68 ½ 428 CJ Fastback Mustang

Well I am writing this article well after the actual tour and I have still not caught my breath. This collection was astounding and the memorabilia that he has surrounding it is equally impressive.

The tour started off down in the shop looking at a couple of the works in progress. Gary had a 67 Mustang GTA fastback up on his lift so that we could see all the detail work that he had put into the underside of the car. It was obvious that he had no intentions of driving it much as it was done to the highest concourse standards. We also viewed one of the 50 68 ½ 428 CJ Fastback mustangs that was a factory drag car, a 1969 Boss 429 mustang and a 67 Shelby GT500 fastback. Those alone would normally put a smile on any of our faces I am sure. Then he took us upstairs and that’s where the drool began to flow. When we came out of the stairwell we entered 60’s Ford muscle fantasy land. Amongst the cars were 2 more Boss 427 mustangs, a 69 428SCJ Drag-Pack Mach I, a factory lightweight Galaxy and Fairlane and many others. The car that stood out to me as the most unusual was a 67 mustang convertible that was a GTA with the rare K code 289. Gary took us around the room and told us stories about each car. As if the cars were not impressive enough he also had a ton of advertising, neon signs and gas pumps. All in all I must say that Gary has put together a great collection and it is set up to display them really well.

On behalf of the club I want to extend a special thanks to Gary McKay for opening up the collection for us to view and to Jim Pinkerton for making the arrangements with Gary. We had a great turn out for this event, here’s hoping we can continue the high level of participation all summer

Dyno Event at Eric’s Automotive
Buckley, WA
May , 2011

Wow! When we first started discussing doing a dyno event, I knew it would be interesting but had no idea just how cool it would turn out to be. Only a few club members participated but we ended up with 5 cars doing dyno runs: Karl Gehlhaar in his 67 XR7, Cameron Benoit in his 67 Standard, John Benoit in Roman’s 68 Standard, Dan Urton in his 69 XR7 and me with my 70 Standard.

I was first on the dyno and was hoping to eliminate the missing and pinging in my recently rebuilt stock 11.4:1 351C 4V. Turns out that my balancer had slipped so the timing marks we were using were useless. Eric got things lined up properly and I did another pull. He determined that the carburetor was too lean and needed bigger jets and a different power valve. After switching those out, we did one last pull and all pinging and missing was gone and it was running awesome. Final numbers were 194 horsepower and 270 foot pounds of torque at the rear wheels.

Next up was Dan Urton in his 69 XR7 with a mildly modified 428 CJ. Dan was also running lean. After exchange jets and the power valve, several pulls later resulted in 269 horsepower and 350 foot pounds of torque at the rear wheels. We were treated to an extremely entertaining post-dyno test drive as Dan nearly landed himself in the ditch after leaving a pair of 50’ crooked stripes on Highway 410.
Roman had a prior commitment so John brought his car and just put it on the dyno for a baseline run. John thought it would be best to have Roman there to make decisions on tuning. On the baseline pull, Roman’s carburetor gave out at high rpm so he will follow up with tuning when he can get back out to Eric’s. I’m sure with a little extra tuning, his car will end up somewhere between Cameron’s and mine.
Next was Karl. His highly modified and recently supercharged 289 needed dyno tuning to get the supercharger dialed in perfectly. After taking the lid off the Autolite carb about 6 times, the right combination of jets was determined and Karl ended up with over 300 in both horsepower and 315 torque at the rear wheels. Pretty impressive for a 289 don’t you think?
Finally, Cameron had his turn. His 289 4V with new Spintech mufflers sounds absolutely incredible. Cameron was a bit concerned since his engine has quite a few miles on it and he didn’t want to have any problems. After a baseline pull, Eric determined his carburetor was also lean and the jets and power valve were exchanged. The final pull resulted in 178 horsepower and 258 foot pounds of torque at the rear wheels.
Eric and his staff treated us extremely well and proved themselves to be incredibly knowledgeable about tuning carbureted cars. Eric’s prices are very reasonable and he gave us a screaming deal for all the work they did. Those of you who have been playing around with getting your cars running at their peak should head to Eric’s Automotive and get on the dyno. It will be the best money you spend on your Cougar.

Event report and pictures by Jeff Bingaman

Jeff's car getting a turn

Dan Urlton's 428 CJ

Roman Benoit's '68