“……Sounds like a real sleeper to me! Bet it's a boat load of fun.

I'm sure Cade will enjoy it. I would have if I had been given something like that at his age. My folks would have had strokes (multiple, actually) if my grandfather had given me a car like that.
……….”

“……..I agree, that would be a fun build for a sleeper!.........”


Seth, Mike……… yeah this was one of my favorite builds and there was a reason Cades’ first car was the 4 banger 74 Mustang II and not this one LOL.

I’d ended up with a tired 351W and started hunting for a body to stuff it in after I got it built. I narrowed the choices down to either a 61-63 Ford Ranchero or a Mustang II coupe. Mustang IIs were a lot more plentiful than Rancheros and eventually I ended up with 6 of them (mostly parts cars).

The white Coupe I eventually bought was the ideal candidate for what I had in mind, in part because it had recent paint job and interior and was a factory V8/automatic car. The original 302 had a terminal rod knock so it was pretty cheap to buy.

77 Coupe by M Patterson, on Flickr


I’ve always been drawn to sleepers, probably from the time I spent on Hall Street in St Louis in the early 70s during my miss-spent youth. The body part was simple, leave it the way it came from the factory (with the exception of removing the V8 emblems from the fenders), keep the tire size as large as possible but not so large as to give the car away, and in this case keep the exhaust reasonable quiet.

The exhaust was probably the biggest place that some more HP could have been gained. In keeping with the sleeper theme, I went with stock exhaust manifolds (port matched to the heads), built a 2 ¼” Y pipe and ran a single 2 ½” exhaust pipe to a good turbo muffler. It does OK but gets restrictive at higher RPMs. A set of headers and dual exhaust would probably go a long way on this car.

I especially wanted to keep the sleeper look under the hood. The Edelbrock intake had the Edelbrock name ground off and it and the Edelbrock aluminum heads were painted engine color. The RV cam let me use the use stock valve covers and I even left the factory emissions decal on them. I built the dual snorkel air cleaner from a stock single snorkel unit. The factory V8 mustang II picked up cold air passenger side of the radiator and the V6 cars picked it up from the drivers’ side so even the ducting to the core support is factory. Basically the engine bay looks just as crowded and ugly as when the car was new and stock. Hell I even ran 302 air cleaner decal on it for a while.

351 by M Patterson, on Flickr

There’s just something about the look on the guys face you just beat when he sees what looks like a stock motor under the hood.

The 4 speed was fun and pretty much a bolt in. I suspect Cade may turn it back into a manual transmission car eventually. A T5 would probably be a good choice.

Anyway Cade’s ready for this car now. He’s learned some of the lessons we all did (like when you break it you’re walking till you fix it, and that usually costs you money).

It’s Cade’s car now, I built it the way I wanted it and it’s his turn now to turn it into what he wants.

.