i'm Van de Walle Norbert from Maldegem, Belgium and recently "bought" a Pantera GT5S from '85 ..... i write bought under "..." because it was more a deal : car collector was interested in my SRT10 Viper Truck with Roe Racing blower and my body off restored Corvette '70... himself has all models Pantera and just bought the GT5S Targa.. so "mine" now could go....myself was dreaming a FGT but a bit to expensive for a sunday toy ...or a GT40, tryed it but didn't fit into it ... to small... or me to big ??? following that story i naturally came up with a Pantera solution :-) i like to wrench on my cars , so a old school carb/distributor is my favorite and the Pantera has the GT heritage .... looks, mechanics, sound..... got my story right and love the car, this is a keeper !
Ofcourse i had to deal with some garage queens sickness .... first the alternator was down, i drove to SpaItalia needing 5 batteries ;-)
to keep ignition running ( fresh batterie max rev 4000 , ending after every 50 miles 2000 .... )
This solved i found the road keeping a disaster ! .... this couldn't be thrue ... so on the lift to found 3 of the 4 schocks completely gone... orderd new coilovers from Intrax and had a new car !
Now that the car was cornering good i realised that the tires , Yokohamas as "new", were from 2000... now i don't thrust 11 years old rubber.... so bought new Michelins TB15... again i had a new car , cornering and sticking to the road as glue ....
Then i felt the power was there but equal , not more between 4000 rpm to 6000 as from 2000 to 4000 ??? in the lower gears .... so i played a bit with the advance ( Unilite distributor giving 10 ° mechanical advance ) but no better results which made me think i was running lean once the secondaries open ( Edelbrock Thunder AVS 650 carb ) ... no jets availeble in Belgium, i drilled the secondary jets a bit wider and found now the car pulling more in the higher revs :-)
Next job is to install a A/F gauge to have a measure....and fuel pressure indication...
It's a 351 C with visual a Edelbrock performer intake ( 4V ) and a carb....but the heads are 2V i think as "2" is casted on the corners ....found among documents a Crane comp camshaft which i suppose is there....
Nice story and documented : it's chassis nr 9425 , first owner Caroll Shelby ! he drove it for 286 miles begin '86 to sell it with another 2 GT5S and speaking of another 2 not yet arrived in the US januari 86 .... it was order red with beige interior and still is... not surprizing as the car has 8000 miles.... of which we cannot be sure ofcourse but nowhere the cars shows more mileage !
( so it's the 50the GT5S made out of the 187 )
Very,very happy with the car and hope to may join among you here and learn alot .... sorry for my spelling ... just read beyond my errors please :-)
see you !
Norbert, aka Belgiumbarry
