[DeTomaso] Mike Drew has an announcement to make....

[Bjoern Flesland]

Congrats Mike,
Finding AND checking up a female car nut is not that easy...;-)
And she also being a dedicated Pantera owner! Talk about one in a million...
Cheers Bjoern




On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 8:57 PM, <MikeLDrew at aol.com> wrote:

>
> In a message dated 11/19/11 20 33 10, asajay at asajay.com writes:
>
>
> > So Mike....
> >
> > Something you'd like to tell us?
> >
>
> Oh, you must have heard!   After almost seven years, my long-dormant Shelby
> GT350 clone is about to return to the living!   A few months ago, Kirk
> Evans was kind enough to pick up my partially-completed engine from Gary
> Roys'
> house and deliver it to the hands of his pet engine builder, located in the
> very southern part of Michigan.   He took it apart to inspect it, and
> discovered that the previous engine builder (a crook who stole thousands
> of dollars
> from numerous people, including me, and eventually drank himself to death)
> had wrecked my rare and desirable Mexican 302 block by boring it .033-.35
> over, making my .030 over pistons a rattling loose fit. :<(
>
> So, I bit the bullet and bought a new Ford Motorsports Boss 302 block, an
> awesome piece of kit, much beefier and heavier than the original 1960s Boss
> blocks were.   He then transferred the guts over, ran it on the dyno, and
> found some problems with the ignition.   Even at that, it still made 400
> hp,
> but with a proper ignition system on it, it should do a fair bit better.
>
> I flew to Detroit, picked it up with Gary and we brought it back to his
> house and installed it in the car, along with a new MSD ready-to-run
> distributor (replacing a worn-out stock Ford distributor with a Petronix).
> Unfortunately, my old headers, which had a really strange routing,
> absolutely would
> not clear my new Quicktime bellhousing, so progress was halted prematurely
> and I didn't get to drive the car that weekend.
>
> I wound up ordering three sets of headers from Summit, and the other day
> Gary managed to get one set to fit properly; the exhaust flanges don't
> line up
> of course (my exhaust has an H-pipe), but that will be a simple matter for
> a muffler shop to rectify.
>
> Photos here:
>
>
> http://s692.photobucket.com/albums/vv288/576103/GT350%20Headers%20installed/
>
>
> So it's all downhill from here; the car should be more-or-less complete,
> and ready to roll onto a trailer by the end of the month to be shipped
> home.
> I'll have to finish some very minor details, like installing new trunk
> weatherstripping, new hinges for the pass-through door etc.   If time
> allows I
> might be able to fly back to Detroit after Thanksgiving to spend a day or
> two
> cleaning up these minor details, but otherwise I'll sort them out here.
>
> But in any case, I haven't driven this car since October 2005, and soon
> I'll be back behind the wheel again, so that's very exciting!
>
> Although, perhaps the news that Asa Jay is referring to is the fact that as
> of 11:11 p.m. on 11/11/11, Lori Albino (a.k.a. Lori Pantera, to distinguish
> her from the Lori Ferrari that you all know) and I are engaged to be
> married. :>)
>
> (11 is Lori's lucky number...)
>
> Photo here, of Lori with her '71 Pantera #1765:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/LoriPantera
>
> Rich Boschert postulated that a major motivator behind my decision to ask
> her to marry me was so that I could be guaranteed of having a functional
> Pantera in the house at all times!   While that will probably be the case,
> I
> assure you that was only a minor consideration! :>)
>
> No date/location yet; those details will be worked out next year
> sometime....
>
> Cheers!
>
> Mike
>