1970 mach 1 mustang restoration photo journal

[telebutcher]

Nice lopey idle with that cam, I was thinking of using one in my 360 but I'm in need of some other work before a cam change. You have any plans for some track time?

 

[oldrockfan]

I am a big fan of comp cams. I have done 3 muscle cars now and love the way comp cams give you free software so you can enter detailed specs of your planned rebuild and get a good estimate of what to expect. Wife is not a fan of me racing so probably just stick to a street cruiser with the occasional stop light drag race

Those 360 motors are nice. We did a total rebuild on my son's 72 charger with a 318 and it was fun rebuild. Don't remember which cam we went with on that one but comp has lots of choices. You should download their free software and check it out. The program is called camquest and I highly recommend it! Fun to mess around with possible upgrades and see what the estimated results would be before you spend any money.

 

[iblive]

You should download their free software and check it out. The program is called camquest and I highly recommend it! Fun to mess around with possible upgrades and see what the estimated results would be before you spend any money.

That is a fun thing to mess with. My '77 Vette has the L48 350 in it. About 180hp when new. All I've done to it so far has been to add a Performer intake and a Holly 650cfm Spreadbore. The thing needs more HP!!!

Now if only I had the bucks to do more than fantasize.

 

[oldrockfan]

I love those old vets. Even though the stock L48 is down on hp, they can be modded to get more power. Losing the cast iron intake for aluminum is a good way to drop weight and help get more air/fuel in the engine. You do need to tune that holley though for maximum performance and an electronic distributer would also help get better performance. Course that is only half of the picture... you got to get that exhaust free flowing too. A good free flowing header/dual exhaust would be nice although it might cost several hundred to get one installed. A hotter cam would also wake that motor up and is fairly cheap. I know alot of vette guys swap out heads too for an easy hp boost and if you are willing to junkyard pick, that can be a real cheap boost. I'm not a bowtie guy but had a buddy with a 70s vette that ran like crazy so know it can be done.

edited to add: I clipped this from a website for the old vettes. It said this gets you 300hp and 300ft lbs torque

I'm on the same quest as you, a 300 horse L-48.
a well tuned Q-jet
performer manifold
Comp cams 268H .454 lift.
headers
2 1/2" duals (mandrel bent) with a cross over and some good turbo sytle mufflers.

 

[oldrockfan]

and you might enjoy checking this one out

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTtWqBIHWxg&feature=related"]1975 vette 450hp..almost stock engine - YouTube[/ame]

and this is 77 instead of a 75 but awesome burnout vid

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaHIMwqZYFc&feature=related[/ame]

 

[iblive]

You do need to tune that holley though for maximum performance and an electronic distributer would also help get better performance.

Yep... need to tune the carb for sure. My thought when I swapped out the QJet for a smaller cfm Holley was to get a bit crisper throttle response. To that end I feel I succeeded. I'd mash the throttle with the Qjet and I could tell I was pumping way too much fuel into a stock L48.... even though it was the stock carb that it came with new.

Just read a magazine article where they took a Z28 302 and rebuilt it. Owner wanted it to be completely stock... just the way it left the factory in 1968. Chevy put a 780 Holley on those engine at that time. After the rebuild they dynoed engine and had more HP than advertised in 69. Not a surprise. We all knew they were underrated from the factory. For kicks and grins they pulled off the 780 and stuck on a 650... and actually picked up about 10hp. Bigger is not always better.

My 77 came with an HEI distributor, but I intalled a Pertronix kit in it to jack the spark a bit especially as the RPMs come up. Stock HEIs are notorious for cutting out on you at higher RPMs.

I'm not looking for a lot of HP. 300-350 range would be great. What I am looking for is locomotive type torque. Where I live I seldom get much over 40-50mph and to have an engine that pulls like a freight train between 1500 & 3000 or so would be fantastic. Normal driving ranges from 1500-2500 rpms for me.

 

[telebutcher]

Hehehe, guess i should have specified, but I'm running a 360 AMC! No worries though, it happens all the time. Both my REAL musclecars, a 69 AMX and 70 Machine are 390 powered, so as you may have guessed, most guy's are thinking Ford power. AMC did use some components from the the other manufacturers, such as Delco and Motorcraft ignition and Torqueflite transmissions, but their engines were all their own.
The great thing about any of these old american smogger V8's is how responsive they are to some real simple and cheap mods. One of the best things I have run across is to change the stock type timing chain with an aftermarket performance version. In the smog era one of the things the factory did was to retard cam timing to lower cylinder pressure and reduce emissions. Ford and AMC were particularly bad for this approach. The filter down effect was that the stock aftermarket replacement parts were made to the latest OE specs and in a effort to keep cost down they would produce only those parts complete with all the timing retard built in. Juat by swapping in a proper timing chain, you could really wake wake up one of these slugs. My brothers 75 F-250 had a dramatic power increase from just installing a good double roller performance timing chain in the 360 (another 360! That makes 3!) turd motor. The difference was unreal considering what little was done. We latter installed better exhaust and4v intake but nothing made as much improvement as the lowly timing chain.

 

[oldrockfan]

the old AMCs were cool too. The owner of the auto shop that I have used before has an old javelin with a 390. He has it painted up in a red white blue paint scheme and it looks very cool. My old mustang had a 390 and that thing was a torque monster. This car is heavier and won't have quite as much power as my 69 coupe did but should still move pretty good. Hey if you have pics of your AMCs, post them up! Also didn't know about the timing chain deal, good info. I wonder if maybe they do that with the 70s vettes too? Might be something for iblive to consider.

 

[iblive]

I wonder if maybe they do that with the 70s vettes too? Might be something for iblive to consider.

I'm wondering if one could accomplish the same thing by using an offset key in the key slot on the cam to advance or retard the cam timing? I'm betting on the OEM sprockets, when you line up the timing marks if you have a mid 70s engine you are automatically setting your cam up retarded about 4 degrees. On the aftermarket chain and gear set the timing marks are lined up at normal TDC.

But yeah.... having a smog motor I'm sure my engine would benefit from advancing the cam a few degrees.

 

[oldrockfan]

that might be a good low cost experiment to see if it makes a big difference. I was doing some surfing and reading about the 70s vettes with your engine and sounds like the guys who mod them are sold on swapping out cams as being a big gain both in hp and torque. They even go as far as spelling out what cam specs work best. Also alot of them say tweaking the distributor curve can make a noticable difference too.

 

[telebutcher]

I run a lot of advance in my 360, I can do this because of the low compression (8.5:1) and i run it cool with a 160 thermostat and big electric fan. Also I think that my location at 3600ft elevation allows me to get away with a timing curve that is pretty aggressive and run regular fuel.

Here's a pic of the ugly beast. The wheel chocks on the front tires were an attempt to go easy on the rear brakes but that didn't work too well. I had to foot brake it anyway to hold the car in place.

 

[oldrockfan]

always fun to do an occasional burnout. Nothing like the smell of burning rubber and the sound of the motor revving! Looks like a fun ride.

 

[telebutcher]

Its a sleeper, but that's part of the fun of this car, no one expects much by the way it looks. Its not a killer by any means, but it is quick enough to look after the pretenders and posers with no trouble. I pull wrenches at a tire shop so I can afford to burn some butyl from time to time!!

 

[happy_tom]

say, is the mustang unibody, or body-on-frame?

ust curious, today I made some progress on my Opel Ascona mark B, and was just thinking that unibody construction may be cool for handling, but not so great when you have to rebuild important parts of the structure...

Oh well, it turned out OK for a first timer with no experience in bodywork.

I also don't get along with electrics that much, but so far I always managed it in the end.
I enjoy assembling mechanical parts & stuff as well, but you gotta finish the chassis first to get there

 

[telebutcher]

Mustangs are unibodies, and as you say, they can be tricky to repair structural areas. Lots of nooks, crannies and blind spots to worry about. I commend you on the rebuild effort, not for the timid!

 

[oldrockfan]

yep, unibodies can be a blessing and curse at the same time. Still, I love the old mustangs and since I weld, it isn't so bad. Cool old opel, I'd like to see more pics as you get further along with the restoration.

One update for today is I finally got the brake lights working today so next step is to get the windshield replaced and some seatbelts installed and then time to do the test drive!

 

[telebutcher]

ORF, a question for you about the wipers on your 70. Do they have delay or just two speeds, and does the switch have a ground wire? Just asking because the 70 we had in the shop has some wiper issues and the fellow working on it was having some trouble getting them to work properly.

 

[oldrockfan]

my mach 1 is a two speed wiper + a washer that is activated when you push in. I didn't have to do any work to my switch so didn't see the wire count on it. I do know there is a small harness that runs to the wiper motor that includes a ground wire that is mounted to the car frame near the wiper arms. If that ground wire connector is corroded, it can cause problems so might check that first.

 

[oldrockfan]

good news... did the first test run to verify everything works and happy to report the mustang is drivable! Well not officially till I get a my insurance activated, a license plate installed and a rear view mirror... so I will just show a vid of me testing it in the driveway for now since I would never drive something on the street without all the legal things in place

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGCi6RJcq4s]1970 Mach 1 mustang test run - YouTube[/ame]

 

[iblive]

Dang that sounds good.