Stock performance of a 66 Coupe?

TheGreatHio

New Member
Apr 11, 2004
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Iv'e had my 1966 Coupe for a while now, the first car I bought and I love it completley. The engine has been a bit of a troublemaker despite being a brand new rebuild when I purchased it nearly a year ago, I have put over 28,000 miles on the engine which has about 33,000 total on it.

4v 289, with an edelbrock 1405 carb on it (tuned near perfect).
The C-4 Automatic with stock gear ratios. If i remeber correctly-3.5:1. I can look it up if you need me to. Oh, and as far as weight goes the only luxry is has is power steering.

My questions are what kind of performance numbers should it be delivering?
If anyone knows:
Average 1/4 mile time
Average 0-60 time
Average MPG

Obviously im not looking for specifics as every car is different but for some reason I have this nagging feeling my engine is under-performing at lower RPMs...it feels like the tourque is just not there for some reason. Im not to worried about it now- if the car is not as fast as I thought it was going to be when I boght it...so be it. I will continue restoring it and maybe one day ill give her a bigger engine, when shes not forced to be my daily driver. :D
Edit: Oh hay its my first post. Nice to see you all, maybe one day I'll post pictures of her ;)
 
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They werent exactly considered to be 'fast' cars. Acceleration was decent and they were fun to drive. I would say if you get in the upper or mid 15s in a quarter mile with that C4, that would be about right for a mostly stock mid 60s Mustang.

There are, however, many things you can do to that car to get into the 14s real quick. Cam, heads, intake, gears, aluminum driveshaft, stall speed converter, etc.
 
Having owned more than a couple of these in the last 30 years, I think 15's would be VERY optimistic. I've seen the average stock 4bbl Mustang run 0-60 in about 10.5 and low 17's/high 16's @ 90-95 mph, give or take, depending on state of tune. It's not so bad; the six cylinder 66 road tested at 20 seconds @ 67 mph......Mileage has tended to be in the mid to high teens and low twenties.

But with only minor mods, 14's are within easy reach.
 
back when my 66 coupe had the 289 with edelbrock performer, 600 holley, and tri-y headers with 2.5 dual exaust with flowmasters it did 10.01 at 73mph or something near that in the mph. it was a peg leg with 2.79 gears but still had traction problems, 10s are a bit slow, now most imports are doing mid 9's. I think the car could have done mid 9's with a posi and some gears though.

With a very budget 302 with my 289 heads i was able to get it to a best of 8.6 @ 83mph with is very respectable for a street car. The 302 set up is in my sig.