This the story about my eggshell white '66 7 Litre Galaxie hardtop with a black vinyl roof that I owned from the Summer of '69 until the Spring of '72 when I pulled the drive train and put it in a '66 Falcon.   (And that's another long story.)   This happened in Albuquerque, NM.

This car had the standard 428 with 430 CFM Autolite 4100 carburetor, cast iron intake manifold, crummy log exhaust manifolds, close ratio toploader and 3.25 open rear axle.   Ran good but I wanted more.   Hooker headers, Hurst Competition Plus shifter and a Hurst Linelock were the first set of changes and I was ready for in I/Stock. I discovered that I was running against some pretty decent cars at the local track.

But the next class down had almost no one in it.   All I had to do to change my class was convert to the Police Interceptor Engine.   And New Mexico had used those engines in their Highway Patrol cars and the parts were cheap in the junk yards.   So off came the cast iron manifold and on went the aluminum PI manifold and matching 470 CFM Autolite carburetor.   The PI cam and lifters I bought new (and it was the same as the one used in single 4 BBL 427s with .500 lift and 306 duration).   I had picked up the adjustable rocker arms required by the solid lifter cam when I got the manifold.

I found that I should have asked some questions. H/Stock was owned by a '61 Corvette with two 4 BBLs on a 283 for 280 HP.   And he was very, very good.   Ran within a ¾ of a second of the national record.   And trailered his car in.   I drove mine to work every day.

Oh well, it was only a fancy Chitty.   He was running the legal Firestone "Wrinkle Wall" cheater slicks so I got a set.   Then I picked up some 4.57 gears with Traction lock.   And I blueprinted my engine over the winter. (The heads were way off. They had 9.45 to 9.70 compression and I made them all 10.5:1 and within 0.2 cc of each other. I also got a Schieffer (sp?) clutch assembly and added dual points with a MSD 2.

Then Steve, the owner of Steve's Guaranteed Auto Parts - a local "Hot Rod Parts House", who disliked the Vette guy, took me under his wing and I learned about off the line traction, adding collector extensions, and a bunch of other things.   90/10 front shocks, 6.00x16 inch front tires for a better roll out, a pinion snubber and Airlifts.   Disconnected the sway bar for better off the line front end lift.   And went on a rolling weight reduction.   We pulled my front brake rotors and drilled fifty or sixty holes to lighten them.   Used a hole saw to drill five 2 inch holes in the hubs of the front wheels.   Took off the power steering belt and used a turkey baster to drain the pump so it didn't dump fluid as I wrestled the car around the track.   Removed the under the rug matting, etc.

And yes it ran 14.12 which when factored for altitude is a 12.86 from what I was told at the track at that time. And yes, I took the track record away from that small block Vette.   Dyno200 and Drag200 tells me that I should have been able to run 12.52 with my 412 HP car.   We thought at the time that I had closer to 425 HP.   Either's not bad for a stock Ford 7 Litre with a 470 CFM Autolite.