It's not often that you see an early Pontiac Tempest or LeMans jerking the front tires 2 feet in the air and dipping into the single digits on a dragstrip--at least, not one that looks as un-race-car-like as Pat Neveu's. The early Tempests were unique in that they featured a rear-mounted transaxle driven by a "rope" driveshaft--a flexible thing that had roughly 3 inches of up and down movement while operating. That combination isn't really keen on taking high-horsepower abuse, and replacing it with a conventional rearend and solid driveshaft is way more complex than a bolt-in affair. It's doable, as seen on Pat's car, but only if you're committed.

One of the most iconic names in automotive history, Shelby became an international star in the 1950s as a race car driver, earning Sports Illustrated's "Sports Car Driver of the Year" honors in 1956 and 1957, then winning the 1959 24 Hours of LeMans in an Aston Martin with co-driver Roy Salvadori. A hereditary heart condition put an end to Shelby's driving career in 1960, but the lessons learned while driving world-renowned sports cars gave him the idea to build his own car using an AC Ace body and a small-block Ford V-8 engine. The result was the Cobra, a name that Shelby said came to him in a dream, and a company called Shelby American.

In April 2009, GM officially killed the Pontiac Motor Division. But for true believers, GM's Widetrack division is far from deceased. Edelbrock is doing its part by adding to its Pontiac performance parts lineup with a new cylinder head, something the majority of Pontiac guys have been patiently anticipating. The first Edelbrock Performer RPM aluminum head for Pontiacs, introduced several years ago, was patterned after the high-perf Pontiac Ram Air IV, 455 HO, and Super Duty heads with round exhaust ports. These OE performance heads were highly prized but never built in significant numbers. When Edelbrock replicated these much-sought-after performance heads, the E-Team also retained the RA IV's unique exhaust bolt pattern and round-port configuration. Unfortunately, these ports are not interchangeable with the stock Pontiac D-port exhaust version. This meant you had to find the more rare Super Duty, RA IV, or 455 HO exhaust manifolds or headers to use those Edelbrock heads.

397hp, 428ci Windsor Ford - Horsepower!

The adrenaline shakes take over in your left leg as you probe your subconscious for the list of things that will keep your car off the guardrail. In your right hand is the shifter connected to a reverse-manual valvebody in the automatic. With 800 pounds showing on the brake-pressure gauge, you floor the gas pedal, letting loose the dogs and bumping off the rev limiter in the water box. With a slow count to three, you release the button on the line-lock and roll to the starting line. With your foot on the floor you sidestep the brake pedal and head for the rev limiter before pulling the shifter down for the one, two, three. You pass the stripe at 145 mph and lift. The engine freewheels, muting all but the sound of the pebbles bouncing in the wheeltubs.

America might rank near the bottom of the barrel among industrialized countries when it comes to standardized math scores, but by golly, we know bogus arithmetic when we see it. According to many Pro Touring guys, real street machines need a minimum of six forward gears for performance and streetability purposes. While we appreciate cars that can accelerate, turn, and brake like stink, do you really need a double-overdrive transmission to roll your car off a trailer and jockey it around a parking lot full of cones? Something just doesn’t add up. Anyone who answered yes probably has the means to blow $2,000 to $3,000 on a prebundled manual trans conversion kit. There’s nothing wrong with that, as these setups are pretty slick, and let’s face it, someone has to stimulate the economy. However, for those on a more modest budget, that kind of money might be more than your entire car is worth. Fortunately, stepping outside the blister-pack norm and exercising a little bit of creativity can get you on your way to banging gears like a hoodlum for peanuts.

Yup, More Oil

There is a new class in NMRA this season, and it’s generating quite a stir on message boards and YouTube, yet as we write this, the season’s opening race is still one month away. Strange Engineering Coyote Stock presented by 5.0 Mustang Magazine and Super Fords is the official title of the class, and there are several reasons to be excited about it. First, it was created to simplify an existing NMRA class and make it more affordable than the class it evolved from. Second, the rules dictate the use of a sealed, 5.0 Coyote crate engine, which is available from a number of distributors for about $6,000—a great price for the level of performance it delivers. In the words of one builder we spoke to, “You couldn’t piece together a better engine for less money.” Third, the engine is legal in any ’54-or-newer Ford and can be backed up by any Tremec manual transmission or a C4 automatic, which satiates our appetite for drivetrain swaps. Fourth, it’s heads-up racing. Early testing we’ve seen shows the cars nailing down high-10-second e.t.’s in shakedown passes. This class should be fun, fast, and competitive.

After rescuing parts from the boneyard, one usually drags them back to a home shop to clean, modify, and install. That means working with greasy parts, solvent, gasoline, cleaners, and all sorts of combustible materials. After you’ve worked on cars for a while, you begin to take all these hazardous materials for granted, and fire safety is generally the last thing you think about when a project is at hand. This fact smacked us in the face a few months ago when we learned that longtime hot rodder Tom Medley, one of the original Petersen Publishing Co. employees and the creator of the Stroker McGurk cartoon character, lost his garage in a fire. Tom’s ’40 Ford coupe backfired, and the resulting flames turned the car and Medley’s garage into charred wreckage. Thankfully, Medley was not injured, but the shop was totaled.

Last month, we tossed a cam, an intake, and an NOS Cheater nitrous kit at a Goodwrench 350 crate engine from Scoggin-Dickey and made 524 hp with a 200hp shot (“Saturday Night Special,” May ’12). On the normally aspirated side of the ledger, Mr. Goodwrench managed to squeak out 330 hp and 350 lb-ft of torque. These numbers were OK, but we had greater expectations. The goal this month was to bolt the motor in our ’66 Orange Peel Chevelle, run a normally aspirated 12-second pass, possibly squeeze an 11, and not break anything. But before we dropped the 350 into the engine compartment, the original short-block needed enhancing.

Hands On

“When you see one of these big X-frame cars hook and hold the wheels in the air for 100 feet at the dragstrip, you begin to understand why people like them.”

“It’s a real crowd-pleaser. When I launch the car at the track, you can see the whole undercarriage of the car. The spectators all run to the fence to see it.” Wally Peterson

There was a time when you’d hole-saw your muscle car’s dash for a set of Sun Tune gauges, just to know how much gas you had in the tank. That was before the price of a rare Mopar convertible wiggled its way into the seven-figure price range. That tide floated your crusty B-body north of $25,000, and now could be the time to sell. To hook interested buyers, your heap has to look good and be right. That includes a properly functioning, stock-appearing dashboard.

This Guy's Garage: Leigh Gordon/Goochland County, VA

While old muscle cars are cool, drum brakes are not. There probably isn’t a breathed-on Camaro, Cutlass, Tempest, or Buick Special left in the world that doesn’t already have front disc brakes. But we’ve noticed that rear drums are still hanging in there. If it’s the cost involved with a $900 aftermarket conversion that has you clinging to those antiquated rear drums, we have a simple and inexpensive solution. Our pals who prowl purgatory yards have noticed that third-generation V8 Camaros and Firebirds were commonly fitted with generous, 11.5-inch rear rotors and aluminum, two-piston calipers. This caliper and rotor package remained consistent between 1988 and 1997, offering a 10-year span of F-bodies from which to choose.

Hollywood is all about image, with substance and character falling a distant second and third in terms of importance. But Ford tipped that equation more than a little sideways when it introduced the Bullitt Mustang in 2001. The Bullitt package backed up good looks with performance parts such as a high-flow intake manifold, Tokico shocks, and bigger brakes, wheels, and tires. Mike Wolfson wanted one the moment he learned about the car, and to prove it, he canceled his order for an ’01 Cobra and got in line for Bullitt No. 1543. Beyond the lowered stance, the better shocks and struts, and even the slightly revised power numbers that pushed the 4.6L 2V up to 265 hp and 305 lb-ft of torque, there are far more visceral reasons why this particular Mustang is just plain cool. It has more to do with what Mike did after he bought the car.

2012 Car Craft Summer Nationals participants will get a chance to show off their engine building skills in the COMP Cams® Engine Builder Duel on July 20th – 22nd.

With much of our attention focused on the new Cobra Jet Mustangs, this new engine completely snuck by us. It's billed as the most powerful V8 in the world, and we're rather embarrassed for not having known about it until we read the press release. Packing 650 hp and 600 lb-ft of torque, this thing is insane. Ford SVT hasn't revealed any performance figures, but wild rumors on reputable car-magazine websites are speculating 0 to 60 times dipping into the 3-second range, quarter-mile times in the 11s, and a top speed of more than 200 mph--all that performance in a 3,800-pound car with a full factory warranty. The car itself is the '13 Shelby GT 500 Mustang, which debuted in November at the Los Angeles International Auto Show.

There's a reason people refer to the body shop as "paint jail." Painting a car is a huge undertaking. In this line of work, we meet and interview hundreds of people about their cars every year, and the majority of them describe the paintjob as the most problematic part of the build. We've heard so many horror stories of botched paintjobs, con-artist painters, chicken-wire repairs, and Rip Van Winkle timelines that we could write several seasons of an autobody-based reality TV show.

The first rule of car crafting and domestic automotive mayhem is there are no rules. Plenty of enthusiasts will try to tell you there are only some accepted paths, but thankfully there are free spirits who just don't listen. In this world, even fathers have difficulties with sons. Take Warren Iverson's dad. He was an Olds guy and thought he had properly influenced his son when young Warren bought his first car--a '66 4-4-2. All was right with the world until a subtle shift occurred in the time-space continuum, and the Olds gave way to a string of Mopars. This shift of allegiance, Warren says, is something his dad is "still mad about."

Real Street Eliminator is back and so is your chance to show off your car's braking, handling, and horsepower-generating abilities against the best cars in the nation at the Car Craft Summer Nationals(tm).

There's no meaner look than a set of fender-wall headers hanging down behind your car's front tires. Sure, you'll need to slash away some factory tin to get clearance, but you'll also gain the benefits of simplified exhaust routing, the elimination of header-to-front suspension-interference hassles, and better engine breathing.

Walk up to John Francis' '05 Mustang with the hood down, and the question of the hour quickly becomes . . . could it be? The '69 to '70 Boss 429 connection is rather obvious, what with the big hoodscoop and Boss callouts, but c'mon, really? Rationally speaking, it wouldn't be the first time an owner tacked on a vintage appendage to the retro S197 body style without any real connection, and it certainly won't be the last. The 525 decal is likely indicative of horsepower, as the number is achievable with new-car power-adders, so in the end, the realist dismisses Francis' ride as yet another poseur--fast and fun, no doubt. Something really impressive? Well, probably not.

Horsepower!