Mustang 40th Anniversary

Yeah, it looks like we arrived just in time for the ultimate birthday. Bash America's prize pony is 40 years old. Now,

guess what?

Over 3000 prize ponies from all over the planet have come to celebrate this legend that goes on and on

a

65. That has to be my favorite.

All you wanna do is ride around Sally ride,

Sally ride.

Now I was going to college in Lincoln, Nebraska and

a bunch of us got in and my buddy's old 58 Edsel

and ran down to see this thing called the Mustang.

That was 1964 when the revolution began

one that would change the American performance scene for the next four decades.

The Mustang's history is loaded with chapters of model changes, racing milestones

and modifications in garages around the world. A

lot of that history unfolds right here

up close and personal.

You see this many Mustang, I mean

for a car to have been able to do this much to the American public. Uh

It's something else, it's just something to watch happening.

Like John, most Mustang fans baby their cars, but they live to drive

and some drove hundreds of miles just to make this pony car pilgrimage.

How's this thing? Dry? It dries like a Cadillac

old Cadillac

Doug Jones has a good excuse for not driving his mock one to Nashville.

You see, he brought it from his home in Wales.

Just love the shape, love the size,

you know,

just been good

and you must love the power. This thing has a pretty stout engine. Yeah, she's got about 550 in at the moment and, uh,

hopefully gonna get a bit more next week.

This was a bargain. I found it in the farmer's field and paid 500 bucks for the car and

spent $15,000 to make it right.

Anything that was available for a 1966 Mustang is on this car.

People that drive Mustangs are die hard. Mustang people,

no doubt.

And I was amazed to find so many original owners with their cars. Well, like Larry, who drove his from Utah,

my wife didn't drive through the Pearly Gates as I've driven the hell out of both of them

all.

It's beautiful. I love the color

here in the high dollar concourse zone. Pony passion reaches a fever pitch.

These are some of the most immaculately restored Boss, three fifties,

GT five hundreds,

500 Krs. And

well, you get the picture.

This particular car is a Boss 429. So it's

on the pinnacle of horsepower, big block muscle cars.

It's for us baby boomers to relive our childhood.

That's what it's all about.

Well, this car is so rare because it's never been touched. Um,

it's an almost perfect unrestored vehicle.

The reason I bring this car and show it is so people can look at it and see

what they were. Um,

how they should be. You look at a restored car. Yeah, they look nice. They're shiny, they're pretty, you know, there aren't any blemishes on them but

that's not how they look

as you might have expected. The anniversary also has the biggest mustang swap meet around everything from valve covers to air cleaner lids and even a cover bar stool.

The restoration minded mustang guy could wheel and deal on everything from a grill

all the way back to the rear end

and just about everything in between

and while the cars are the real stars here, this awesome anniversary attracted some pretty famous car guys with strong pony connections.

It's great to come here to the 40th anniversary and, and see all the, the, the families and the, the guys and the gals that own these hot rods

that have a passion for it.

The passion for racing. Mustangs is legendary

and we'll see how they perform out on the road course when we come back.

If you're a Mustang fan, this is the only place to be this weekend.

Welcome back to Horsepower and the Mustang 40th anniversary. Well, here, as far as the eye can see are the late model Mustangs that showed up for competition

pretty solid evidence that America's only surviving pony car.

It's gonna be around for a lot more anniversaries to come

with such a die hard following for older mustangs later model power ponies and even specialty cars. It's the enthusiast to keep the history story ongoing.

Like the ones who bought and restored the cars in this rare collection of Mustangs built at the factory just to go racing. They put on the headers, the

traction aids, the slicks

and they were given to their drag teams. Uh the top uh racers in that era.

Uh the the gas Rondos, the Don Nicholson, the

Jonni

Acts

and they went to Pomona and where Ford won the Super Stock Eliminator

and they went out to beat the Chevys and the Chryslers and they did and we put them on a trailer.

Speaking of history,

there's one chapter in the Mustang book. Many performance fans would like to forget

back in the 19 seventies when gas prices soared along with insurance rates.

Ford's answer was the Mustang too.

These low powered ponies are the ultimate underdogs, but they do have a following.

They were a car for the times and uh fit and finish.

They were just excellent little of cars and nobody really gives them to do credit.

We don't talk about them.

You get the ring, you get,

you get the noses uh up in the air.

But you know, we know what we got

and

so

take it with a grain of salt and press on.

Here's the model that's getting the most attention at this event. The new 05

Callen among its fans, racing hero John Force, who's using the body style on his next funny car.

What I like about it is the look is still the same as the original Mustang, but Coyle likes it because

of the square fenders, the boxing of it, even though it's

streamlined great aerodynamics.

Now, that's only my opinion.

Well, in my opinion, the 05 will give Mustang owners and fans one more reason to look good and go fast.

What do I love about Mustangs? Well, horsepower

and for the Mustang owners that wanna put their cars and themselves to the ultimate test, there's also road racing and that's my idea of a perfect pony party.

These vintage racers are definitely the life of the party, early fastbacks, Shelby and mock ones modified for speed at cutting the corners.

You get behind me

and I'll get behind Cammy. Ok.

Do you think I should do that first turn in, in first gear or second gear?

I don't think you guys have to go to second.

The Edel Block Fun team never misses a chance to put their vintage Mustangs through the paces

in a fast growing motor sport where anybody can play vintage racing is all about having a good time and showing off the cars, you know,

but uh, and you have to watch those horns going out through the helmet because uh we call it the red haze.

Well, you know, you get blinded by the desire to pass and to go fast

and, and if you don't keep your head straight, you know, right off the track or spin whatever,

in addition to vintage racing, there was also later model competition.

John George competes in the American Iron Series, which shows a lot about driver capabilities due to the 9.5 horsepower to one pound power to weight ratio.

It's a 1989 Mustang coupe, uh 324 horsepower, 325 ft pounds of torque, which is in within the limits of the A I rules with 9.5 to 1

ratio.

Uh Other than that, it's

set to the rules and specs.

How are uh track conditions out here in Nashville today? Actually? Very good. We were really surprised we

having a blast.

This Mustang 40th anniversary was a blast for the more than 100,000 fans who showed up.

And as long as the pony faithful, keep modifying them racing, them, restoring them and showing them

the Mustang Stampede will never slow to a truck.

Hey, glad you're back and you're just in time to pick up on some baseline numbers for our LS One Camaro. Now we introduced you to our 98 Ss a couple of weeks ago

and we've just come up with a great name for it. We're gonna call it the LS gun. Now, the reason we're calling it, that is because when we're finished with it, it's gonna be a Saturday night special that you can also drive to work on Monday morning.

The first time we had it in here, we installed a new cold air kit,

a larger 75 millimeter throttle body

and a high flow cat back exhaust system.

It made 306 horsepower. Hey, that's a good number. Well, it looks like we've got the Camaro breathing a lot better with those bolt ons. But now it's time to finish our respiratory rehab with a set of headers. So we say we take a look at them while Mike gets the car up on the lift.

We're using Edelbrock tubular exhaust system that includes headers and a new head pipe that mates up to the catalytic converter in the stock location.

Now, they all feature these heavy duty FLS

for a leak free seal right here at the cylinder head. The tubes are 17 gauge 419 stainless steel with mandril bands. Of course. So we're gonna get maximum exhaust flow and a long life. By the way, you'll also be interested to know that they're smog legal in all 50 states.

Well, how's it going under here? It's going great. Now, I remember seeing you and Joe Wrestle at headers on an old 94 with the LT one you had.

Now, I know they're the same body styles, but I guarantee this LS one is gonna be a lot easier installation.

All the bolts will come off easier. If you give them a shot of penetrating oil, first, grab a cup of coffee while the oil soaks in for a few minutes, then they should spin right off.

Well, looks like Mike was right about this thing coming apart a whole lot easier.

And you can see for yourself how much better these Edelbrock headers are gonna flow than these cast iron pieces. And another benefit is that we're gonna take about 40 pounds right off the front of the car. Now, Mike, you're gonna

tips for getting those new headers into place. I sure do since we're going in from the bottom with these, what you wanna do is start the bolt closest to the front of the motor, slip the header into place and start the bolt in the rear. Now while that's hanging, that'll give you time to go ahead and trim your gasket here

and here and slide them in from above. And one more thing since we have aluminum heads on this thing, you wanna make sure to use a little bit of anise seeds on all your fasteners.

Then with the header cinch down, reinstall, the 02 sensor,

the spark plug wires

and reconnect the smog tube.

The passenger side installs basically the same except don't forget to install a factory dipstick once it's bolted up

and now to make the whole deal work, we're gonna have to cut this passenger side head pipe right here in front of the CA A converter. And then we're gonna replace it with this head pipe that comes in the kit.

And eventually though we're gonna weld it up to the cat,

you know, that was a lot easier than header installation on my LT one Camaro.

Well, now all we have left to do is check all our clearance around the pipes, reconnect the battery and hey, we're ready for another run

320.7 say 321 horse. Pretty good bump. But you know, there's still a lot of power packed away that we can free up by recalibrating the computer.

Yeah, you know, we used one of these super chip micro tuners and Joe's Mustang a while back and we really liked the results. So we had them send us one for this LS one Camaro.

Now, here's something you want to think about. If you got a 97 or a 98 model, you're gonna have to send them your VIN number and all the information on your engine because they're gonna program this thing for your specific application.

Then all you have to do is plug it into your access port,

follow the prompts and give it about 10 minutes to do its job.

Well, I'm ready to do my job too. What do you say? We rock those rollers one more time.

Whoa. 334 horsepower.

Now, that's about a 13 horsepower gain. Now, we know there's a little more left in it, but that'll have to wait until the next time we pull the trigger on the LS gun. Meanwhile, stay tuned.

Horsepower. T V's Quick Tech is brought to you by

Wyotech.

It's really amazing how the tools involved in building and repairing cars have changed over the years, especially in recent years.

For example, if your frame was bent from a crash, this universal frame measuring tool was state of the art 15 or 20 years ago.

Uh Basically what it is is a uh big erector set with a tape measure on. It

looks like what, well, show me how it works. Well, first thing we need to do is go ahead and take a length measurement.

You first have to zero a tape measure at the back bar,

then take a length measurement which tells you whether the chassis is long or short.

The next thing we're gonna do is establish a center point down the length of the vehicle we're gonna measure from the center of the vehicle

over to the holes we have in the chassis. This is gonna tell us whether our vehicle side is one way or the other.

Then you have to take measurements on top length, width and height.

And that's just to determine how much the chassis is off.

Nothing to do with straightening it out.

Like you said, Dwayne, this has worked well for 15 or 20 years, but uh technology has come a long way. Right. Most definitely. Let's go see how

and what we have over here is our new Genesis velocity system. It's our state of art system. It uses uh our

laser head and a set of mirrors. We'll show you a little bit of how that actually works.

What we do is we send a laser beam out of the center of our head. Here goes over to that mirror, comes over to the mirror on the chassis, comes back over to our mirror over here. At that point, it goes to the computer. That information is triangulated and uh tells us whether our chassis is straight or

off center.

If you do me a favor, Joe and stick that up in the chassis so we can finish our measuring. Ok. Attaches to this magnet, I guess

right there. How many of these things can you use? We can put as many as we possibly can get on here. The only thing we require it when we have is that we can get a laser beam to it. Ok.

Next, the computer screen tells us everything we want to know about this bit chassis.

Everything that we're seeing here in the blue

is all in factory specifications.

Things are seen in red

are the things that we got there bent we need to fix, let's fix it. Ok?

Now, what we're gonna do is we're gonna stretch this baby out. Uh, each one of these pulling towers here have 10 ton of pulling force,

ok?

10

to

20,000 pounds a lot.

So what we're gonna do is we're gonna pull this back out to factory specifications

and uh replace any parts that are damaged. We're gonna put it back together, go for it. Ok.

At the top of our tower, we'll see our chain begin to tighten up. We're putting tension on the chassis.

Well, there it goes back into shape.

All thanks to a 21st century tool of the automotive trade.

You know, bar hopping might be a lot of fun for some of you guys. But wheel hop, well, that can kill ETS and even damage your drive train. So Lakewood designed these bars here to help eliminate wheel hop and put some life back in your launch. Now, they actually use axle torque to lift and load the chassis and plant the rear tires while the steel sleeve nylon bushings help eliminate suspension deflection.

You can also use them to tune your suspension by changing your opinion, angle or moving your instant center. Of course, they're available for G MA and G bodies built from 1964 to 1987. And if you want to get hooked up with a set, well, they're about 100 and 40 bucks.

I don't have to tell you Ford guys, a vibrating engine can put a damper on your fun, but now professional products can put some balance back under your hood and add a little color at the same time with their sf I spec dampers. They make them out of 1045 steel alloy for strength and they use the proprietary la

bonding process for durability both in counterweights and optional hub.

A raptors let you swap them out between the engines of the same family, whether they're neutral or externally balanced.

Now, it'll help you keep your budget in balance too with prices starting at under 100 70. Well, Ford boy, I don't think I have to tell you. I think you're a little off balance too.

Well, that's it for horsepower for this week. But be sure to join us next week. We'll be back with some more good stuff. So we'll see you then.