[DeTomaso] Chevy in & out of Panteras or Engine Psychology Today

Charles Engles cengles at cox.net
Tue Jun 16 20:09:18 EDT 2009


Dear Jack,


            You wrote:


  " Just an added note- if someone does do this swap, remember that virtually 
> ALL such swaps eventually get reversed and a nice 351C is settled back where 
> it belongs. That includes at least 10 of the dozen 454 Chevs that MIke Cook 
> did in the '80s, the ZL-1 that used to be in Weldon Brown's Pantera and a 
> host of others including Windsors going back to Clevelands."



              Why is that?     Given that the Pantera is already a hodge podge of parts and a chimera of a car;  given that the Chevy engines have the distributor in a good location for a midengine car plus other intrinsic attributes (ignoring the  miscegenation of a Chevy in a Ford car) ; and given that most of these Chevy transplants are done as well as a Cleveland installation----then why the mysterious trend to remove them and revert back to Clevelands?     I can understand the benefits of a Chevy powered Pantera.   I can't really understand the gravitation *back* to the original 351C configuration after all the cost and effort to make the Chevy change.   Do you have an understanding and some sort of psycho-social-engine-ethnic (babble) explanation for this weirdness??


                     Life is strange,  Chuck Engles

         It gets stranger when you start swapping engines...........................!!


                            


                       


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