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Old 03-25-2015, 03:13 PM
old5.0 old5.0 is offline
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Default Re: 80's factory lightweights?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Kurt S</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I remember being in a local junkyard in the 90's and there was a row of Mustang shells. The Rouge plant was working on the paint process and these shells had several coats of paint on them as they kept cycling them through the paint booth. The yard said in no way were those cars leaving except to be crushed.
I heard of someone that worked at the Rouge and their Mustang was painted bright blue then again white. I heard that in certain light the blue popped through. </div></div>


No kidding! I knew a guy up in Omaha back then that had a body-in-white he was turning into a drag car. He mentioned that when the shell got to his shop it had a mile of paint on it.


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">There are a few floating around, some still running stock eliminator with 307's and doing very well. These cars were typically bill of sale only. Some were early 80s with updated front clips to look like newer body styles. One of them was for sale over a year ago turn key for around $25k... Rick and Jerry Ryan run one of them. Alan Warman had one, but he passed away a while back, and I think the car got caught in a shop fire as well. Some info on them here...

http://classracer.com/classforum/showthread.php?t=38667</div></div>

Awesome! Thanks for posting. Some interesting stuff over on classracer, but now I'm hooked. I've got to find out more about these.


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">In the mid 1980's CPC Norwood Senior Management was directly involved in taking orders and building units intended for racing. The factory guys also provided a degree of track support as well. This image shows members of the Norwood Management team with the first of the June 1986 1LE units right after an IROC-Z 1LE win. Final CPC Norwood Plant Manager Herb Stone is on the Left of the car driver holding the trophy. I will ask to see if there was any known deviation within plant as to the build of the race units.</div></div>

That would be great, thanks. I'm very interested to find out the answer to that question.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I worked at a Chevy dealer as a lot attendant in 1993 while in my last year of college. Some guy traded a dark blue 5.0 LX Notch with a light blue interior on a new LT1 Z28. Car was odd in that it had no A/C, roll-up windows, cheap vinyl interior. It was an AOD car.

At the time, I had a '70 Nova with a mild 350 that ran high-14s. My Nova could easily take most stock loaded-up GTs when street racing (not that I condone that sort of thing). wink

I got to drive this stripped LX around a bit - that SOB would RUN! Felt a lot faster than my Nova. It had to be super light compared to the typical 5.0.
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People tend to lump all 80's cars into one group, Mustangs included, and so one 5.0 Mustang is exactly the same as every other 5.0 Mustang. In fact, there's a lot of variation from year to year, and even between same-model-year cars.

Using 1987 as an example, the difference between a loaded GT with A/C, auto and 2.73's and a stripper 5-speed, 3.08 coupe is easily a full second plus and 10 mph in the quarter.

To put that into perspective, a stock EFI 5.0 with A/C and auto will put down around 185 horsepower to the wheels, which lines up well with the 225 flywheel horsepower rating, while the exact same car with the stick and minus A/C will put down around 210-215 RWHP. In fact, I've seen a few 87 sd cars put down the full 225 rating to the tires, which would rate somewhere around 260-270 flywheel horsepower. Add in the 2-300 pound weight savings, and it's easy to see why the no-option coupe feels much faster than the typical street cruiser GT: because it is! [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/burnout.gif[/img]
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