STRAIGHT UP SCUFFLER
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           While Tom was answering a challenge from a late-model Camaro SS, the Mustang’s T5 puked. He fixed that with a Tremec 500. Just as he was finishing the break-in cycle on his new tranny, “I got into a little scuffle with a Viper. We went one for one and my motor blew.” A more joyous occasion there could not have been. That tussle dictated the next year of his life.

            He and brother Bobby tore at the Mustang until its bones were showing. With the car in complete disarray, Tom sent the motor to Mike Curcio Race Products (Easton, PA) for a good spanking. While the bullet was getting re-loaded, he shaved or covered all holes in the engine bay.

            Then he was out in the garage welding up his fuel system. Uncle Pete at S/P got the dirty end of the pipe, though. He rerouted the brake lines and smuggled in the Line-Loc. Tom fabbed a stainless steel battery box for the trunk. “These are things that I always wanted to tackle and only saw in magazines and on TV, so doing all this and completing it myself was a great feeling.”

            The rerouting gig increased exponentially. Now his friend Paul Wallace kept whispering about hiding all the wires in the engine bay. “There are several ways to do this project,” said Tom. “What you see here was ultimately the cleanest, most time consuming, and the biggest hair puller of them all. There’s not a trace of the factory harness left, not even on the firewall.”

            Though his penchant is for hiding stuff, Tom was not bashful with the glittery, Curcio-built 350-inch blower motor providing upwards of 600 wheel horsepower. A recent tune-up, including the installation of an SCT mass-air meter got him a few more ponies and pounds-feet. “It scared me on the way home because it was clearly making much more power than the previous set-up. I will say the urge for power never ends. I’m used to it already.” How much more will Tom up the amps? Not much. He’s looking to sell the Mustang now to get some money for a house.

            As Tom picked his way along the road to hot rod one-ness, he doubtlessly thought about the sound his last motor would make at WOT. When he left Colasanto’s shop the evening of the shoot, what I heard didn’t sound like any kind of street-driven Mustang. It didn’t sound like a Ford or anything else, for that matter. It didn’t growl. It shrieked. Ungodly... or scary at least. I think that concussion is liable to stick in my head for a long time.

POWERTRAIN

            Mike Curcio machined and built the motor using a Dart Iron Eagle 351 cylinder block. He bored it 0.060-inch and fitted an Eagle 4340 stroker crankshaft and H-beam steel connecting rods to show a displacement of 352 cubic inches. The combustion chamber volume, head gasket thickness, and the crown of the JE piston determined a static compression ratio of 8.9:1. The ring pack is Manley. ARP fasteners were used throughout.