to simply shell out $6000 and have a crate show
up with 535 dyno certified horses. Victor took the latter
option and never looked back.
The 460 was promptly dropped into the Mach 1. However just
as soon as it was dropped it, it was pulled back out. For
all you FE fans that hate us for not rebuilding the 428 -
you got your chance to gloat when the first 460 Ford Racing
crate motor, the one we bought for reliability, blew up the
very first pass down the strip! That was back in April of
2001. In that article we wrote:
"A $6000 crate motor,
that was bought for the very reason that it was professionally
built and broken in on the dyno, blew up with less than
2 miles on the clock! Well maybe blown up is a bit dramatic.
The 460 simply started knocking ferociously half way down
the strip, and then cut out.
The first sign of what happened was evident when the heads
came off. All the pistons had nicks where the valves had
smacked into them. Examining the heads revealed several
bent valves. It was obvious this wasn't one or two valve
springs or locks giving out, but a wholesale timing problem,
such as a broken timing chain or gear.
Pulling the timing chain cover
led to the piece of evidence we were looking for -a
broken timing gear bolt. It looked as if the bolt had
been over torqued, and sheared due to fatigue. In either
case, we knew it wasn't out fault since we had never
so much as removed a valve cover on this crate motor.
"
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Fortunately Ford Racing admitted to some
quality problems with their 460 motors and worked with Victor
to replace the short lived engine. A few weeks later a new
460 was back in the Mach 1.
After getting over initial jitters, after all this would be
Victors 3rd motor in as many months, Victor started hammering
out some good passes. In January of this year we got our first
10-second ET's, with a best of 10.90 at 122mph.
Somewhere around this point we witnessed a beautiful 10-second
'69 RS Camaro hit the divider and flip over at a local weekend
bracket event. This got Victor thinking...is the car he never
intended to race, let alone into the 10's, something worth
destroying in the event of a mishap? We knew the answer when
a short time later he informed us of his new purchases, the
plum burgundy '67 Mustang coupe seen above.
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Other than being a '67 coupe, this particular
coupe shares very little else in common with our other
'67 Project car. This car from day one would be "the
race car". Victor promptly gutted the interior and had
the NHRA mandatory six-point cage installed. The 460 and C6
were dropped in -this time the shock towers were left untouched
(we cut them back
on the Mach 1.) It's a tight fit, but notching the header
bolt holes in the flanges of the Crites headers allows them
to be slipped into place against the head, rather than needing
to come in straight on.
The 460 propelled '67, weighing in at a brisk 2910 lb. without
driver, would prove to be a terror at the track. Sixty-foots
have dropped to the high 1.4's, and the ET is now consistently
10.70's @ 124! Perhaps even more amazing is that the
motor is being shifted at a paltry 5500rpm. So far this appears
to be a very stable and consistent combo. Let's see if Victor
can come home with some prize money in the near future! F/M
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