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October 25, 1996
Simple Parts - Exotic Power (Part 2)
This Water Box is the second in a two part series that shows that conservative, well chosen pieces can make serious power that is usually thought to require much more exotic parts.
We've been in business for over six years and from the very beginning we have always chosen and recommend mild combinations for our customers that were looking for performance gains with a daily driven vehicle.
Mario Crocenzi Jr. is one of those customers who originally wanted a mild combination for his daily driven GT. Although his car still sports many of the "Mild" parts we started with, the performance of this car is far from "mild".
Super Mario (as he is now called) came to our shop in 1992 with a yearning to go much faster than his high mileage '87 GT could muster. The car had been a daily driver that racked up plenty of miles, so the first order of business was to freshen the engine. We kept the engine standard bore and reringed the stock pistons, rebearinged it and reconditioned the rods. The stock cylinder heads were treated to some bowl work and the thermactor bump in the exhaust port was removed. Back in '92 Loc-Wire head gaskets didn't exist so we O-Ringed the heads, which has proven very reliable. We then installed stock size (1.78 & 1.45) Manley undercut s.s. valves into the factory '87 heads and swapped in a crane 2030 cam. The stock intake manifold was then Extrude Honed. After the engine was finished, it was time to give it a shot of steroids, a 10psi A-trim Vortech Supercharger filled this prescription.
Mario's car has been in and out of our shop countless times in the last four years and has been through too many different parts to list. So we'll spare everyone the sorted details and showcase the current combination the car sports.
A hand ported GT-40 lower with an out of the box GT-40 upper and 65mm T/B handle the intake chores. It still has the factory heads we described above, but they were freshened in early '96. We've never flowed the heads but a good guess would be a modest 200 to 220 cfm @ 28in on the intake and around 150cfm @ 28 in on the exhaust. These heads are just cleaned up stockers with absolutely no serious work done to them. The motor still has the crane 2030 cam and the headers are long tube 1 3/4 MACs.
The car now has a C-4 with a 4200rpm stall and 3.73 gears with a Mosier spool and C-clip eliminators. The suspension in the rear uses no traction devices except for urethane bushings in all the control arms and one air bag on the right side. The front suspension consists of Griggs tubular A-arms, coil over conversion and adjustable Koni drag struts. It also has a manual rack and electric fan. This package with MT 26 x10s has ripped off impressive 1.37 sixty foots, testament to the effectiveness of the Mustang suspension.
The fuel system is an SX pump and filter with a 1/2in line feeding Vortech fuel rails and 36lbs injectors, it still uses a 4:1 FMU. Weight with diver is 3100lbs, which is lighter than most but not as light as some, it's also a t-top car.
The Vortech is now S-trimmed and ran 10.50s and 10.40s with an eight rib belt setup. We switched to a ten rib belt setup and the car responded with a current best of 10.37 at just over 131 mph. All this is still happening with the factory heads.
We've had a lot of people argue that there is no way this car could run this well with the factory heads or without a stroker. So for those who doesn't believe that the heads are factory with stock size valves and the short block is stock, Mario and Alternative Auto have a $1000 wager offered to anyone willing to protest and force us to tear down and prove it.
We feel that this car is a great example of "Simple Parts - Exotic Power. It is record breaking in terms of the engine's simplicity and impressive ETs. Once again we want to show that cars can be fast, simple and something that the average joe can duplicate - not exotic one run wonders.
Notes:
- Mario goes to the track very frequently and has become an excellent driver with proper burn-outs and launches with out a trans brake.
- He didn't want any head gasket problems, so this year he runs only C-16 fuel in his car. Just like good insurance, it paid off, the car has run mid tens since early June and even with the stock '87 block has had no head gasket problems, and from the looks of it won't. The boost could be turned down for use with pump gas and still run high tens.
- Mario's car will be trying out the new Vortech Super Cooler which is a water to air intercooler within the next couple of weeks, so look for an update in either the Water Box or his car profile on this site very soon.
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