 But wait, there's more. This...  But wait, there's more. This is what's left of the No. 8 piston's ring land. Yes, that large chunk of loose material (and others) was riding up and down along with the piston. Amazingly, the bore wasn't shredded despite the fact that the damaged piston land was polished smooth from all the loose bits moving around. This is the result of major detonation and is the root cause of the severe oily blow-by that coated the entire underside of the Comet. |  With all the bad news behind...  With all the bad news behind us, Sal Alcaraz manned the JMS Rottler boring bar to enlarge the 390's bores from 0.040 to 0.060 inch oversize. The final bore diameter is 4.11 inches. Couple that with the stock 3.78-inch stroke and you've got a 401-cube FE motor. |  In keeping with our street-friendly...  In keeping with our street-friendly cruising theme, cast-aluminum pistons fill the bores and deliver 9.5:1 compression for easy pump-gas compatibility. The hydraulic flat-tappet cam specs are 0.484/0.510 lift, 270/280 advertised duration, and 204/214 duration at 0.050. |
 On the JMS dyno, the Comet's...  On the JMS dyno, the Comet's freshened FE cranked out 309 hp at 4,600 rpm and 385 lb-ft of torque all the way down at 3,000 rpm. This may not be a high-revving screamer, but it's still making 336 lb-ft at 4,800 rpm and that means lots of burning rubber. Dig the groovy cast-aluminum finned Holman Moody pentroof valve covers. Unfortunately they didn't clear the Comet's master cylinder, so we had to go back to steel stampings. We also chucked the points and stabbed in an MSD distributor so the thing would run for more than five minutes. |  Moving on to the Comet's exterior,...  Moving on to the Comet's exterior, Russ Stevenson and the Gold Coast Customs crew whipped up a driver-side rearview mirror-delete plate from 18-inch aluminum. It was finessed with 320-grit sandpaper to give a cool brushed appearance. |  Hood pins are a Stock Car...  Hood pins are a Stock Car mainstay, so the fiberglass Cyclone hood was carefully drilled for pins and circular lanyard shields. A layer of masking tape prevented damage to the surrounding paint finish and kept the fiberglass from chunking during drilling. Stevenson says to use a UniBit (left) and work up to the final hole diameter in small steps for best results. |
 Hood pin anchors were fabricated...  Hood pin anchors were fabricated from 2x2-inch square tubing with flat plates welded on the back. These are screwed to the leading edge of the radiator support and poke through the hood skin. |  More roundy-round-inspired,...  More roundy-round-inspired, less-is-more flavor was added by replacing the high-beam headlamp bulbs with block-off plates trimmed from 16-gauge sheet steel. Ordinarily the top row of the Comet's stacked headlamps are the low-beam running lights. By swapping bulbs and running the upper electrical feed wires to the lower holes, the bottom lamps became the running lamps. Who needs high-beams anyway? |  The Comet's fendertop antenna...  The Comet's fendertop antenna mast and base are no-go in circle-track land. To fill the void, more 18-inch aluminum sheet was used to create a block-off plate that fits atop a stock plastic antenna base coated with tough silver urethane paint. The works clamps to the fender with a screw-on bracket. |