Many of you are familiar with Rick Stanton’s wild Boss 9 powered Benny Parsons tribute Talladega. For those of you who don’t know Rick, here is a quick overview. Rick and wife Sherri lived in Southern California for years but recently moved to Colorado to be near their daughter. Rick is a die-hard Ford guy with many examples in his collection. He also is an engineer who knows how to put HP into a Boss 429. We have seen Rick, Sherri, and their Talladega at many of our events over the years. At the 2014 Talladega event, the big bad T suffered some mechanical issues from the slow parade lap. Since then Rick has been working to correct the problem and improve the HP a little.
Rick says that when they were at Talladega that time, about 6 years ago, a lot of folks were overheating because it was stop and go, going maybe 5 miles per hour. He was slipping the clutch all the time and overheating. Eventually, he smoked the clutch and had to be towed off the track.
Then in 2015, he had back surgery and was recovering from that. He finally got the Talladega off the ground to pull the clutch, got it back together, started it up, but it made a noise like a loose lifter. Before he could shut it down it locked up! Luckily it was Idling at about 1,000 rpm when it locked up. What happened is an ARP L19 7/16″ Bolt unscrewed itself, then got smashed into the side of the rod, then the other bolt on that rod snapped off.
Rick thinks fatigue had a lot to do with it as that engine was in the car 13 years! Most of the time it was being abused and misused buzzing 7,500 rpm, including 4 Engine Dyno Sessions and about 6 Chassis Dyno sessions running 228 mph @ 7,000 rpm on Shelby Americans Dyno in Las Vegas, and 250 mph on Westechs Dyno @ 7,500 rpm.
Since then he went to work bringing the big hoss back to life. His guesstament on the rebuilt Boss 429 Engine Dyno for the Talladega would be 850 hp & 750 Tq. Well, he missed on that guess.
The Boss 429 made 870 HP @ 6,500 RPM & 785 Lb.Ft. of Torque @ 4,600 RPM!. Rick says he will try to guess better next time.
If you would like to know more about the engine and some of Rick’s tricks you can reach him at rsstanton1302@gmail.com. He might even build one for you.
How about a mid-engined Ford for the street to take on the new 2020 mid-engined Corvette? Rick has one.