Hi, my name's Brian and I live up in Big Sky Country...Bozeman, Montana. I've perused this forum many times and joined several months ago, and I have to say there is a wealth of usable knowledge here. It's great to have such a concentration on the web, a Google search can be frustrating. The HAMB is good but not much MEL specific stuff on there. You've got a good thing here Theo!

To my reason for being here...I have a '63 Mercury Comet that I picked up years ago and drove it till the tranny gave out. It was my first classic and couldn't bear to part with it for any reason. So I parked it, letting it set while I looked for a suitable inline to replace the baby 170c.i. that was in it. Don't worry, I was gonna go much bigger!

A long story short, bad luck with cores had me pulling my hair out. Until I got the lowdown on a 1965 430 and thought to myself 'THAT is suitably weird to me!'. I got it pretty cheap and decided I'd turn that torque monster into a race motor no matter the cost! (famous last words...). So my 1963 Mercury Comet drag car was born.

One of the other members here, Beep, was kind enough to sell me many of his vintage speed parts that he no longer needed after his Grizzlehopper build. He's a really nice guy who knows his stuff. I'm always on the prowl for MEL speed parts, FYI! Makes me more than a little sad I missed a Hilborn Injection setup a few months back on eBay but there'll be others:(

Thanks for your time, sorry about the long winded post...

Brian

Welcome Brian! I'd love to see a few build & finished product photos. Is your (now aptly named) Comet still road legal?

Cheers,
Reijer

Sorry, but no finished photos; it's still very much a work in progress. There's gonna be a lot of custom fab work involved just to keep the earth-rotating capabilities of the MEL in check. It would be a shame if the first time I lit it off, all the glass shattered from the torque steer! So I have to build a frame for it as the Merc is a unibody. Plus, the 430 is so huge the word 'stuff' is an apt description for what's gonna happen in the engine bay.

I do have some before and work-in-progress photos around here somewhere, and I'd be happy to post them up.

Oh, and the plan is to keep it street legal...mostly:)

Brian

mrevildoer wrote:......Plus, the 430 is so huge the word 'stuff' is an apt description for what's gonna happen in the engine bay.

You would have to shoehorn that thang Good to see you around Brian. And as always, we believe there ain't no car unless photos get posted

BTW, what's your Avatar? I did a major software update a few days ago. Some avatars were shot,...dunno why. Please let me know which one it is, so I might find it on the server and fix it. Or simply load it up again if that's more convenient to you.

Breaking news...I just scored the Hilborn I wanted off of eBay. Sorry about the delay, been working on getting my '63 Galaxie on the road again for the trip down to Bonneville this year. Brakes and distibutor/carb tuning mostly...been lucky I guess.
As promised, I've found a few pics I've taken in the last few months so you guys can see just how big the hole I've dug for myself is! Check this out. viewtopic.php?f=54&t=594

Brian

Why not change your name to Brian Hilborn!?!

Haha, my buddy said the same thing.

I'll post up some more pics around the site in the coming months so keep your eyes peeled!

Brian