Mangusta Hi po Engine

I am sure someone has more complete info; however, I believe that Ford provided DeTomaso with crap motors for the Mangusta with valve springs so weak they wouldn't rev much above 5000 rpm. If a high performance engine was installed, it may have been aftermarket.

What Year are you claiming 289 Hi PO's were installed in a Mangusta ? Can you give us pictures of the casting numbers on the block above the starter ? Can I see pics of the heads ... hi po's had screw in studs ... document the claim ...

Ron

Wasn't there a thread here on this subject and wasn't it said that there were something like only two 289HP factory installed engines and that was the first two?

As far as week valve springs in the 302, the car was built at a time when the 289 HP was at the end of production and the highest performance small block was the 68 302-4v.

It was never claimed to be a high performance engine by anyone.

There were two other engines in development but not ready for production yet.

That was the Boss 302 and the 351 Windsor.

The 351 Cleveland is there in that mix as well but is a little later. It was said that the Boss 302 was the application of the 351c heads on the 302 block. Not the other way around. So they were both in development simultaneously.

The Mangusta had been layed out for a small block and the association with Ford made that a Ford small block.

At this point does it really matter that much what engine is in the car?

There was the one special Chevy small block car built for the head of design at GM at the time and the owner of that car participates regularly here on this forum.

I have the Chevy. I met a gentleman that had worked at Chrysler when Lee Iacocca and DeTomaso ginned up those Chrysler DeTpmaso cars. He spent a lot of time at the factory in Italy and told me that once at a dinner with some of DeTomsos people they told him that before the Ford engine deal was finalized that they did engine packaging studies with all kinds of engines, "GM, Ferrari, Lamborghini,etc”.

He wanted to also sell the Mangusta body design to someone as well if he could not get an engine.

The vertical dimension is tight on the engine package, it cannot go down as that reduces road clearance. The frame would also move with it, that is not such a problem. The soundproofing engine covers could also move up.

My spark plugs sit about 1/2 of an inch off of the frame.

Dick Ruzzin

Thanks for the info. Mangustas are pretty interesting to begin with and yours being 1 or 1 even more so.

In the days of changing points in the distributor the Chevy location in the back of the engine seems to fit the mid-engine layout much better than the Ford location.

One other thing too that I noticed a long time ago and still is so noticeable, the Chevy engine sounds so much different than the Ford on the track or at speed.

The Chevy sounds smooth and integrated whereas the Ford sounds like "washing machine Charlie" is on his way.

Bob,

I would expect that you would see an assembly date of "sometime" 1967 or 1968 in your car. We were lucky enuf to have #508 around here for a while....and I was able to look into that motor when the guy was freshening up the v/c gaskets etc.... It was a genuine hipo 289 with proper 67-68 date codes. I can't recall if I wrote them down anywhere....if I did...I can't recall where I wrote them.....but being an old Mustang/Cougar "by the numbers" sort of character, I was able to confirm all the proper hipo bits.....distributor, intake, heads (casting markes 12 or 23 in corners) and the fact that all of the manufacturing stamps were original on this particular car! Casting dates were also grouped close together...within a couple of months of each other! I would have expected that these engines came out of Ford "spares"..... Since you could still get a hipo 289 in 1968 in a Mustang etc, this was not a stretch for DeTomaso to get them. The 302 was not yet in production in 1967, not hitting the US production lines until 1968.

The only thing that differed on the early 289 cars was that they used a different bellhousing and smaller flywheel than the 302 cars.

I think that with other posts, we have figured that your car was one of the last cars to have a hipo in it! Guessing that perhaps 15-20 cars came with the engines. Once the 302 was available, it was most likely cheaper...!!! So guess what DeTomaso purchased???? Not a stretch here....!

Ping me if you need more help, but you can find date codes on Harmonic balancer, water pump, block, heads, intake, distributor, carb to start with. Flywheel also. The combo of date codes and "casting numbers" will tell you the rest of the story. Generally, it is accepted that all of the components should be dated within a 2-3 month period of each other, as some may have been stacked in bins....but figure that when an order went in for a batch of engines, that most likely the cast iron parts, heads, block, would be close. The aluminum intake could vary as it was probably an outside vendor (Buddy Bar?) that made it....flywheels and balancers could have been on the shelf for a while too.....

Nothing magical about these early engines....they came from Ford. nothing wrong with the 302's. They wind like STINK if you let the exhaust out...... Goose headers are very restrictive.....and the 302 heads will benefit from slight exhaust porting. (Intakes are FINE!) Stock valve springs will go above 5K, but usually the cam/spring combo was the shortcoming. However, this 302 engine, is exactly the same as the 302 used in every 4 barrel Mustang, Cougar, Fairlane, Comet with a manual transmission. No slouch.

If you are lucky enough to still have the small aluminum tag on your intake manifold, this will tell you exactly what car it was built for, when it was built and which revision it is. These tags are decoded in the front pages of the Ford Master Parts Catalog that is found on your Ford dealer's parts counter....or my garage....as I bought a copy of this book a long time back.....! Has been worth every penny....many times over!

Lemmeno if you have a tag and want it decoded. I know we have been over this before......

Ciao!
Steve

A 289 Hipo had casting numbers / date codes 1963 - 1965. The only difference in all 289 blocks, the hipo had heavier main bear caps. the 1963 hi po heads had a unique casting and screw in studs. The 1967 hipo heads were same and std 289 heads. Its very hard to identify a 289 block unless you drop the oil pan and the only head of value is the C3OE head.

Its stated the 1967 Euro Mangusta had the 289 and the USA version had the 302.

Documentation and tags and casting #'s / Date codes are the key.

Ron

Ron/All, Unfortunately there were no 289's made after July of '68 or so. Maybe DeT could have had a few motors on the floor before then, who knows. My car is a late and Euro , it has a 302. As Steve mentioned if you are lucky you may still have the engine tag on the motor.

See my post April 15th, 2009 http://pantera.infopop.cc/eve/...=755102011#755102011

I have found a few cars with engines tagged at the factory.

I have to re-visit a very early car to confirm it was done from the beginning.

I stand corrected the last Casting of the 289 was C6AE meaning 1966 and probably sold out into 1967 ... and the 302 took production in late 67 and according to those the eariest casting numbers C8TE & C8OE was the first castings dated 1968

Denis obviously your example below is a stamped number which the only Ford Motor Stamped by Ford were the Boss 302 and 429 in the USA ... it seems maybe by LAW the stamped serial # motors seemed to be the import / export engines.

A casting and date code on a 289 block is up under the starter.

Ron,

The 67 hipo heads on the Goose had the cast in spring pockets as well. I don't think the standard 67 heads for non-hipo motors had the cast spring pockets....

I believe when Ford sold a hipo motor....it was a hipo motor.

Did anyone know that you could get a 69 Mustang with a 289 in it? Many sold..... due in part to 302 production issues at the machining plant (strike!?) so Ford punted and came up with new advertising material for the little 289! Cougars were only choice of small block was the 302 small block in 68.

Ciao!
Steve

What Denis posted are the DeTomaso stampings...as far as we can guess...

...but I thought we've heard of communications from the Ford parts exec about deals to DeT.....and that Ford shipped out of spare supply, domestic and European....even going so far as shipping/putting industrial engines in some cars! (Had one of them in CA here at one time! Painted baby poop yellow....! HD water pump......)

I had the engine for 768, and didn't get a picture of the marking on the intake before I shipped it, but Roger Brotton may have posted a pic.... I think I posted a picture of the aluminum tag....which I believe I retained....

Steve

Here is a set of '67 289 HP heads for sale on ebay right now.

There are differences with them in that they have an additional lump of material cast into them in the exhaust ports for the air pump tubes.

The '67s HP heads do have the pockets for the spring seats and screw in rocker arm studs.

Valve sizes are the same as for the 68 302 as are the port pockets and the 53 cc combustion chamber.

On an engine built to use an automatic transmission like these heads, the air ports were not drilled.

On the heads intended for the manual transmission they were.

There is no better air flow between the heads, one vs. the other.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ford-M...em43c8c80941&vxp=mtr

You would have to go to the GT40 heads to get that and even so by todays standards even the GT40 race head doesn't flow very well.

The flow numbers that I have seen show really about 250 cfm on the intakes on the C6FE GT40 heads and about 220 cfm on the 289-302 4v head ported.

Stock they show something like 180 cfm.

My block says C80E on it. I'd have to have it alongside to see the difference on a C5 block but as far as I know just the caps on the HP block are thicker and other than the caps, it's the same block as regular production 2v and 4v engines.

The HP blocks themselves are not thicker in the webs. The GT40 block is thicker though.

The last variation of that block is what went into the '69 Boss 302 production engines and was marked C8FE which is the same casting as the Trans-Am race cars.

My "expert" tells me that the Boss production blocks are not exactly the same though.

Most think of those as 4 bolt blocks but there is a genesis of development on them and some are two bolt mains.

As with any Ford product especially special applications like these, you can never say something doesn't exist because it probably does somewhere.

It doesn't seem like they threw anything away. Someone somewhere would have gotten it.

When you bought the engines has everything to do with what you got. With the Mangusta the timing is everything.

I remember a story that was told from the '80s ( I think) about Jay Brunk and Caroll Shelby partnering on making '66 GT350 convertible "continuation cars".

The story was that because of his friends still at Ford Shelby was able to get brand new 289 HP engines for the cars out of Fords "private" stock warehouse. How many were still left in that "pile" no one would say, but there were still some left assembled.

How true this is and not just sensationalized journalism I don't know? But the story was told.

Performance wise it isn't worth going out of your way to find a real 289 HP engine.

Change the cam and the valve springs in the 302 and you have the same thing performance wise with the added benefit of a few extra cubic inches.

What would be neat in a Mangusta would be a 302 that had been gone through porting the heads, cam and either a 331 or a 347 stroker kit in it.

There are more than a few 331 Boss track cars running around and a whole bunch of 347 street cars.

The 331 is better if you are going over 7,000 rpm like a race car would but the 347 is what you could run on the street and really is a super sleeper since there is no way to tell what it is by just looking at it.

Any way you look at all of this though is that it is really a fun subject to discuss.

A C8OE appears to be a 302 out of a Shelby or an early 302 Boss block ... your comparing that to a C5 289 block ... not understanding ?

But we may have gotten off track ... an original 289 hipo does appear to be documented in the early production 1967 Mangusta Euro version ... my point is has anyone documented this ...because with seeing the value of these cars rise ... originality as always prevails.

My experience with my 69 and 70 boss 302's the serial #'s matching the vin are of value for originality.

I wonder if Marti Report would show this ?

Ron

HAH!!!! A Marti report on a Goose would be priceless!!!

I don't believe that any of DeT production would have gone thru L-M or Ford until the Pantera. You need the "little note book" that DeT used to keep all the production notes in, about each car! One of our fellow Goose owners is a nephew of the DeT family, and has reportedly touched such book, but Santiago has his fingers securely wrapped around it..... A few minutes with a photo copier is all I would ask....just a few....>!


I think the C8OE block picture is just a 302 casting number example. C8FE was early prototype Boss.

Bob, the guy with #528 that started this thread could be the last, or one of the last hipo cars that I know of as documented.

I've heard claims of Euro cars having them....but never any follow up to get proof, ie casting numbers, dates, pictures..... and trying to explain casting numbers and dates to people with sometimes limited English skills can be difficult. We've been exposed to the "numbers correct" crazy....where Europeans get a different take on it.....from what I have seen.


We are also not exactly sure when DeT began stamping the numbers on the pad on the intakes..... I can't say anyone has posted a 289/xxxx yet????? Seems to have been 302's.....

Somewhere, there was a letter posted about an engine quantity sold to DeT..... Need to see if I can dig that communication up.... Not much info, but interesting never-the-less!

Steve

Take a look at the MUSTANG TEK site they document Engine blocks and the HP Ford Engine Parts Interchange ... Book.

C80E they state was an real early 302 block. C8FE was the early Trans Am Tunnel Port block.

To really throw a wrench in the works ... i had seen a 302 Boss in a Mangusta ...

I will agree that DT has the info under wraps ... years ago I had the info for my 79 Euro Gts photo copied for me at the factory and sent to me ... so your right its out there .. only whos hands is it in now ... I think MARTI has some info on the Panteras'

Ron

Marti is doing Pantera reports now. I heard some complaining about inaccuracies in it though.

Marti only has what ever information Ford had. They do not have info on pushbuttons and GT5s as they were not 'Ford' era cars.

Factory has (had) Mangusta have build sheets available.

here is copy of page 2 from 8MA1266, see note at top: Motore 302/0093

Unfortunatelly reverse crunching the numbers assigns motor 'ZERO' to 8MA1065 !!

or somewhere around there.

Re-reading that build sheet, it seems 8MA1266 was originally delivered with an Autolite carb with tag C6ZF-C...... and that is THE carb that was on the 289 HiPo cars