Historic Trans Am bits

[Rick Parker]

Last weekend was the Historic Races at Sears Point. Great event, several Cobras of both the 289 & 427 varient. Huge presence of the Historic Trans Am cars and some from the 90's too, 4cyl Turboed Mercur XR4TI (550 HP) (remember Pete Halsmer) and the red Whistler sponsered Mustang that Robbie Gordon drove, and Tom Gloys cars were there too. Historic Stock Cars were in attendance also. Interesting to see the technology and how it evolved through the years from a 1963 Chevy Biscayne which looked stark naked inside, to the later cars including a 72 Dodge Charger with a ground pounding 426 Hemi.
One of the real cool events during the lunch hour was put on Saturday during the lunch hour by group of the people (drivers/ crew etc) associated with the Historic Trans Am group that held a brief seminar which was exclusively Ford oriented. Headed by Mike Eddy, Craig Conley and others, they brought examples of experimental and historic engine parts consisting of Intake Manifolds and Tunnel Port cylinder heads from the ill fated '68 season. Hand made sand cast dual Dominator 4BBls carbs and manifolds for Boss 302 heads that required a special offset distributor. There was also an inline 4BBL Autolite carb & manifold that were explained to have drivability problems caused by the pivot for the floats being side hung which caused the carb to work well on the dyno but in a Road Race application very poorly. It was also pointed out that the only way Ford could have continued to used this was to make the carb available to Chevy & Dodge & AMC too. There was also an actual Boss 302 engine with race history (on a rolling edisplay stand) that had a very unique oil pump setup with 2 pickups and what looked like a third pickup but was explained to be an aereator to purge air from the oiling system and the was also a matching pan. This system had been developed by Bud Moore. It utilized an additional aluminum 2" section added (sourced from a C600 Ford truck (with FE engine) that carried a second set of gears. The information shared by the moderators was very intriguing. I could have sat there all afternoon. Best part of the event IMO