Real 427 Thunderbolt 4-Speed Runs 8s | Ray Paquet Winds his FE to 9,200 RPM and he's 75 years old!

[Music] all right guys welcome to the rev evan channel we are at the nhra us nationals the 67th running of this awesome race and i'm here with the legendary ray paquette if you know anything about stock super stock racing or you just love fords this guy is legendary 64 thunderbolt 427 this is a real car this is not a clone ray you've been running this car forever you want class eliminations here you're whipping up on people at 75 years old what makes you come back and do this you got to keep busy you got to keep doing what you look like to do as long as you keep doing it you're probably able to keep on going for quite a while but as soon as you stop then you know you know what happens to some people when they get that age oh yeah watch tv and fall apart so this requires an awful lot of work right and a lot of effort and you get a lot of satisfaction when everything works and when it doesn't work you have to do a whole lot of hard work to make it work so do you remember the first year you came here with this car or when you actually started racing it the first year i came to this event with this car would have been in 1978 wow prior to that i raced a 67 fair lane and then this car was out of the picture from 1980 until 1985 i was a hired driver for some other people that i sold my 67 to and we won this event overall in 81 with the 67 427 fair lane and that car had a lot of class wins but then uh it was uh this this car here i let a car collector talk me out of it and then i bought it back from him in 85. i was gone between 80 and 85 and then i've run this car exclusively since 85. there's a couple of times when i took a year off because of uh either needing to do a chassis update or or various whatever reasons so for those of you that don't know this is a factory race car from ford 427 cubic inches two four barrel carburetors built for super stock which is where it still competes today four speed transmission this is no automatic this is a man's car let the clutch out row the gears so tell us a little bit about and we'll show you in a second tell us about the fe because it's 427 you still have to use the factory carburetors cylinder heads a lot of the factory parts but there are some things you can modify in super stock yes okay uh there are some accepted aftermarket blocks uh um there are some uh uh a lot of accepted aftermarket rods that have to be the the correct nhra approved length which is what the original rods were and they also have to weigh the correct amount right uh there is an accepted replacement set of carburetors that nhra has approved but they are the same size throttle board venturi and full of the same air we have to maintain the original intake and exhaust valve sizes and valve stem sizes there are some approved aftermarket aluminum heads but they have to maintain and pass nhr attack on all the original runner volumes on the intake exhaust ports and combustion chambers there's a certain small amount of overboard allowable to salvage old blocks but they still uh maintain you have to run the there is a limit on piston dome it has to be equal or less than the original right and as far as like compression and stuff like that nhra limits you to what it was right what it was basically so you can blueprint the engine so you can slightly overbore there's a slight uh stroke tolerance that they check if you do get torn down and have to go through tech but cylinder head port volumes you can port the actual ports like boarding heads but you can't make them bigger than the the size that nhra has in the book best way to sum that up is they they have a volume number for intake ports exhaust ports and combustion chambers and piston dome and when on a tear down i've been through a zillion of them the most recent one was last october right here you have to uh be within spec on everything there's no tolerance if you're out of spec on anything and you have to run the the deck height and head gasket thickness adds up to 40 thousands and so your uh deck and head gasket when you do a tear down they measure all that and it's got to be at least 40 000 or more total so [Music] [Music] the uh runners probably aren't as big as they look so here's a look at that fe ray that is a mean 427. well i could talk for days i could talk for hours so hit me with a question you are allowed an aftermarket intake manifold right but there are restrictions you can make a manifold out of sheet metal as long as it fits your original uh as long as it fits your original heads and also if your carburetors were in line as they were on fes they still have to remain in line and if they were backwards like they are on fes they have to be backwards now that isn't true for the amc's and the hemis because they weren't in line on engines where the carburetors are not in line they can put them anywhere they want as long as they're not in line they have way more latitude to work with things is that an advantage for them it may or may not be but uh i would probably try some things different if the rules allowed it but since they don't uh i stick by the rules uh you know your typical electric water pump mizir pump electric fan uh an accusump to hold a little oil you know uh this is a a safety thing to make sure that you're always have oil pressure yeah factory aluminum bumper oh you're you want to get to that now or yeah why not okay now you'll notice the street cars and the clones would have a filler piece in here and the real thunderbolts didn't have a filler between the grille and this this was all down lower the bumpers were raised up uh it was a special bumper bracket underneath where they weld stick welded a a piece to the bracket move the bumper up and this car's got a fiberglass bumper underneath the aluminum bumper because nhra disallowed the early the first handful of them had the fiberglass and they switched to aluminum to meet nhra requirements that's the only lightweight piece on the front of the car well that's wrong the aluminum bumper on the front is a lightweight piece but the factory fiberglass fenders they're real thick fiberglass i can't imagine they're much heavier than than steel because the flange part here is steel the front windshield is glass it's a stock windshield but the side windows and rear window are plexiglas or whatever right now if you know about thunderbolts you know that these were functional right on this they were originally but is that are you allowed to run those i tried with them without and couldn't see any difference so the hoses got in my way so i quit using them gotcha so you backing this thing up with a four speed right they did make stick and automatics but you run the stick right right uh back then you had to run the lincoln automatic and nowadays you could put in any automatic you know pretty much uh for a while it was c6s but now it's corp you know just like the gm guys run jericho's which is patterned after a ford top loader and i believe the way the rules are now you can put uh t400s or powerglides or c4s or any kind of automatic you want in it [Music] [Music] so so right four-speed thunderbolt you've been running this car for a long time why did you originally buy it and tell us about a little bit about the history i was intrigued with the history and the potential i knew it had a lot more potential than what the previous owner was showing so and the price was right at the time and it had already been wolverine chassis back in the back in the early to mid 70s wolverine chassis had wheel tubbed it and put in a mild steel cage but a full super stock cage and it had kind of a leaflet set up in it like some of the old chrysler cars had it still had some of the original thunderbolt traction uh stuff welded in under there and uh so anyway over the years i made updates to it and then i got kind of temporarily uh sidetracked with it and became the driver for the 67 which i had previously owned and sold so this was out of the picture for a few years and then i reacquired this car and did a four-link update and uh every so many years i just kind of update it to keep it competitive um just staying within nhra rules it's a challenge to uh see what it'll do i still think there's even more left in it so within those rules let's talk a little bit about the performance of the car um about how much horsepower does it make and what's the quickest you fit right here a year ago it went 842 at 150 960 and uh several times here it's gone 8 45 in the fall uh yesterday's 862 run probably could have been a 58 or a 59 if the traction well we had the headwind and i spun a little bit the track was really pretty good but i spun a little bit and then there was a 12 11 or 12 mile headwind and um but i was happy with the 62 and it was good enough to uh get around the other car for class we thrashed the transmission chains just before that run unfortunately the patty worked for that run and that was an older tired one and now is acting up so we got to get to work here pretty soon start working on transmissions i had access to a dyno years ago but we sold that a long time ago when the guy had to vacate when he sold his building so i'm estimating by the kind of numbers it turns it's got to be at least 900. got to be making 900 horsepower what is the uh compression ratio i don't know you know what uh if you go by minimums and maximums on chamber volume and dome displacement and etc it's got to be 15 to 1. i just uh make sure that i've got i'm you know i'm like the dome is allowed to be 12 and i got 10 and a half or 11 i know i'm good the chamber can be 66 and i'm usually 67 plus maybe 67 and a half i leave myself plenty of safety margin everywhere because a few thousands here and there isn't going to make that much difference on the time slip so i'd rather have everything safe by a good bit just so that uh you know when i go through a tear down i just take it apart and hand the pieces and let them check because it's not going to be nothing's going to be so close that i have to worry about it right so what are some of the other interesting features of the car whether it's in the interior or the suspension or things you just love about the thunderbolt well i used to love the original seats that came in there but then we put the lighter weight aftermarket seats in it and um oh yes we still have to run the uh factory style though the coil spring uh is on the rocker thing which is on top of the uh upper control arm and the uh shock absorber the front shock connects to that as well and and uh it'd be nice if they'd let us go to uh uh maybe a a rack and pinion and some kind of a strut deal we'd have a whole lot more room make it a lot easier to work on but it is what it is right how high do you spin this thing buzz it pretty high yeah way quicker oh you know 9 90 200 most of the time sometimes it goes to 9 500. that's in the lights no that's if it uh doesn't go in the next gear it's a really really good air like last fall when it was running those really good numbers we had good air it got up that high at the end of the run wow i mean within reason i don't even give away all your secrets but what's like a typical launch or a shift our rpm for this thing nine ninety two hundred one probably uh oh i don't know 62 6400 but i'll vary that up or down as needed depending on conditions [Music] so please [Music] so race this car has some specific history right as far as it was an in-house race car for for dearborn steel tubing and jack couche and uh it was built at dst with parts furnished by ford and they built all the thunderbolts there with martin's birdies by ford and this one might have a little more unique interesting history because uh they would test various things and run it in different configurations well this is one of the most storied thunderbolts and it's still out here competing 30 nhra class wins alone right yes that's what yeah that this was number 30 yesterday wow that is absolutely unbelievable so guys thanks again for checking out the channel just a great guy great car you guys are going to love checking out this thunderbolt be sure to subscribe to the channel we're having tons of fun out here at the us nationals i know you got number 30 class win ray you got to keep coming back with this thing i'm look forward to it every year thankful that i can still do it that's amazing 30 nhra class wins at this event at this event alone probably 75 counting uh every uh nhra event from 1970 on through to today i mean in 72 one two three and four they used to have the uh it wasn't the wally it was a trophy with a cup on top right and uh they were a little different every year and then in 75 they went to the wally and um they really haven't changed much every now and then you'll get one that's copper colored or it'll have some silver instead of the bronze color and then uh do you have a special room in your house just for the trophies no i got two or three of them where i can see them and uh dozens and dozens of boxes in the attic and in the garage and that's the best storage yeah but just just an amazing car we're gonna watch ray run ray thank you so much it was a pleasure thank you very much and uh we'll look forward to seeing your youtube channel yup thanks guys keep coming back

Channel: REVan Evan

Views: 113,895

Rating: 4.9522762 out of 5

Keywords: ford thunderbolt, ray paquet, 427 ford, 427 thunderbolt, revan evan, evan j smith, nhra drag racing, fastest ford, 427 four speed, teardrop hood, barn find, classic ford, drag racing, world record holder, nhra us nationals, 2021 us natioanls, 1964 ford, 1964 thunderbolt, super stock, nhra super stock, dual carburetors, ford big-block, FE big block, 428 cobra jet, le mans ford, hall of fame, indy, the big go, american muscle, manual transmisssion, in car camera

Id: V7_kZyMoagk

Length: 17min 58sec (1078 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 09 2021