SAAC Forum

Quote from: kram350 on March 01, 2024, 09:02:01 PMAlso, don't understand why Ford could not use fastback Mustangs in the early Trans Am series, as they were production four seaters? Ford did so in 1969.

I had heard at the time it had to do with the rear side windows. These were sedans and as such needed a rear window that the Fastbacks - until 1969 - did not have. It would take a deep dive in the FIA paperwork to find the original requirements (not the papers the manufactures sent in those just say they met the rules). I haven't been able to find those early papers online.

Quote from: Vernon Estes on March 01, 2024, 02:01:01 PM
The Group 2 cars have always sort of been snubbed by people saying "they aren't a Shelby, they are a Mustang".

Technically true - they are a 100% built by Shelby American for Ford Motor Company. The new Trans Am series was getting good press and Ford wanted a piece of the action. TA was designed to be a manufacturers series where the car maker earned points not the driver as in SCCA club racing. The specs were developed and Ford basically told Shelby to build and sell the cars. Shelby was not involved in the actual racing at that time. Ford wanted his concentration on LeMans - they had even ordered him to park the Daytona Coupes for 1965. When the last race came around Ford saw the ink the series was getting and how close they were to winning the series they told CS to build a car and enter the last race. He did and it won giving Ford the championship and SA a new race program for 67. The 67 cars for most competitors were built at KarKraft SA was allowed to build their own cars using the KK specs. History shows who built, prepared and raced the car better.
Going back through the historic FIA database can turn up some interesting things. Ford claimed between May 1 and June 15, 1964 they had built 1,000 K code Mustangs with dual quads for Group I. How about the R Model paperwork showing the serial numbers were to begin CSX3001? I guess it also should have been called a T350 since it was homligated as a Touring car not a Grand Touring car.........

Quote from: Bob Gaines on February 29, 2024, 07:22:00 PMThe group II Trans Am cars that Shelby modified also got around the restrictions . They had the same suspension modifications,same engine modifications ,same exhaust, same interior dash ,roll bar, seat modification ,gas tank,electric fuel pumps etc etc. as the GT350 race models . They were virtually identical to the R model GT350. Consequently they cost virtually the same to build. It came across like you were minimizing the Shelby built group II cars by not not mentioning those facts. If that was not the case then excuse me .

I should have been clearer they really didn't get around restrictions they were built for different classes with different rules.
Tried to fix it by adding the suspension mod applied to "production" car class. The GT350 ran in the B Production class for 2 seat sports cars. That class had to use stock suspension mounting locations. By SA being the manufacturer it allowed them to use different "stock" mounting locations. You were limited on engine mods in production classes too - to use Webers or dual quads you'd have to sell at least 100 cars with them.
Group II was a set of Touring car specs penned by the FIA. Your car had to fit into that spec and SCCA used it for AS(edan) or TA - these were "race" car classes based on production 4 seat cars. ASedan was the club series and TransAm was a pro series. Ford submitted their Group II specs using the R Model modifications SA had used.
I didn't want to seem as I was discounting them being built by SA using all the tricks and parts developed for the GT350 including the Klaus Arning (Ford's suspension engineer) lowering of the upper control arms. All the suspension tweaks (and the IRS) were developed at Ford and given to SA to use on the GT350. Arnung knew the lowered arms helped handling and the original stock location was the compromise position for production cars. The 1" drop itself was a compromise being the max drop with stock upper arms before binding the ball joint. Arning knew 1 1/4 was the optimal spot but would require an expensive rework of the upper arms to achieve it. When KarKraft issued the 67 specs the upper arms were modified and they were dropped 1 1/8". The 67 Shelby TransAm cars were built by SA to KarKraft specs. Shelby's 69 cars were built by KarKraft and loaned to Shelby Racing Company. Those cars went to Bud Moore when Shelby's Ford contract ended at the end of the 1970 season.
I don't want to discount anything SA accomplished. They were great at building competitive cars and had a lot of knowledge on detailed race car prep that didn't exist in Detroit (as can easily be seen by Ford telling them to take out SA built engines and install Ford built ones for LeMans - they all failed. The SA built TA tunnel port engine won 4th overall and 1st in class at Daytona. When Ford demanded he not touch the engines he was supplied 8 (?) failed). SA had great seat of the pants racers who could feel what a car needed and develop a fix. But they didn't have a lot time nor the computers and engineers of Ford. That expertise that Ford gave to SA allowed them to built it right the first time and hit the ground as winners. The coil spring Cobra chassis was also a Ford engineering product completely designed by Klaus Arning. As a testament to SA abilities they got a call from Ford that basically said we'd like to win this new TransAm thing. Go get a coupe and prep it for the final race at Riverside next week. Titus did 2 laps in the new car and pronounced it good. He put it on the pole in qualifying and won the 4 hour race giving Ford more points than the Dodge Dart and their first TA championship. That championship was again won by SA & Titus in 67. In 68 Ford had more control. Shelby Racing was a contractor of Ford to run the TA series and no longer had the independence SA enjoyed. After the first couple races they gave SRC Ford assembled engines and said just put them in. They were not allowed to do anything to them. One blew up in the pace lap - the on site Ford engineer accused Titus of over revving it. Titus grabbed the guy and shoved his head in the car so he could see the tattle tale was under 4,000 when the engine went.
The 16 Group II cars were homologated with the R Model parts. The 4 Group I cars SA built to leser Mustang specs - I think they were designated to be Rally cars. https://www.motortrend.com/features/1308-1966-ford-mustang-fia-group-ii-sedan/
Group II FIA paperwork - see page 3.
https://historicdb.fia.com/sites/default/files/car_attachment/1600930201/homologation_form_number_1434_group_2.pdf
Group I FIA paperwork - basically stock K Mustang
https://historicdb.fia.com/sites/default/files/car_attachment/1601083501/homologation_form_number_1330_group_t.pdf

We've been talking Mustangs here. The GT40 program was a different animal. Those Ford engineers took Eric Broadly's Lola and redesigned it how THEY thought a race car should be. It was obviously wrong and SAs racers had to fix the problems Ford had engineered in - by the seat of their pants. I think if Ford had decided to run the Lola with the 289 engines SA almost won LeMans overall with in 1964 it would have been a winner out of the box.

These cars were "Ford Mustangs" not Shelby's. SA was listed as the manufacturer of the GT-350 because he built 100+ of them as 2 seaters to run in BP class for sports cars. There was also a rule in production racing you could not  modify the suspension locations - SA being the manufacturer got around that for Ford also. The Trans American Sedan race series required 4 seaters. Since the fastback was recognized by SCCA as a 2 seater they ran the Coupe as a 4 seater. I imagine there was also a little bit of Ford marketing involved too so they could show that you could buy a cheap Coupe and go racing without the expense of a GT350.
With the recent photos of Ray Wolfe and his Hi Performance Motors sponsored notchback I'd tend to think that was also a SA Group II car as a backdoor build on an employee's personal car - similar to Pike's.
https://www.saacforum.com/index.php?topic=12548.msg105054#msg105054
https://www.saacforum.com/index.php?topic=25975.15

I'm in the same boat plus all the registries, dash plaques, snake bite ads etc. 3 HEAVY boxes. Prohibitive to ship too bulky/heavy to lug for a possible sale at a convention. Let me know how it goes. I've got no clue on value either.

The molds will sit outside and weather. In another 5 years they will end up in the trash. It's easy to create a hobby business making these parts. The most difficult/expensive part is generating the molds. It's not a lost art but very close to it. Someone needs to contact the owners of the molds and snap them up.
I have the molds for my 95 GT1/TA Mustang and get a couple calls a year to make someone a part. I sold all the ShoGun molds and chassis jig to Speedy Bill at Speedway Motors for his fiberglass museum.

In the other thread on FRP ( it seems to be locked/controlled) - There were two completely different process used to produce parts for cars. The low production pre 1968 Shelby American built cars got "hand laid" "wet" parts. There is an open one sided mold and that is sprayed with a gel coat to produce a smooth surface. On top of that glass mat is laid on by hand or sprayed on with what's called a chopper gun. With true hand laid cloth is placed over the mat and the surface is rolled to squeeze out the excess fiberglass resin. This results in an even thickness with minimal resin. The chopper gun method pulls fiberglass string off a roll into a gun where it's chopped up and sprayed out with the resin. This results in uneven surface and high resin content. Some places will add cloth over this but you don't end up with an even thickness. To make this mold you create a buck (what you want it to look like), wax it heavily, spray on tooling gelcoat (which is harder), and then lay on several coats of mat ending by creating a wood or steel stiffening framework to support the mold so the parts come out straight. Note: The original 66 side scoops used the same method as the 68 up cars.
In 1968 when Ford started building the cars with a Shelby Automotive nameplate they contracted AO Smith to manufacture and install the parts using what I'll call the Corvette method. The molds for this are very expensive. Made out of steel and 2 sided both the front and back surfaces have a mold. These are machined and polished to be as smooth as glass. Those molds are filled with a specific amount of for lack of a better description dry thermal plastic and fiberglass strands. The 2 halves are squeezed together and then baked which melts the plastic and produces a part that is very repeatable/accurate for mass production. If you had the original steel mold you could use them to produce a wet layup part but I'll wager those went into the Rouge furnaces in the late 70s.
The hood shown in the other thread would be assembled much like a steel hood with the outer skin and an inner structure glued together rather than with the edge folded over. There would be some steel either molded in or added for the hinge and latch bolts. The side scoops would be 1 piece with bosses for the fasteners molded in.

Hair - not the musical......

https://cobra-authority.com/1967-ac-cobra-427-cob6127/

Original AC Cobras w/ COB Build Codes
(COB6001–6062)

In 1963 to keep production focused on producing cars for Shelby American Inc., AC began to market and sell the Cobra in Europe. Advertisements from the time state that the Cobra was designed to meet the requirements of Shelby American Inc.

(COB 6101–6132)

AC Cars kept producing the coil-spring AC Roadster with narrow fenders and a small block Ford 289. It was built and sold in Europe until late 1969.

My neighbor up the street had a friend with a COB car. He converted it to LHD for the guy. I've got the original dash hanging on the garage wall.

Quote from: crossboss on February 26, 2024, 12:22:04 PM
Fake news. All 'test' Boss 351s were ringers. NOT production cars.

It's the same with all the "new" cars. Magazines get test cars of new models 3-4 months before the public sees them so the articles show up at the same time as the debut.
Ford probably knew they would be pulling out of TransAm at the end of the 1970 season in late 67 when they only gave Shelby a contract to run until then. In total drag races 52 weeks a year far outpaced monthly TA race attendance and there were many people spending their own money running Mustangs so it's logical they'd pull their TA money. The Mustang was following the same path that Ford did to every car line - make it bigger, heavier, plusher and away from it's initial market - at least it started with 4 seats so it didn't suffer the same death as the 55-7 Tbird. AMC was the only factory willing to spend the money in 1971 and walked away with the championship.

Quote from: rhjanes on February 27, 2024, 09:32:29 PM
Looks like a hotel limo type car.  Got washed out in a hurricane and buried.

Caption said Pontiac station wagon. Washed out in one storm brought back by the next?

Specializing in beach finds - sorry no barns there.

Quote from: S7MS427 on February 23, 2024, 01:02:48 PM
Dan, I guess I wasn't very clear in my question.  Let me restate: what was included in the cylinder block assembly?  I would assume that would be the block, main caps, and main cap bolts.

"assembly" would seem to answer your own question. It would be completely finished and ready to start down the line (or be shipped to a dealer as a part) to become a completed engine. Freeze plugs, cam bearings, all the little plugs that allowed machine work, main caps and bolts. I would assume that Ford's race teams such as SA, HM and others could get an unmachined completely bare block to complete some of their race engines. Even later Motorsport offered the NASCAR block with unfinished cylinders to the public allowing builders to control their final machining preferences.

https://www.motortrend.com/how-to/1712-all-you-need-to-know-about-the-mustang-hi-po-289-part-1/

Quote from: FL SAAC on February 22, 2024, 11:35:01 AM
Found  ! but the custodian would like to remain awe-no-knee-mouse...

The car # should be known. We don't care which owner was stupid enough to provide the car.

Probably a JC Whitney part