[DeTomaso] Greater St. Louis Area Pantera Gathering

[Daniel C Jones]

Recently I've been gathering contact info for local (St. Louis)
area Detomaso owners.  I've been able to make contact with about
10 owners so far, so I decided to set up a meet and greet at my
new place this past Saturday.  The weather forecast all week was
dry and 70 degrees but come Saturday morning, it was overcast.
As soon as the rain started falling, the phone started ringing with
cancellations.  I began to wonder if the event was going to be
a wash out when Mike and Teresa McDougal showed up from Illinois,
followed by Jerry Walls and his wife and Mike Grillot.  Mike
Grillot is finishing up his Pantera's restoration and trailered
his car from Springfield, MO. (3 1/2+ hours away).  Kelly Coffield
had also driven in Friday night from Davenport, Iowa so we declared
critical mass and fired up the grill.  Counting my red Pantera
that was hiding down in the shop, we had five Panteras on the
premises.  The new place has plenty of indoor parking, so we stashed
them inside until the rain quit, then pulled them out for a few
photos.  I've posted some of them here:

 http://www.bacomatic.org/gallery2/v/hidden/dan/dan-cars/Local_Pantera_Gatherings/

Kelly Coffield brought one of his independent runner EFI
systems for display:

 http://www.bacomatic.org/gallery2/v/hidden/dan/dan-cars/Local_Pantera_Gatherings/table_display.JPG.html

Kelly makes these to fit a variety of 351 Cleveland-based heads
(4V, A3, B351, C302) in 9.2" and 9.5" deck heights, with or
without an integral thermostat housing.  The one pictured is
destined for my red Pantera.  Kelly does a really nice job on
these.  I'll post some more detail pictures of the injection
set-up when I get the chance.  Also on display was why you want
to replace the stock Ford 351C valves:

 http://www.bacomatic.org/gallery2/v/hidden/dan/dan-cars/album04/album16/351c_valve_damage_2a.jpg.html

That was what killed my very first 351C rebuild.  The head
of the exhaust valve popped off the stem, bounced around in
the chamber until it shattered the cast flat top piston.
The rod then punch a hole through the block.  I pulled the
head of the valve out of my exhaust header.  Not good. BTW,
one of the guys in the local Ford club had this happen to
his 351C twice before he wised up and switched to one piece
valves.  The owner of the grabber blue Pantera in the photos,
Mike McDougal, had one crack across the face but luckily
caught it in time when the engine started idling rough.

Also on the table was an example of the Ford Motorsport C302B
high port aluminum Cleveland head (on the far left), as well
as an wide port A3 head with matching A331 intake manifold
(on the far right).  The shiny part in the back is a rear
Pantera upright, CNC milled out of a chunk of billet aluminum.

Jerry Walls brought along an example of what happens to a TRW
L2379F forged flat top piston after too many 250HP hits of nitrous:

 http://www.bacomatic.org/gallery2/v/hidden/dan/dan-cars/Local_Pantera_Gatherings/L2379F_with_nitrous.JPG.html

When Jerry disassembled his engine, 6 of the 8 pistons had
detached skirts like this one.  Amazingly enough, the cylinder
walls kept the skirts in place and he said the engine wasn't
making a racket.  If you look closely at the bottom side of
the pistons, you can see the skirts cracked along the sharp
edge stress risers.  We searched through my parts stash until
the oil pump pick up for my Aviad Pantera oil pan was found.
Jerry borrowed my pan a few months back to duplicate it for
his new C302B-headed 408C.  Jerry graciously had a second set
of baffles made in stainless steel and is going to weld up a
spare pan for me to be used on one of the engines destined
for the 351C dyno project.   Kelly also left me with some neat
351C parts for the dyno, including a Bud Moore Maxi-Plenum.
As time permits, I'll post pictures of each dyno project part.

Dan Jones

"We support local area Detomaso owners, even if they aren't
from around here"