Reply to "anyone have vintage engine compartment photos to share?"

A few comments from a non-owner: I'm 6'2"/190 lbs and have semi-successfully driven Mangusta 8MA 632 some 50 or so miles. But our size human gets folded up pretty good in one of these cars. During the stint, I hit some whoop-de-dos at about 90 and my left knee managed to turn off the ignition key... the owner was in the passenger seat and we both thought it was an engine failure! I think I'd move that part if I still owned one.

On 8MA510 (a verified 1967), the engine was a hi-po 289 with the extra balancer weight visible behind the harmonic balencer, which is the easiest way I know to tell, as long as you don't mind getting dirty. The ZF in that car had exposed shift linkage going into the transmission, which Lloyd Butfoy said was the same as original GT-40s. In other words, the rectangular aluminum box normally housing the ZF shift linkage was not there, nor were it's mounting holes.

I've also seen big aluminum 2-piston Girlings on both ends of a couple of Mangustas; you sometimes need a magnet to verify the material. 'Geese with such is 8MA 760 (in England) and 8MA 712 (now in Germany). These I think were the desirable big-block Cobra brakes in most cases due to the lightness. An odd fact: virtually ALL European brake calipers that I've cheacked including the aluminum and iron Girlings, Porsche & others, all use nickel-plated mild steel pistons (which are magnetic). And since plating is never a continuous film, water in old fluid will penetrate it and pit it just like an old bumper. Finding NOS pistons for 50-yr-old calipers is a daunting chore; I had to make a set on the lathe (of 312 stainless). So change that brake fluid yearly!

Finally, one Swedish Mangusta has aluminum bearing side-plates on it's ZF, which was also a stock part for very early small-block GT-40s, according to Lloyd. I have a pair of those that I run on our Pantera's dash-2 ZF for the 6 lbs of lightness apiece.