CHRISTOPHER MCKITTERICK

1972 Ford LTD
Resto-Rod Project

HERE'S ONE of the two main reasons we bought this car: it contains an already hopped-up Ford 400M engine. The builder of the engine (a kid whose father is a long-time hot-rodder) wanted to go fast for cheap, so he picked this, the biggest small-block engine Ford ever made.

Oh, I forgot the REAL reason we bought the car, and why the engine was so appealing: The seller uploaded a few sound files of the engine running. Pure muslecar-era "rumpity-rump." Kij coo'd and oooh'd!

Stock, this lump made a pitiful 200-or-so horsepower. 1972 was the beginning of the Smog Era, in which manufacturers needed to motivate very heavy machines (this car weighs nearly 4000 pounds) without using high-octane gasoline (suddenly no longer available). So they made big-displacement engines that could put out barely enough torque to actually move the car even if they didn't have the horsepower to move them very fast. The stock cam Ford used on this engine hardly had any lumps to open the valves. Saves gas, prevents detonation with crap gasoline.

- Leap ahead 30 years and add one teen-aged rodder... -

The engine now produces (I'm estimating) about 300 horsepower. "How?" you ask. Well, he dropped in a Crane X-Treme Energy 270 camshaft (compare that to the stock cam, which barely had bumps), with the appropriate lifters, timing chain, and springs. Of course, the stock 2-barrel intake couldn't feed the engine with that much cam, so he added a Weiand 4-barrel aluminum intake manifold and a 600cfm Edelbrock 4-barrel carb. To light this off, he added a high-energy distributor and wires. The stock exhaust manifolds feed into a (sort of) dual exhaust system that barely has mufflers.

"R-r-r-raaaap!" What a lovely exhaust roar!

On to my engine plans....