Tom Suit writes:
>>>>>>>>>>At any rate, there isn't much wrong with the 351 Cleveland that
comes in the car in the first place. The car is already fast
and there is still plenty of performance potential in the engine
if you want to make it faster.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Amen! Here is one case where the original engine is 'merican iron. Substituting
something exotic would be 1)expensive to buy, 2)expensive to maintain and 3)
severely depreciate the value of the car. I feel it's equally blasphemous to
put a chevy 350 in place of a Jaguar V12 and vice-versa for a Pantera. As for
hopping them up, A member of Lotus LTD also owns a Pantera that has nitrous-
oxide injection. He was quoting around 600 hp. (That should be powerful enough
and if you blow it up "real good", a 351C would be much more economical to
replace than you average Italian engine).
On the other side of originality, I hear most Pantera owners are more of the
"hot-rodder" type, than exotic-pedigree enthusiast. There was an article to this
effect in Autoweek- some time back. (Don't be suprised to see a cowboy climb out
of one with a rhinestone paint job -sporting bull horns! yuchh! :-(
-Bob T.
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