Go Mifune's Highs and Lows
It's snowing and I'm bored so I thought I'd torture you with a few of my past cars.
The first is my 1971 Mustang fastback (yes I'm old) and this is the only picture I have of it. Sorry for the lousy cell phone pic. Oh right, this was before cell phones.
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351 Cleveland with auto transmission
650 Holly spread bore carb
Edelbrock aluminum manifold
Headers-unknown brand
Good-
Not too slow. Beat several cars it shouldn't have
Bad-
Too big, needed better gearing and a stick would have been nice
Getting destroyed by a 390 4 speed Cougar the first day I drove it to school
What's with those hood pins?
Next is the car that replaced it. My wife said we needed something more economical.:smt044
1978 Chevy Monza
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Bought it new and paid something like $3200 for it
3.2 v6, automatic
Headers-I installed them thinking it might help. it didn't
Good-
Nothing I can think of
Bad-
90HP at the crank, Camel color with beige interior. You could get a 305 V8 in these but wouldn't pass emissions in Cali so they got the 350 V8.
Traded the Monza for this used 1978 Mustang II Mach 1. I think it had 34k miles on it at the time.
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302 V8 4 speed stick
Holly 4 barrel
Aluminum intake manifold
Headers
Universally hated now but I kind of liked it. Notice the T-tops! With mods and undersized tires the acceleration wasn't TOO bad. Felt like an STi next to the Monza. I learned to drive stick on it driving home from the dealer. Drove it for a couple of years but started having issues so traded it.
1981 Plymouth champ
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Bought new. Traded Mustang in on it. Twin stick so 4 speed plus high and low range. Easy 40 mpg.
1970 1/2 Trans Am
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350 automatic-Wrong! These only came with 400 cubic inches. Most likely the 335 HP Ram Air III. My memory of things 30 years ago must be slipping.
Mostly stock
Good-
PO had installed some ridiculous rear end gear so much faster acceleration than the '71 Mustang
Actually everything was better than the Mustang which is why I would have one of these again
Bad-
Bought it with "new paint" which in Illinois means "over lots of Bondo and rust."
Looked fantastic when bought but slowly rusted to death
That's it for now.
Part 2-What was I thinking?
Bradley GT
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Traded in a perfectly functional car for this. Could get to 60 in about 20 seconds. I actually drove this an entire Chicago winter. If you're thinking I must have froze to death, you would be correct. The next spring I found a 1600 engine that had been rebuilt by some off road racer. IIRC, I put a Delorto carb on it and some very nice stainless headers. This improved the acceleration tremendously and could easily spin the tires. First car I ever spun thanks to rear swing axels. Quite a surprise for some guy in a Ford but managed to miss hitting anything.
Unfortunately, I got this weird idea to modify the car beyond what anyone would consider sane. Having almost no mechanical aptitude or body working skills didn't slow me down in the least. I was going to have a sports racer! Got pretty far along before a weird allergic reaction forced me to sell the whole thing for parts. Good thing too as the finished car would most likely have been the death of me.
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Part 3-Things are Looking Up
1983 VW GTi 5-speed. Bought new for $9100. This would have been great in Colorado but still living in Illinois -which has not one curve- it kinda sucked. And yes, I was dead sexy.:cheese: Unfortunately it was totaled within the year.
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And bought this new '85 Toyota pickup. Not one option but was a stick.
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My 1982 RX-7 GSL 5-speed; Maya Gold Metallic. Bought used but only about 40k miles. Racing beat header, muffler, intake and heat shield with Holley carb.
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Got some BF Goodrich DOT race tires, a roll bar and tracked it (what's called high speed driving events now) for three seasons at Blackhawk Farms Raceway in Beloit WI
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This Mustang was my main competition and he was faster but I showed up more often so won the championship and got a small check from BF Goodrich. The 911 behind was a friend of mine. Hanging around the track, I was lucky to get to ride along in a full race corvette and a '73 Porsche 911RSR vintage racer.
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During these years the RX-7 would be parked for the winter so I would buy $400 beaters, drive them for five months and sell them for about the same. Had a '72 Datsun wagon, '76 Plymouth wagon, '73 Volvo DL wagon and this '76? Malibu SS. Luckily only one or two things would break on each car. For the Chevy it was the radiator.
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Eventually sold the RX-7 and got this '86 Shelby Charger. All stock but I tracked this one a few times. IIRC this did slower lap times than the RX-7 and switching to FWD was a learning curve. This was my DD when we moved to Colorado. My other car at the time, the one I'm still kicking myself about will be shown in Part four.
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Part 4-The One That Got Away
’67 Triumph TR-4A IRS
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350 small block Chevy
Corvette Ram Horn exhaust manifolds
Edelbrock 4 barrel
Edelbrock Performer intake manifold
Accel spark plug wires
Dual exhaust with Supertrapp mufflers
Muncie M21 4 speed
Magnesium racing wheels
Fiberglass front and rear fenders
Rebuilt suspension
Trunk mounted battery
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After the Bradley GT disaster, I’m not sure how this slipped past my wife.
I bought it off of a woman who didn’t know much about it. She told me it had been built for drag racing. Although it was an Illinois car, it most likely was never driven in winter so no rust. It could have used a mild restoration but looked great from ten feet.
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Hardest accelerating car I’ve owned. Most people thought it was a four cylinder (or didn’t care) so not many challenged me; although the occasional Mustang, Camaro or Firebird got a surprise.
Absolutely reliable and stayed that way for the six or seven years I had it. Considering all that could be wrong about a conversion like this, my Triumph was almost perfect. The Muncie in this is still my favorite transmission. It had this wonderful mechanical feel to the shifts.
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Favorite memory-Planning on moving to Colorado, I drove it from Chicago suburbs to Golden Colorado using only back roads. It was early September and never had to put the top up.
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Honorable mention- pulling away from a stop sign in third gear and not even knowing it until going to shift.
Eventually I decided I had to have the car coming up in part 5 so sold this to the owner of a Triumph repair shop in Littleton Colorado. He called me a few weeks later to tell me that he had "beaten the crap" out of a 4 speed 396 Chevelle SS.
I still miss it and it remains my favorite car. I couldn't afford to get it back but will try to find it on the usual sites from time to time. Seems to have vanished.
Part 5- Porcupines Have their Pricks on the Outside.
The Shelby Charger got traded in on this '86 CRX-Si. So much fun to drive. This one stayed stock and became my rear-round daily driver for a couple of years.
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Then one day at work we got a new manager. He soon found out that I was the sucker car freak at the dealership so he drove up right outside my window with this; apparently for sale. I was immediately twelve years old.
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1981 911SC with 85k miles and 15" Cookie Cutter wheels. It would have been a crime to pass on this so I sold the CRX to a local who was planning to road race it. The TR-4 was harder to part with as it really was my favorite. The Triumph mechanic I was using quickly bought it and so I had about half down.
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Soon it was lowered to European specs with larger torsion bars and 16" Fuchs. This picture was taken at Stapleton Airport. They had closed it down and for one summer it became a track for local clubs. I have two memories there. The first was following a 968 driven by a first timer with a driving instructor riding shotgun. Holding me up for several laps, I knew both of them could see me in the mirrors but wouldn't wave me by. Finally I drafted it down the straight doing probably 125. Still no wave. At the last moment it popped into my head how much bigger the 968's brakes were. Missed it by that much (holding fingers close together).
My second dose of fun was at the end of the day when on the back straight I was looking for fourth gear and found second. It left two impressive black stripes on the track and me feeling a bit down. Luckily it didn't hurt a thing other than ending my weekend.
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This (above)was taken at Second Creek Raceway which is now some crap subdivision. This was a practice only weekend. The clubs do this but not sure why.
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This is again at Second Creek and I'm actually passing someone!
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This is where things got serious (or goofy) depending but soon it had an SS exhaust. The horsepower increase from this one mod was huge. Then I found an RS interior kit that had lightweight carpet and door panels. 911 interior parts are heavy so this plus ditching the rear seat, Corbeau racing seats along with the a/c delete dropped the weight by 150 pounds. The orange thing on the door panel is an RS door pull. Then I found an early 930 tail and had it paint matched.
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After several years we were entering an economic downturn and I was looking at a big brake kit and better tires. I finally decided to be an adult and sell it. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Never be an adult.
Well it got sold to this guy. He had moved from Australia and brought along a 914 race car. He wanted back into a 911 so it all worked out....for him. The Bentley was his daily driver.
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So this is what's left. Lap times from my last track day; June of 2000. I'm the one on top (my name isn't really Go Mifune) and the other cars were also 911SCs or newer Carreras.
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Sorry this post is such a long vanity project but I'm really writing this for myself, if I'm honest. Two things about a 911. First most people will ignore or sneer at you. Hence the title of this post. "What's the difference between a Porsche and a porcupine? The porcupine has it's pricks on the outside." Second, I bet if blindfolded, I could pick out a just driven 911 in a parking garage by it's smell. I miss that smell.
