"Mad Dog's" 67 XR7 GT Super CJ

Trevor's 67 XR7 GT came to him after a minor fender bender tagged the front passenger side of the car and the previous owner decided he didn't want to fix it. After some old fashioned negotiating the car was loaded up and hauled back to the homestead. With the passion of any other 17 year old who had just found the muscle car of their dreams Trevor began a 3 year journey of meticulous restoration and performance upgrades. This article is my recollection of the adventures he had on that journey some 20 years ago. I hope you enjoy it.

The car's first journey was to the body shop where the impact from the accident was corrected. While there, the frame was re-inforced with some global west sub-frames and a ground breaking (at the time) 1G Global West suspension upgrade including upper and lower control arms, sway bars and poly bushings. While doing the sub-frames Trevor had the body shop re-weld and reinforce all of the framerail and body welds to mitigate some of the monster torque he had planned for the car. And yes he had plans... In keeping with those plans, a set of Wilwood 11" performance brake upgrades were installed on all four corners of the vehicle.

The Beast was slowly starting to come together. It looked mean and sounded meaner. Under the hood the stock 390 was already plenty powerful but Trevor spent a solid two years accumulating what could only amount to one of the most serious amateur engine rebuilds of the time.

The foundation for this legendary engine rebuild was a genuine 390 police interceptor short block. It was tested and blueprinted, found to be solid and prepped for war. Street war that is. A cast 428 crank was thrown into the build with a set of racing pistons and crane came and lifters. To open up the breathing abilities of the short block a set of 428 heads were ported and polished out to 428 Super Cobra Jet specifications. A valve job and set of Crane valves, springs and rockers capped off the heads. To make everything come together a 428 cam was installed to unlock the hidden ponies lurking behind all the new hardware.

Slowly the shortblock build up was turning into a long block, and now came the crowning glory... an aluminum 428 tri power intake manifold and custom jetted tri-power set of carbs. Once the intake and carbs were installed it took 4 solid weeks of tuning before they really got dialed in but when they did.. The ensuing insanity was cause for the next purchase, a set of racing restraints for the drivers seat. My first memory of the car once the carbs were dialed in will stick with me forever. It was the sound of those three 2 barrel carburetors screaming like banshees as they sucked nearly 1000cfm.

The old transmission was rebuilt with a stage 2 shift kit and 2800 RPM racing class stall converter.  I'll never forget the frustration of the transmission. It was almost a curse as everything that was done to it seemed to have trouble. After the rebuild it wouldn't shift properly and had to be taken apart at least twice until the source of the problem was found. Then after a nearly 3 month wait for the special order stall converter to arrive, as the last bolt was being torqued down  on the converter there was a distinctive "snap" followed by a long chain of explictatives.. Ok I am exaggerating about the long chain but man, what a disappointment. Anyways, after some finagling and many more weeks of waiting a new converter was installed along with a set of 3.25 gears in the back end. A set of Recaro racing seats replaced the stock XR7 seats (Which I believe made their way into my 65 Mustang which I was building at the same time) and a full restoration / replacement of the interior.

This car was the car that Ford should have built in 67. Trevor outfitted it with the best of everything that was available at the time from brakes to engine components to suspension. The car corned better than any European sports car and when the gas pedal went down the resulting response from the engine left me with an adrenaline rush that I will never forget. We spent years of our youth terrorizing the streets in this car. Those were times I will always remember as the years of the 428 Super CJ thunder cat.