Story by Eric Road • Photography Courtesy LeMons
Ford built roughly two million Mustangs in the 1960s, so it seems only natural that a few particularly battered old pony cars end up racing in the 24 Hours of Lemons. Among those half-dozen or so early Mustangs, quality has varied greatly. Toward the bottom end of “functional” (but the top of end …
I used to think the Suprang was an inspiration, but I was just riding a wave of Harbor Freight welders and old steel oxidizing in back yards across America. I'm so very happy at how it all turned out.
There was a guy with a 1jz automatic suprang at our autocross this year. Wretched gearing. Wouldn't spool the turbo with the converter he had in it. Sounded cool though, and weird hearing that noise from a gen 1 Mustang.
I would comment on how shoving the engine so far back would make it infinitely more difficult to develop the drivetrain and fix problems - but I'm pretty sure that was the whole point.
I asked why they put a complex shifter and manual trans in the car. Didn't get an answer. They spent multiple hours during track time diagnosing their clutch then gave up and drove in one gear. Mercedes 722.3 is not a good transmission but they are stone reliable.
I'm assuming it was an om617 because that doesn't look like an om605. Is there really no space for a 617 in a first gen mustang?
The weird thing is, I've seen a couple '60s Mustangs with Mercedes diesels in them.
yupididit said:I'm assuming it was an om617 because that doesn't look like an om605. Is there really no space for a 617 in a first gen mustang?
Also because we didn't get OM605s in the US. An OM617 fits well in a classic ford engine bay. I've seen a few other swaps that were non-invasive.
Putting a Mercedes-Benz diesel engine into a Mustang is peak LeMons ingenuity.
I am not knocking these guys because they are racing and I am not, but I am not sure if that is a proper description. 
<----- (This IS smiles, laughter ect on my part.)
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