Misfit41- Read my post above? Weeeeeellllll. Guess what? I totally agree with everything YOU posted above. I can easily add some more horror storys too. Some of my Ford compitition buddys too, and that includes a couple of local Ford bigtime names.
What you are missing is a couple of important things though. And they make all the difference.
1st- 385's got the basic designs right from the get go. They had problems, but they essentially got it about right the first time out.
2nd- They came out late in the muscle car era and didn't have developement time put into them in the hot rod industry, only at Ford.
So todays 385's have benifited from some 35 years of hot rod hare-e-caree development and survived, and won. MUCH MORE than their share.
As for me, I can't argue with that practical experience, as a very old, retired, warmed over, worn out, semi experienced, hillbilly hot rodder.
cobrashock, aka 426 hemi Ron
P.S. - That's also what happened to the 426 hemi, it fell from grace and lost development time in the 80's, and it too came back from the dead.
PPS- I also owned several BB Corvettes from 66 to 73. So I've wrenched a few Rats or two in my time too. So I'm really not fickle either.
