Reply to "Mangusta Parts for sale"

There is another one of these engines, sitting on an engine stand in the display lobby of Hall Fabrication & Racing (no relation to Hall Pantera), in Benecia, CA. The owner got it in a trade and had no idea what it was until I told him about it!

That motor has been detailed with a Shelby GT350 cast aluminum "T" pan, and a billet timing chain cover with no provision for a water pump of any kind? It has Weber carbs.

By the way, these are not complete De Tomaso engines. Instead, they are standard Ford 289 blocks/cranks/rotating assemblies, topped with De Tomaso aluminum cylinder heads. The heads have the intake runners cast integral with the heads, exactly like the Gurney-Weslake Eagle heads that were used on the '68-69 Ford GT40s, except the Eagle heads tilted the carbs inwards towards each other slightly. A cast aluminum plate goes on top of the engine, between the heads, over the lifter valley. There are also a pair of water pipes which bolt to the inside of the cylinder heads below the carbs, and route cooling water into the cylinder heads. The pipes in the motors pictured are different from the one in Benecia. That one is set up like a Gurney GT40 motor, and the water pipes face rearward, leading me to speculate that they were installed backwards by accident.

There's nothing especially tricky or significant about the valvetrain, and they use all standard gaskets. So this De Tomaso engine would be no different than running a conventional Ford equipped with aftermarket heads, other than the minor challenge of making gaskets to mate the water pipe to the heads, and the valve covers to the top of the heads. Child's play, though.

Philippe's motor was equipped with a dry sump system and slide fuel injection, which of course adds an element of mechanical challenge to the equation. But again, that would be no easier or more difficult than adding those items to a regular Ford.