16 POCA Profiles 2001 No. 3

Richard Barkley’s 1971 PanteraStory and Photos by Richard Barkley

De Tomaso ofy first look at a De Tomasowas love at first sight. I’djust started work at TRWSystems (the aerospace di-M

vision) in the Fall of 1968. I went downto the beach for lunch and stopped inthe drugstore to browse the magazinerack. The red Mangusta on the coverof Road & Track leapt off the page andinto my heart. Boing! I bought themagazine and started to dream of oneday owning one. But at $13,500 (whichwas about my annual salary at the time)the engineer in me said that the idea wasridiculous.

But I continued to read everythingI could find on the car. The press startedwriting about the dark side of the car;while admitting is was one of the mostbeautiful cars ever built they pointed outall the little things that were wrong withit. Sports Car Graphic did a three part

tera I actually saw was at the Los An-geles Auto Show in the winter of 1970.I was in love all over again. Still,$10,000 was a lot of money. But...if Ikept it for a long time that would becheaper than buying a new car everyfew years. Wouldn’t it? And if it ap-preciated, that would make it an invest-ment!

Sold!The next spring (May or June of

1971) the Pantera went on sale and Iwent down to Bob Estes Lincoln-Mer-cury in Inglewood to place my orderand get in line. They thought I’d havemine by the end of the summer. Sum-mer came and went, but no Pantera.Ford had initially delivered a few, dis-covered some (more) problems andstopped delivery. Later that fall theystarted delivery again. I got a coupleof calls for colors I didn’t want. Finally,

in mid-December I got the call I waswaiting for: they had a yellow one in.

Finally, on December 19, 1971 Ihad my Pantera!

Such a special car needed speciallicense plates so I applied for ZONKERafter a popular (and my favorite) cara-mel corn, Screaming Yellow Zonkers.No dice, someone already hadZONKER. When the nice lady fromthe DMV called to ask for anotherchoice, I thought for a second andblurted out “ZONKEY.” Yup, that’sokay.

I got married in August of ’71 andmy wife Linda had a red 240Z wenamed Apple. ZONKEY and Appleand Linda and I made quite a dashingfoursome. Double Income No Kids,what a life.

Sometime in 1973 (summer Ithink) I got a call from Ford’s customer

series on fixing upall the problems.Hmm, let’s see,maybe I could pickup a used one andfix it....

About thattime, rumorsstarted to float thatDe Tomaso andFord were teamingup on a newcar...the Pantera.They were going tofix all the prob-lems, it was goingto cost $10k, it hada bigger engine,and Lincoln-Mer-cury was going selland service them.Perfect! I startedsaving my money.

The first Pan-In 1971 I finally realized my dream and bought my yellow De Tomaso Pantera. Noticehow high the car rode with stock spring spacers and the original tall tires

2001 No. 3 POCA Profiles 17

the Quarter

relations guy for the Pantera, LyleOttoson (sic?) saying that the club I’dbeen asking about was about to beformed. A month or so later ZONKEYand I drove over the hill to Payton Lin-coln-Mercury in San Pedro for the firstmeeting. As I remember there were adozen or so owners there, Steve Wilkin-son among them, and we started a club,which we decided to call Pantera Own-ers Club of America, or POCA forshort.

From ’71 to ’82, ZONKEY wasmy daily driver and he went every-where. Skiing at Mammoth, cruisingthrough Death Valley (at 120 degreeswith no overheating problems), POCAtrack events at Ontario, Willow Springs,and Riverside, and the daily commuteto work were handled with equal ease.During the ’75 gas crisis I put on head-ers, an Offenhauser dual port manifold,and a Holley carburetor. But otherwiseZONKEY remained pretty much stock.Except for a couple of initial mainte-nance checks, I did all the work on thecar, but frankly there wasn’t that muchto do. In 30 years and about 100,000miles he only left me stranded oncewhen the distributor gear sheared. For-tunately it was only a couple of blocksfrom my brother-in-law’s house and hewas able to tow me home.

In the ’80s, kids, career, and otherobligations started getting in the way.

ZONKEY spent most of his life in thegarage, coming out only occasionally;still looking pretty good but getting alittle long in the tooth. I needed to dosomething, but didn’t have the time orenergy to do it.

Fast forward about a decade.... Itwas 1995 and I got my POCA Profiles.There was my old friend Steve Wilkin-

years... It was winter 1998. Zonkeyblew his water pump and in the attemptto limp back home blew out the bafflesin the original radiator. Time to dosomething. That spring I somehow dis-covered the DeTomaso e-mail forum onthe internet (http://realbig.com/mail-man/listinfo/detomaso). Wow, unlim-ited technical support for free. Who

These images give a good idea of the overall condition of my Pantera when the project started in1998. It was tired, dirty, worn-out, but thankfully mostly free of rust

After investing in a spray gun and full respiratoroutfit, I was ready to go!

son (Panteras byWilkinson) withhis newest cre-ation: the 4.6LDOHC LincolnModular V8 en-gine conversionwith Motec fuelinjection—powerand beauty to-gether. Lust atfirst sight! Again.But the conver-sion cost almosttwice as much asthe original car(but with muchsmaller dollars ofcourse). Yikes!Still the seed wasplanted. I was in-fected with theModular Madnessbug.

Skip forwarda few more

18 POCA Profiles 2001 No. 3

could resist?With a little on-line consulting I re-

engineered and rebuilt my cooling sys-tem to better than new. Boy, that feltgood. And the people on the forum gotme psyched for Las Vegas which I’dnever attended before (by the time it gotstarted I was deep into kids and otherstuff). And then there was Dennis An-tenucci rallying the troops for a TeamPantera assault on Silver State. Whocould resist?

I came back from ‘Vegas ’98 witha plan. I’d pull the old Cleveland, cleanup the engine compartment, cart it overto Wilkinson’s where he’d drop in thenew 4.6L Cobra engine (like the Lin-coln but 15 hp stronger). Then I’d re-furbish the suspension, add Wilwoodbrakes, and be ready for Silver State inSeptember ’98.

Naturally I had to have some ob-jectives which I posted on the List:

“I want a powerful (but not killer),dependable, driveable, smooth, quiet(I’ve been scaring small children, dogsand old people for 27 years - that’senough) engine that will last me another27 years. I’d like to be able to hop inthe Panther, drive 10k miles with theexpectation that nothing will break (oreven bend). After watching the actionat Vegas, I’d also like to get back on

the track as a “gentleman racer” - I don’tneed to win, just have a great time.”

A funny thing happened on theway to the races! On Sunday, May 31,1998 I threw an “engine pulling” party.About 15 Pantera Listers and friendsshowed up. By 2:00 p.m. we had theengine out. That was easy and fun. Bythe time I got home from work the nextevening, my son Bryan had scraped outthe undercoating from most of the en-gine bay. Boy, this is going great. So,while we’re at it, we might as well do

the wheel wells.... Anyone who’sstarted out on a project like this knowsthe inevitable result. One thing leadsto another and the next thing you knowyou’re looking at total restoration.

Somewhere along the way mid-summer of ’98 I started rethinking thewhole project: my youngest was off tocollege, things were a bit slow at work;I had time and maybe could save somemoney by doing the engine install my-self. A little on-line research indicatedthat now it was possible to modify the

After untold hours of preparation work, I got the contours of the bodywhere I wanted them—I was ready for paint!

The paint went on nicely. Normally color-sanding and buffing would follow di-rectly but I decided to leave that until everything else was finished

Ford EFI PCM(Powertrain ControlModule) program-ming (with a "chip")to make it work in aPantera. The Moteccomputer is about$4,000 while Ford’sis about $300; $3700saved right there!

I talked withWilkinson Steve wasskeptical but waswilling to help megive it a try: he’d sup-ply the mechanicals(engine with modifi-cations, headers, mo-tor mounts, etc., etc.)and I’d figure out theFord PCM conver-sion. If everythingworked out I figuredI could do the engine

2001 No. 3 POCA Profiles 19

swap in my garage.But first, I decided the new

ZONKEY needed new paint. I’d re-painted about half the car in the mid-‘70’s and it looked pretty good. Howhard could this be? Turns out plenty ifyou want to do it right and are doing itin your garage.

The next nine months I learned theart of body repair and auto painting. Ihad a few books on the subject but theybarely scratched the surface. Luckily Istumbled upon Len Stewart and hiswww.autobody.com website. Len, whois an expert painter, has set up a bodyand painting discussion forum (his“classroom”) that probably has moreinformation on auto body and paint thananywhere in the world. I also got someexpert assistance from a local ex-Porsche restorer, Rick Haughton, whohelped with some of the initial bodywork and taught me quite a lot.

Initially I stripped the car to baremetal inside and out except for someareas of the cockpit. The front lowervalance was rusted out at the cornersand I completely replaced it. Patcheswere welded in small rusted-out areasin front of the lower part of the forwarddoor pillars and the driver’s side reardoor pillar. To clean up the lines of thecar, I removed the side marker lightsand also the door handles. Solenoid-activated street-rod latches with remote

control would allow me to get the doorsopen.

After much discussion with GaryHall and a number of professionalpainters, I decided lead is not the wayto go. Lead has its own set of prob-lems as the numerous cracks on mostPanteras reveal. Instead, I used metal-loaded plastic fillers: Metal-2-Metal(polyester based) and JB Weld (epoxybased). In the stress-crack-prone areas(front window pillars and rear of the

roof) I removed most of the lead andapplied long strand fiberglass filler overa broad area in the hope that it woulddistribute the stress and eliminate thecracks.

POR-15, an extremely tough rust-preventive paint, has an almost weld-like adherence to metal. POR-15 wasapplied to most of the seams and pen-etrated into them. I believe this has sig-nificantly stiffened the structure.

Extensive rust prevention was per-formed. All underbody areas werestripped clean, prepared with Rass-O’-Nil (a rust remover and converter) andthen painted with silver POR-15. Sil-ver was used to give greater visibilityto future rust problems.

I acid-dipped the doors, hood andrear deck, which was the biggest mis-take in the whole project. Acid wasleaking out of the seams six month later.It was supposed to be super rust-proofwith two chromate dips and a red ox-ide electrostatically applied urethaneprimer sealing it. Six months after thefinal paint, surface rust blisters ap-peared on each piece, all of which hadbeen stored indoors! Grrrr...

By ‘Vegas ’99 I had the body workcompleted and the car all in primer.Along the way I decided to do GaryHall’s glue-in windshield conversion.I thought I was ready to paint. But a

This fall I (finally) did the color-sanding and buffing. I drew lineswith a marker, then carefully sanded them away, starting with 800grit dry on a block, ending with 2500 wet. It was worth the effort!

My family room soon turned into an electronics laboratory and spareparts storage room

20 POCA Profiles 2001 No. 3

trip to the annual Fabulous Fords For-ever show at Knott’s Berry Farm reallygot me scared. There were thousandsof restored cars there and on 99+% ofthem the paint and bodywork lookedterrible to me, with subtle waves andripples everywhere.

Back to priming and blocking.By mid-summer the bodywork was

as flat and smooth as I thought I couldmake it. I sprayed the finish coats. Ichose the PPG Deltron 2000 DBCbasecoat/clearcoat system. The coloris Light Chrome Yellow (DBX 666 -Devil’s yellow?) pure mixing base (noadded tints). I left the color-sanding andbuffing as the last step in the restora-tion so I could remove the inevitablescratches and chips all at once.

On to the big step, installing the en-gine. But by this time (late summer ’99)Ford had changed to a new design (newheads and intake making 15 more hp

for 320 total) for the 4.6L DOHC Co-bra motor. The ’96-’98 design onwhich Wilkinson’s conversion wasbased was no longer available. And

modifications to the exterior to make itfit: the rear edge of the heads are groundaway to clear the inner wheelhouses, thecooling crossover pipe is re-routed,heater pipes are re-routed, thebellhousing is modified, etc.

Steve normally uses a customMotec Electronic Fuel Injection EngineControl Module (computer and igni-tion). When he started doing the con-version, an aftermarket ECM was theonly option as there was no way tomodify the Ford system to run properlyin the Pantera.

What I did that is unique is to adaptthe Ford EEC-V PCM to the Pantera.The PCM controls both fuel and spark,and a number of other functions (e.g.cooling fan control). This required thereverse-engineering of the Ford wiring

The 4.6 liter motor is much larger, but lighter than the 351 Cleveland

The cylinder head is shaved to provide clearance

neither were the‘99’s; they wereall going intoMustangs. Stevehas some greatconnections atFord so by Octo-ber he had a ship-ment of five of the’99 motors and bylate November Ihad the engine inmy garage.

The engine isstock but Stevedoes a number of

The hand-built headers are a work of art. Twinoxygen sensors provide feedback to the computer

The final installation looks very clean and profes-sional. Many people assume it is factory-original!

2001 No. 3 POCA Profiles 21

harness. I got the Ford wiring diagramsand the main engine-to-computer wir-ing harness and started to dissect them.After a couple of intense weeks on thedining room table with the diagramsand the harness, I had things prettymuch figured out. When the dustsettled, I collapsed the five or sosubharnesses off the Mustang main har-ness to a power fuse block on the en-gine side, and six or so connections tothe Pantera wiring harness behind thepassenger seat. Pretty simple really.

The ’99 engine uses Coil On Plugignition so there are no plug wires. Ialso used a returnless EFI fuel systemwith electronic feedback pressure con-trol on the fuel pump controlled by thePCM. I used the stock Mustang fuelpump which is mounted in the tank asis the fuel filter. Much advice wasgiven by (and parts obtained from) afellow named Ron Morris(www.ronmorrisperformance.com) onthe adaptation of the Ford PCM andwiring to the Pantera. Ron is a Ford-certified tech who also does EFI con-versions on the side.

A custom AutoLogic chip wasburned by Byron Reynolds(www.racesystems.com) to allow thePCM to function in the Pantera. TheEGR, vapor control, and second (non-essential) oxygen sensors were deacti-vated. The chip is capable of four dif-ferent sets of calibrations but is cur-rently set up for just the stock fuel and

spark tables. Sincethe PCM uses a“Mass Air” sensorand is self-learn-ing, this works justfine. Ford rates theengine at 320 hp.Modified Mus-tangs (headers andlow-restriction ex-haust and customchip) are gettingabout 300 rearwheel hp which is

bead-blasted and clear-coated andsafety-wired. I purchased it new for$660 when Ford decided to sell theirinventory rather than crush them, andit has been sitting in my garage for over20 years. While I was at it, I picked upa set of heavy-duty Spicer driveshafts.

On December 30, 1999 I was readyto drop it in. I called the usual suspectsfrom the South Bay Chapter: Mike Cox,Grant Stockwell, and Bill Taylor. Theywere game. Seven hours and a fewaborted attempts later the engine wasin the car. For the first time, but notthe last: this was just the test-fitting.

2000 was a year of working on thedetails: EFI wiring design and hookup,

By March of 2001, it was starting to all come together. Bill Taylorshows off the custom lower chassis brace he welded up for the car

roughly 350 hpat the crank. Iexpect to seesimilar numbersafter dyno tun-ing.

Steve alsosupplied the Jet-Hot-coated cus-tom headers,motor mounts,starter motorand clutch.

I replacedthe gearboxwith a newDash-2 ZF,

The openings for the door handles were weldedup; a remote control opens the door electrically.This is a REAL pushbutton door Pantera!

Although my hood spider was in great shape, theleading edge of the skin was seriously rusted. I’mrunning a new factory hood now, although I mayhave my spider re-skinned and then re-install it

22 POCA Profiles 2001 No. 3

The front suspension has been fully upgraded with Aldan shocks,Wilwood brakes, Spherebars and the PPC camber lock kit. The hosesare for the front-mounted air conditioning system

The rear suspension received the same attention

engine bay detailing (custom stainlessbulkhead and gas tank modification tomount the EFI fuel pump and filter in-ternally), dropping the battery, refur-bishing the steering rack and buildinga stiffener, modifications to the Panterawiring harness (including a new relaypanel in the front trunk), cooling sys-tem plumbing, etc., etc. The list neverseemed to get any shorter.

One of my major goals was tomake ZONKEY quiet, at least from theinside. I did a lot of research on theinternet and talked to a lot of folks. Myconclusion was that the self-adhesivedamping type materials (e.g. Dynamatand Q-Pads) that add mass (about 0.5lbs per square foot) and energy-absorb-ing “deadness” are the most effectiveway to quiet a car. A treated panel goesfrom a clang to a thud. So the wholepassenger compartment (including theroof) was treated with it as well as thewheel wells (replacing the undercoat-ing and providing protection fromthrown rocks) and gas tank. All to-gether I’ve got about 60 lbs of dead-ener on the car.

Late one night I also discovered theengine stethoscopes that De Tomasocleverly engineered into the car. Thatis the name I gave to the open passagethat goes from the gap between the roofand the rear window upper frame and

exits where the roof pillars (rear) arejoined to the body (just above the in-side of where the rear window “gills”are). This opens right above the head-ers and I believe is the source of mostof the high-frequency noise in the cabin.

I also constructed a dual-pane rearwindow for both sound and heat isola-tion. Two slightly oversized pieces ofglass were siliconed together with a thinspacer around the edge. It is held inplace with clamps against a molded-in-place siliconegasket. I believethe combinationof plugging theholes, installingthe dampeningand creating thedual-pane win-dow have givenme one of the qui-etest Panteras onthe road. Now,cruising on thefreeway at 70 orso, it’s hard tohear the engineover the road(tire) noise. Andyou can easilytalk to the passen-ger!

I left the trim

as polished stainless (I hate the bumble-bee look!) and the bumpers wererechromed. The taillights are stock, al-though I have a pair of Group 4 tail-lights that I plan to install. The head-lights were replaced with 100-watt “off-road” units. The weatherstripping is allnew.

I also took advantage of this op-portunity to totally revamp the suspen-sion. The A-arms are stock,powdercoated in silver metallic and fit-ted with polyurethane bushings fromHall Pantera. Apparently the lighterengine and spreader bar changed the ge-ometry enough so that about 3/8” ofspacers are needed on the lower mountsto get proper camber. Before thechange, the right rear had zero spacersand still had too much negative cam-ber.

The hub carriers were rebuilt withnew Hall billet axles and stock bearings,and Hall’s zerk-lubed replacement shaftwith new parts (thrust bearings, caps).Shocks and springs are Hall’s Aldenthree-way adjustable model. Thesprings are 750 lbs/in rear and 525 lbs/in front. Hall’s 1" hollow sway bars,urethane bushings, aluminum bracketsand Sphere Bars help keep the chassissettled in corners.

I completely rebuilt the steeringrack with new bushing and bearings,and mounted it with factory-style 10

2001 No. 3 POCA Profiles 23

The interior is trimmed in highest-quality leather and wood. TheRecaro seats feature cloth inserts to keep the driver positioned

The center console is a new product by SteveWilkinson. The gauges are much easier toread and the layout is far more logical

My original mufflers were in great shape, soI had them Jet-Hot coated in silver to matchthe headers. Say, where did that rear swaybar get to?

mm-thick Gr3/Gr4 bumpsteer spacers.A PPC camber lock kit helps keep thefront end alignment squared away. Ireplaced all the suspension fastenerswith stainless (A2 70 grade) hardware.

Hall Pantera’s Super Stopper III kit(Wilwood Superlite calipers and ventedrotors) ensures braking performancewill never be an issue. The wheels areHall’s MK VIII, sized 17x11 and 17x8.The tires are Michelin Pilot SX MXX3335/35-17 and 235/40-17.

The cooling system was upgradedwith a Wilkinson Fluidyne aluminumradiator. Twin Spal curved bladesucker fans are controlled with aVariFlow thermostatically controlledvariable speed controller. Instead ofbeing either off or on, the controllervaries voltage to the fans to speed themup or slow them down depending onwater temperature. This dramatically

extends the life of the fans, and preventsover- or under-cooling.

The water pipes are 1.5” stainlesssteel. The connecting curved pieces are1.75” Earl’s flexible stainless with 1.5”stainless extensions silver-soldered tothe flex tubes. The heater hoses andpipes were replaced with stainless solidflex tubing, as used for a water heaterhookup.

The 4.6L motor comes with an in-tegrated A/C compressor. The con-denser is a front-mounted parallel “Su-per Flo” 12” x 20” from Air-Tique.This type of condenser is about 40%more efficient than a conventional con-denser. The system uses R134a. TheA/C compressor is under computer con-

trol by the engine man-agement system. Thecomputer monitors theon/off cycling from thetemperature and pres-sure switches and ad-justs the engine (at idle)for the changing load. Italso monitors the enginerpm and load and cutsthe compressor out athigh rpm or full powerto protectthe com-p r e s s o rand maxi-

mize power. The com-puter also controls thecooling fans so that theyare turned on when the A/C is on and the car is go-ing less than about 30mph.

The original heatercontrol valve was replacedwith an electronically con-trolled valve from Inter-dynamics. The valve isdesigned for the rear A/Cin van conversions. It al-

The interior was reupholstered en-tirely in Champagne-colored leather byDavid Galindo at House of Trim, inParamount, CA—Wilkinson’s uphol-sterer. The carpet and floor mats aredark brown wool custom-fitted byDavid. The 4.6L is substantially shorterthan the Cleveland and allows for a flatrear bulkhead cover. I constructed athree-piece cover: two side pieces anda center section that covers the engineaccess panel. At the top, they fit under

lows very precise temperature controland can be used with the A/C to blendhot and cold to provide a comfortablecabin temperature.

a removable wood-veneered (to matchthe dash and door panel inserts) crosspiece that is held in place by the seatbelt crossbar. The bottoms are secured

24 POCA Profiles 2001 No. 3

It’s an April afternoon, and after a successful startup I ventured outfor a quick trip up and down the street. Who needs lights, a hood,decklid, or windshield? I was smiling for days afterward!

Bill Taylor, Mike Cox and Grant Stockwell joined me for a cham-pagne toast following the inaugural startup of my new engine

by screws.The seats are

older Recaros thatI bought in the‘70’s, two differ-ent models. Thedriver’s side has adeeper bucket.They were uphol-stered in leatherexcept for the cen-ter seating areawhich was donein cloth for greatercomfort and gripwhile cornering.Five-point har-nesses by Sabelt(TRW) help to keep me totally secure.The steering wheel is an old Britannia(soon to be replaced.)

The dash is a fiberglass GT5-S rep-lica from Precision Pro-formance. Thegauge console is Wilkinson’s new unitwith horizontal canted gauges. (It willsoon be available in carbon fiber.) Thecenter console is a GT5-S replica fromHall Pantera. All except Wilkinson’sgauge console needed extensive re-working to fit properly. The radio an-tenna is a Dipole wire hidden behindthe glued-in windshield.

I replaced the stock instrumentswith Autometer’s Phantom series. Thespeedometer is electronic, driven by thespeed sender for the EFI. Gauges in-clude fuel, oil temp and pressure, volts,water temperature, fuel/air ratio, clock,and speedometer and tachometer.

The stock switches were replacedwith lighted rockers; similar Wilkinsonunits with logo and function labels willbe going in soon.

For safety, a 2.5 lb Halon fire ex-tinguisher is bolted to the floor in frontof the driver’s seat.

By the end of 2000 things werecoming together pretty well, and inJanuary 2001 the engine was back in!A little final fitting of the wiring, hookup the plumbing, etc., etc. and it wasready to fire up. On February 3, withgreat confidence, I called up the usualsuspects (Bill, Grant, and Mike): “Wantto come over for first ignition?” Threecalls, three affirmative replies. After alittle fiddling around cranking with no

juice to get the oil flowing (there is noeasy way to pre-oil a 4.6L) I turned thekey.

Rrrrr rrrr. Hmmm. Give it a sec-ond try. Rrrr...rrr puff puff. Hmmm,did I hear it trying to fire? Rrrrrr PutPut Put Rumm Rummm. Hey, it’s run-ning! Turns out that even after bleed-ing the (returnless) fuel system it stilltook time to get all the air out of thelines and fuel to the injectors. Whew!I’m still not sure what I’d have done ifit hadn’t started. We all celebrated withchampagne (supplied by Bill’s wife(Miss) Kitty). Since then it has alwaysstarted instantly.

So let’s see. February, March,April, that’s three months to Vegas. Icould do that. Heck, Dave Doddek did

his whole car in aboutthat time a few yearsago. So I boldly an-nounced to the Panterae-mail forum, “See youin Vegas.” But that wasnot to be.

Well, with thatmilestone missed (I didmake a valiant try anddid actually drive thecar for the first time onApril 22) I settled backto a more reasonableschedule and goal: Sil-ver State, September23. How hard couldthat be?

Turns out plenty! Let’s just skipthe details and fast-forward to earlySeptember. While my wife and I wereoff on a 30th anniversary two-week tripto Alaska, Wilkinson’s upholstererDavid installed a complete new leatherinterior. Great. Still some installationdetails to be worked out though. Butthe windshield was still not installed(remember it’s Hall’s glued in model).Back to Hall’s I went. Finally it wasglued in and I picked up a set of his MkVIII wheels. Next stop the alignmentshop. One week to go: I could do this!

So I negotiated a deal with my bossat work: let me take a week off and I’llreally be able to concentrate on workafterward. Okay.

Friday, September 21, 2001 at 4:00

2001 No. 3 POCA Profiles 25

The first drive of the completed car was directly to Ely, Nevada to compete inthe Silver State race! I figured I’d debug it on the way....

p.m. (after a frantic weekof details, details...) BobRadke (my navigator)and I declared ZONKEYready to roll. Turns outBob had never ridden ina Pantera. Was he in fora treat!

So with less than 50miles on the clock weheaded off to Ely, Ne-vada and the Silver StateClassic. It’s about 500miles from Los Angelesto Ely. More thanenough to break in an en-gine. Right? The after-noon traffic wasawful...we rolled intoEly at 3:00 a.m. ButZONKEY ran perfectly.In the worst traffic, and it was hot thatday, my digital thermostat never gotabove 188. Cool!

If you haven’t run Silver State,you’ve got to do it! Ninety miles at 120mph (or whatever) is a hoot! In a wordit’s TMF (Too Much Fun). I enteredthe 120 mph class figuring one stepdown from the rookie 125 max wouldhave less competition. Turns out itdidn’t matter. ZONKEY was up to thechallenge and ran perfectly through outthe race. Just purrrred the whole time.We got to the finish, turned off the en-gine—dead quiet. No crackling or pop-ping noises. I opened the trunk to getsome sun lotion. It was barely warm!Wow, do I have a cool engine or what?

Unfortunately, the guidance andnavigation system (myself and Bob)were a bit off the mark. Our stop-watches flipped over from 0.01 to 1 sec-ond displays at 40 min. In the confu-sion we lost track of one mile markerand thought we had to speed up. So atabout 125 mph and 3 minutes to go,Bob said I had to hit it. Okay, you’llnever have to tell me that twice! Nextthing I knew we were doing 145. Yikes,that was quick (and 5 mph over my techspeed). Hit the brakes! Where’d thatfinish line come from?

How’d we do? Let’s just say wedidn’t finish last and will do lots betternext September. But Silver State is notreally about the winning, it’s about the

event, and driving your car the way itwas meant to be driven.

So that’s my story (and I’m stick-ing to it). Since Silver State I’ve con-tinued to work on the details, like colorsanding and polishing the paint forabout a month, finishing up the detailsof the interior, finishing the trim, etc.

A project like this is never finished.So what’s up next? Well there are stilla few unfinished details that will go un-mentioned (like the rear sway bar is stillnot on. Oops). And the black hood (didI say I hate the bumble bee look?). It’sa new factory unit that replaced my dip-strip rusted-out original. It’s in rattle-can Rustoleum right now but hopefullywill be yellow by Summer. And thesound system, and...

I have a web page where I'vebeen posting my progress. Check itfor more photos, info, and progress.http://home.earthlink.net/~rbarkley/Pantera/

And then there’s Steve’s friendNeil Ruegsegger (a research engineerat Chevron) who’s been working onsome high-tech mods to the 4.6L. Thesimulation shows the moddedRuegsegger/Wilkinson motor makingclose to 2 hp per cubic inch; about 525hp at 7000 rpm with a peak of about560 hp. This is naturally aspirated, noblower or nitrous! The engine shouldbe ready for testing by the time you readthis. Do I want it? Sure. Will I get it?

Stay tuned! And for those of you whothink 4.6L is not enough Steve is alsoworking on a 5.4L conversion. As anaside, all of these conversions are Cali-fornia CARB certified, so anybody whois unlucky enough to get nailed as aGross Polluter with his old-fashionedengine now has a clean-burning, high-horsepower alternative.

In closing I just want to say aproject like this needs lots of help. AndI was lucky enough to get it from ev-eryone I asked. So I’d like to thankthem all. I’ve mentioned most of themabove. The vendors come first. SteveWilkinson’s generosity of time, advice,knowledge and fair prices made thewhole project possible. And Gary Hallwas always there for me with advice,encouragement, and many special parts.Likewise, Bob and Don Byars. Theseare the “Local Guys” for me and theygot most of my business. Over thecourse of the project I dealt with mostof the other vendors as well and hadequally good experiences.

I’ve already mentioned Bill, Grantand Mike of the South Bay Panterachapter. All were there from start tofinish always willing to lend a hand.Bill deserves special mention for themany hours of working magic with hisTIG welder. Also, Darrin Shocky andJohn Sattler gave advice and help.

And finally I have to thank my wifeLinda for putting up with it all!