Why is the Ford-Edsel 390 so weak?

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TehMac

TehMac

Diamond Member
Aug 18, 2006
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speaking of chassis my friend wants to build a '67 vette and bought a number of stingray restoration books. He lent them to me and the attention to detail is mind boggling.

Anyway there are some good pics of the chassis and it seems like it's some kind of lower frame--I wouldn't describe it as unibody at all, so I think he should definitely build some kind of unibody chassis.

He also wants to install the aluminum L79 327 block that produces ~350 hp. I think he should get new heads he could produce 420 easy and the car would still be streetable.
 
The Boston Dangler

The Boston Dangler

Lifer
Mar 10, 2005
14,647
2
0
so, why call it a mustang at that point? because the body silhouette complies with the sanctioning body's template labeled "mustang"? complete nonsense. i'm not saying it's not impressive, or cool, or fast, but it certainly ain't no mustang.
 
TehMac

TehMac

Diamond Member
Aug 18, 2006
9,976
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The Boston Dangler said:
so, why call it a mustang at that point? because the body silhouette complies with the sanctioning body's template labeled "mustang"? complete nonsense. i'm not saying it's not impressive, or cool, or fast, but it certainly ain't no mustang.
Click to expand...

If you're going to base a car on just the chassis, then most cars will have very similar names. ;)

The point is that if I were to use a pontiac solstice's chassis, I'd stretch out for the Mustang shell and it'd add strength and durability that they could not machine 50 years ago. Everything else would likely be from Ford, the IRS, the IFS etc, and the engine of course would be as well.
 
Demon-Xanth

Demon-Xanth

Lifer
Feb 15, 2000
20,551
2
81
One big factor in building a unibody chassis is that they usually use stamped shapes welded together. Stamp tooling is very very prohibitively expensive on small volumes. When you make 100,000 cars, the cost becomes very cheap since the labor per car drops way down. By comparison, the tooling on a tube frame car is very cheap, but the labor costs are high. Unibody makes sense for high volume, tube frame for low volume.

If you were to make a unibody-67 Corvette, which would be rather awkward since you'd also have to completely re-do the body panels to fit the new manufacturing setup, you'd end up having to pay so much for the tooling and such you'd be better off re-skinning a C6 to look like a '67.
 
TehMac

TehMac

Diamond Member
Aug 18, 2006
9,976
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71
Demon-Xanth said:
If you were to make a unibody-67 Corvette, which would be rather awkward since you'd also have to completely re-do the body panels to fit the new manufacturing setup, you'd end up having to pay so much for the tooling and such you'd be better off re-skinning a C6 to look like a '67.
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Yea, he might do that--I'm not exactly sure what his plans are. I'm not sure if he plans on building a vette ground up or what.

How could he make that tube frame perform better?
 
Demon-Xanth

Demon-Xanth

Lifer
Feb 15, 2000
20,551
2
81
Tube frame platforms are generally very very good. I would venture to say that most race cars built from the ground up are tube frame, with the one thing that would make me wrong being fiberglass or carbon fiber monocoque cars. You don't see them much on the street because they are very stiff, which can make a hard ride, often involve climbing over tubes to get in, and most importantly are insanely expensive to produce as a large volume manufacturing standpoint.

Making a one off tube frame car isn't too bad of a route. You can even buy them for that year.
http://www.corvettefever.com/featuredvehicles/corp_0911_1967_chevrolet_corvette/page2.html
http://www.sriiimotorsports.com/196382corvette.html
(granted these examples aren't the best for rigidity, they're likely much better than stock)
 
TehMac

TehMac

Diamond Member
Aug 18, 2006
9,976
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71
Demon-Xanth said:
Tube frame platforms are generally very very good. I would venture to say that most race cars built from the ground up are tube frame, with the one thing that would make me wrong being fiberglass or carbon fiber monocoque cars. You don't see them much on the street because they are very stiff, which can make a hard ride, often involve climbing over tubes to get in, and most importantly are insanely expensive to produce as a large volume manufacturing standpoint.

Making a one off tube frame car isn't too bad of a route. You can even buy them for that year.
http://www.corvettefever.com/featuredvehicles/corp_0911_1967_chevrolet_corvette/page2.html
http://www.sriiimotorsports.com/196382corvette.html
(granted these examples aren't the best for rigidity, they're likely much better than stock)
Click to expand...

very interesting. And very very cool. He's definitely going to be building a coupe, he thinks convertibles are for posers haha.
 
H

Howard

Lifer
Oct 14, 1999
47,982
11
81
Demon-Xanth said:
Tube frame platforms are generally very very good. I would venture to say that most race cars built from the ground up are tube frame, with the one thing that would make me wrong being fiberglass or carbon fiber monocoque cars. You don't see them much on the street because they are very stiff, which can make a hard ride, often involve climbing over tubes to get in, and most importantly are insanely expensive to produce as a large volume manufacturing standpoint.

Making a one off tube frame car isn't too bad of a route. You can even buy them for that year.
http://www.corvettefever.com/featuredvehicles/corp_0911_1967_chevrolet_corvette/page2.html
http://www.sriiimotorsports.com/196382corvette.html
(granted these examples aren't the best for rigidity, they're likely much better than stock)
Click to expand...
I think it's the cost and packaging concerns rather than those of ride NVH. The latter comes from the lack of flexible couplings, subframes, etc. because a frame that bends and twists isn't going to do much to help the ride.
 
TehMac

TehMac

Diamond Member
Aug 18, 2006
9,976
3
71
Holy shit. An 88 mm turbo? That's ridiculous and just sheer badass.
 
TehMac

TehMac

Diamond Member
Aug 18, 2006
9,976
3
71
Btw, the friend building the Vette wants to put the L79 aluminum block 327 in with 350 hp. I am tempted to use my new knowledge learned on carcraft and AT and advise him to buy some new GM performance cylinder heads so he'll be able to up the ante on his car by about 90 horses or so.

Good advice?
 
B

BUTCH1

Lifer
Jul 15, 2000
20,433
1,769
126
Speaking of old 390's, there is a really old woman in my neighborhood who drives a 1969 LTD 2 door w/ a 390 in it. All she ever does is go to the vegetable market down the street with it, it's in immaculate condition (out side of the canary yellow color), I get so jealous when I see her with that car!..
 
TehMac

TehMac

Diamond Member
Aug 18, 2006
9,976
3
71
BUTCH1 said:
Speaking of old 390's, there is a really old woman in my neighborhood who drives a 1969 LTD 2 door w/ a 390 in it. All she ever does is go to the vegetable market down the street with it, it's in immaculate condition (out side of the canary yellow color), I get so jealous when I see her with that car!..
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I'd suggest you offer to purchase it from her, but she probably thinks its worth 8 million because she watches Barrett Jackson or some shit. The absolute ignorance and tight fistedness some people can exhibit is pretty frustrating.

On the other hand, there are several good folks down in Texas I have been reading about in Muscle Car Review who have junkyards of old muscle cars and will basically give them away if an enthusiast comes along and proves his mettle.
 
B

BUTCH1

Lifer
Jul 15, 2000
20,433
1,769
126
TehMac said:
I'd suggest you offer to purchase it from her, but she probably thinks its worth 8 million because she watches Barrett Jackson or some shit. The absolute ignorance and tight fistedness some people can exhibit is pretty frustrating.

On the other hand, there are several good folks down in Texas I have been reading about in Muscle Car Review who have junkyards of old muscle cars and will basically give them away if an enthusiast comes along and proves his mettle.
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I'd love to have it but judging from the way it's kept I think she bought the thing new and will prolly keep until she or it dies..
 
exdeath

exdeath

Lifer
Jan 29, 2004
13,679
10
81
Zenmervolt said:
Love, love, LOVE the sound of a turbo spooling.

ZV
Click to expand...

After spending the last couple weeks on planes I'm going to be rather unimpressed by cars for a few days :(

The sound and rush of 100,000 lbs of trust from 10 foot turbo fans going wide open on take off... drool. wwwwrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr*ignite* REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE and going 0 to 200 in a few seconds...
 
Last edited:
exdeath

exdeath

Lifer
Jan 29, 2004
13,679
10
81
TehMac said:
I'd suggest you offer to purchase it from her, but she probably thinks its worth 8 million because she watches Barrett Jackson or some shit. The absolute ignorance and tight fistedness some people can exhibit is pretty frustrating.

On the other hand, there are several good folks down in Texas I have been reading about in Muscle Car Review who have junkyards of old muscle cars and will basically give them away if an enthusiast comes along and proves his mettle.
Click to expand...

Article, I can has? Seriously.

These guys are telling Barret Jackson types to go $%@# themselves and only selling the cars to us regular people who will build and drive them? That is so freakin bad ass.
 
TehMac

TehMac

Diamond Member
Aug 18, 2006
9,976
3
71
exdeath said:
Article, I can has? Seriously.

These guys are telling Barret Jackson types to go $%@# themselves and only selling the cars to us regular people who will build and drive them? That is so freakin bad ass.
Click to expand...

Muscle Car Review is one of the more...primitive of the car magazines. They don't have a website, hell they don't even have their own email address, but let me get you the article. If you live around Texas, it's a serious jack pot. Not as good as a barn find, but still pretty epic.


Btw, Muscle Car Mag is one of my favorites because unlike hot rod they don't show a lot of cars with ridiculous engines that never get driven or cars with throttle bodies poking through the hood. A lot of the time it's just a restoration or clone that actually adheres to the standards of manufacture at the time. Not very helpful if you want to make a modern car with the shell of an old one, but very entertaining and very inspiring. There's a lot of very cool stuff, and they cover a lot of car meets and shows to see what people have done to their creations.

This is from the December Issue:
http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb289/teh_Mac/MC5.jpg
http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb289/teh_Mac/MC6.jpg
January 2010 Issue:
http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb289/teh_Mac/MC1.jpg
http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb289/teh_Mac/MC2.jpg
http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb289/teh_Mac/MC3.jpg
http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb289/teh_Mac/MC4.jpg
 
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