Wow, how did I miss this thread before?
My first car was a '68 AMX with a 390 & the "Go Pack" option, plus a vertical-gate Hurst shifter. With a posi, decent horsepower, and a 97 inch wheelbase, it was a great first car to learn how not to drive... Somewhere i have some pictures of it.
Next car was a '79 Pontiac Sunbird wagon with a factory Buick 231 V6. I won a couple of track championships with it racing in Street bracket.
Next up was a '73 Pontiac Firebird that I built into a T/A clone. Built a low-compression '78 400 for it, eventually had it running 13.50's while getting 18 mpg on the highway. It got rear-ended and totalled by an unlicensed & uninsured driver.
This car I built in 1984 as a fast daily driver. It's a 1974 Vega with a 350 & TH350 & 9" Ford rear. Home-made subframe connectors & adjustable slapper bar rear suspension. Best ET of 11.51 @ 117 mph, 1.55 60' time. Reassembled it last year and raced it until I rebuilt the big block Vega below.
Also have a '73 Chevy Blazer, 3" lift on 33" tires, with the 400 Pontiac from the Firebird mentioned above. It served as a tow rig for many years. Now it sits in my backyard and is frequently used to move trailers around the yard.
Here's a car I bought originally in 1985, still have it. It's a 1973 Pontiac T/A 455. On the "original" engine (which turned out to be a rebuilt one which had all the proper components but did not have a numbers-matching block), I got it down to a 13.15 @ 103 mph. When I cracked one of the stock cast pistons, I decided to shoot for a 12 second timeslip and built up a numbers-matching motor but with more camshaft and torque converter. Didn't realize how hard the new cam would be on valvesprings, learned what valve float sounds like. Put in new springs and promptly broke the rearend (to the point all the broken parts were seized up in it). Been sitting ever since.
Here's an original 21+ year-old photo of my other toy, a tube-chassis Vega with a 481" BBC. Just finished updating the chassis and building the new motor, running high 5.90's @ 114-115 in the 1/8th. Should dip into the 5.80's or 5.70's as soon as the weather cools down and the traction returns.
Regards,
Michael Pliska