Re: Most Under-Performing Musclecar Ever Produced?
 

1967 Shelby; look at all the parts that had to given to the the 428 to make it competive.

Re: Most Under-Performing Musclecar Ever Produced?
 

Danny, If you wanted to know what it was like ---read the book by Joe Oldham----------Muscle Car Confidential, Confessions of a muscle car test driver. Great book about test drives and magazine articles.----John

Re: Most Under-Performing Musclecar Ever Produced?
 

Jeff,
I know a little about the big-blocks.
I had an original 1969 M-Code 440 Cuda w/3.55 gears.
You had to walk-it-out off the line, until I changed the rear..
Drum brakes, manual steering, drove like a truck.
Winding roads was not its specialty, but in a straight-line:).
Thought maybe the E-Body would hook up better, with a little more mass-weight. Never had an E-Body Mopar, only A-Body cars.
From what I hear, the engine compartments are a little bigger:D
Sounds like you knew had to tweek the ignition.
Paul

Re: Most Under-Performing Musclecar Ever Produced?
 

I had a '68 Formula S (actually had two) that had a transplant 440 with the manual steering and brakes like your M code car. This was a 4-speed though. It had factory exhaust, an Offy intake w/ a Holley 800 DP and a .484" Purple Shaft (dang, remember when Purple Shaft cams were the hot thing? .474" Hemi grind, .484", .509" hydraulics then the .528", .557" and the ultimate was the .590" flat tappets). The Barracuda had a 4-speed and a Vertical-gate shifter with a metallic puck disck and there were 3.23's in the 8 3/4.
You couldn't slip the clutch off the line like you would in normal street driving. You almost had to pop the clutch at above idle and let it roll out. But if you tried to engage it slowly, the back of the car would shake so badly it sounded like you were going to pop the back window out!
Never took that car to the track but I have no doubt today that it would have gone 110 or so. Oh, and it was painted with fogged in accents like a SS/A 'Cuda of the time. Yea, kinda dorky...

Re: Most Under-Performing Musclecar Ever Produced?
 

Jeff,
Yes, Purple-Shaft through .DIRECT><CONNECTION.
Everyone had to have them.
Actually a pretty decent street/strip camshaft, even with
stock valve springs. That cam or the Street Hemi grind cam should have been a standard camshaft for the 383 Road Runners and 440 Six-Pack engines.
A 4-speed and 440 in the A-Body, the rumble from the back-end must have sounded like a John Bonham drum solo.
Thats why Mopar didn't put 4-speeds in the 69' M-Code cars.
Paul

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Re: Most Under-Performing Musclecar Ever Produced?
 

I got the "Purple Shaft" right up the ole wazoo when I joined the Army back in 1966.......lol.

Re: Most Under-Performing Musclecar Ever Produced?
 

X-Tech Man,
If memory serves correct, that would be under LBJ.
And a made-up story by McNamara
'winning over the hearts and minds of the enemy'
Hopefully that was a 3/4 cam, and not a full-race.
Remember those, 3/4 cams.
Loved it when guys came into my fathers shop and said they wanted
to put in a 3/4 cam, my father would laugh, and ask them just where do you want me to cut the cam.
Paul:)