I stopped driving my Stang as a daily driver back in late '97 after I got my truck, but I still drove it fairly often and took it to the track regularly. Finally in '99 I bought the trailer I have now from my racing friend and took the plates off of it and made it a full time racer. Since then, I've replace the entire rear end with a 9" Ford from Strange Engineering with 35 spline axles, spool, 4.56 gears and big Ford drum brakes. And put on new upper and lower control arms, shocks, springs, 90/10 front struts. Then I replaced the tranny with a full race AOD with manual valve body from Art Carr Performance Products. I also removed all the exhaust behind the H-pipe and removed all the stock seats, etc, etc, etc to get the weight down to where it is now, 3,140 lbs with me in it. The only real engine mod I've made is to replace the throttle body with a 65mm one. At the end of this racing season, I had made 441 dragstrip passes with it, with about 375 of them full 1/4 mile shots. I think I got one of the better 5.0 motors they made that year!!!

 

or maybe your just really smart and know how to work that beast

 

damn... that is impressive!!

 

yes it is!!!!!! man, i didnt know you had rearend and tranny?!?!! how much was that tranny? what stall do u have in it?

 

the Art Carr Extreme AOD tranny cost a total of $2,573 which included the $125 freight. I paid extra for an SFI flexplate and a full manual valve body w/overdrive deleted and a deep ribbed aluminum pan with a hole drilled and tapped for a temperature probe for a gauge. I got it on sale, so the converter was free! it stalls at about 2,500 rpm and they say it's good for up to 800 HP.
The Strange Engineering 9" Ford rear end cost a total of $2,718 including $200 freight. It has a Strange 3.25" iron case, 35 spline axles with 5/8" long studs and a Pro Race spool, 35 spline yoke and 4.57 gears and I added $299 for a complete set of big Ford drum brakes. I'm positive it will handle anything I throw at it in the future. Over the ten years since I started racing it I've spent in excess of $10,000 on bolt-parts to make it a full time racer with a bulletproof drivetrain, front and rear suspension, full gauges, racing wheels and slicks, MSD 6AL ignition, etc. so now I'm ready to go to work on the engine end and see what some real HP will do in it. I'm going to finally add a roll bar as I plan on getting into the low 11's or high 10's with it after I install a new crate engine I'm about to order. I'm going naturally aspirated with a carb for now but I've always liked the look of a supercharger injector poking up through the hood, so you can never tell what else I might do with it. It's nice to be retired and have the time and some money to spend on my hobby!
Suffice it to say that OB is going down to the roundman next year!!!

 

NICE! you definetly did it right by making it a capable racer first....

 

thanks, I've been a drag racing fan for 30 years now and have seen way too many guys go nuts with the engine first and then proceed to break things behind it and tear the car all up and I didn't want to go through that exercise myself. Besides all that, I wanted to see just what the stock engine could do with a good racing suspension and drivetrain behind it first before I started heavy mods to it.

 

what kinda crate motor you wanna go with?

 

oh man i cant wait to see what your gonna build up.