In 1988, the previous owner Walt Laughlin, wanted to obtain residency at Bel Air Estates, the best manufactured housing in Lancaster California. At that time, due to his economic status, his application for residency would not qualify him...but he was willing to part with his 1968 California Special Mustang to get the home. When my father went to the bank to see if they would approve this guy for the house, the loan officer at the bank said to my dad, "If this man is willing to give up his California Special, then he MUST be really serious. We'll make him the loan." That is when my family came into possession of the car.

For the next 12 years, the car sat and started deteriorating. In the late part of the year 2000, I turned 15 and got my learner's permit to drive in California. My mom had the title to the car and thought I should drive the mustang rather than spending money on another car. So she paid two guys to do whatever necessary to the car to just get it running. $2000 later, just around the time of my 16th birthday I got my first car! At that time, I really didn't know how special the car really was...but I soon figured it out with the help of the people on californiaspecial.com.

The first thing I learned was having a car like this costs money, a lot of money. I started noticing things that could be replaced and I found a shop called "West Coast Classic Mustang" in Reseda that could get new parts for this car. They are no longer in business at the current location, but while they were there, the owner, Jerry, had worked with me to replace the fuel sending unit, both dash panels, the dash pad, the speaker inside the dash pad, new sun visor brackets, new chrome bezel and lens for the dome light, as well as replace the factory two buckle seatbelts for a newer style 3 point seatbelt setup. These were some of the first modifications done to the car. Then, I made the mistake of taking the mustang into Pep Boys that summer and trying to price what it would cost for a new AC Compressor. This was a mistake because they told me for about $500 they could get me the new AC Compressor with Clutch, install it, and charge the system and have it good and running for me. I was thrilled so I quickly spent the money. When I returned to pick the car up, the Compressor was installed, but the AC did not work. When I took it to West Coast Classic Mustang, I learned that I had to replace the Condenser, filter dryer, many other numerous parts, and fix the AC ducting, etc. By the time I was done I spent over $1000 in addition to the $500 at Pep Boys, for a working AC that did not blow out hard enough to even hit you in the face. Sure the air got cold, but it did not work well enough where I could even drive the car with the windows up. Also, at the time the C code engine was a real lazy dog. If I turned on the AC it would completely rob the engine of any "power" it didn't even possess to begin with. So now I was 16 years old with a 1968 GTCS that was extremely gutless, needed a paint job, but yet it had a working Air Conditioner that I had spent all my money on. So what was next? Work work work to make more money to put into the mustang of course!

On my tight budget, I went to Earl Scheib on Sherman Way and spent just under $500 to get the mustang repainted black. I felt much better about the car after I had it painted, they did a good job for the price. For the next few years, the car remained black without the California special scripts and without the GTCS striping.

Next, I replaced the old vinyl top that had a huge rip in it, with a new one. The work was done by Canoga AutoTops in Canoga Park for about $500. They did a great job and I still today think it was the best thing i've done to the car for only $500, it still looks really good.

So, I was a teenager and teenagers need to have a stereo with a subwoofer haha. So I used my life savings that I had saved on $2 a week allowance since I was 6 to get some nice sound. I went to a place called Pacific Stereo on Topanga and got what I thought was a really good deal at the time. I went with all new Pioneer stuff: 4-way 6x9's for the back, a Coustic 4-channel 150Watts max/channel to power those and the subwoofer. The Bass speaker is a 12" JL Audio W6 I bought off a friend for $300 including the box it was mounted in. For the 6x9's, the stereo shop built a new back shelf and recarpeted it, made it look really nice. They also carpeted my trunk before they mounted the amplifer. The head unit I bought was the best at the time, a Pioneer P9200. After all that, I had spent around $1500 and the stereo did sound good, except all the sound was coming from the back of the car, because the dash speaker blew. Later, I ended up buying kick panels that were made for a 6" diameter speaker and I put pioneer components in the front which helped balance the sound a little. When I did that I needed to buy another amplifier. A Kenwood that was a 2-channel with 300Watts RMS bridged to power the subwoofer and I reused the Coustic Amp to power the 4 other speakers in the car. Alan Graham Motoring did this work and removed the port from my box and recarpeted it. They also fixed few things that the other stereo shop had done wrong and I bought some sheepskin seat covers to cover my black vinyl seats that had just began to rip. That was another $900. Also, I needed an alternator that could handle this stereo so I got a 100amp rebuilt one that did the job for a while, but naturally that had to be replaced later for a Chevy 1- wire setup from Valley Alternators on Saticoy.

So I was a teenager with a 1968 GTCS with a working AC that looked pretty good asthetically inside and outside, with a really loud stereo system. The next thing I wanted was for the car to be really loud also. So I impulsively did what many people do, "Flowmasters." Went to PAW and bought Super Competition Hooker Headers and had an exhaust made that was 2.25" straight back from the headers to 2-channel 13" flowmaster mufflers and from there the exhaust went up over the axles and out the back of the car with some chrome tips. I thought the sound was much better, however I did not gain as much power as I would have hoped. Naturally, the next thing was to overhaul the motor.

My dad and my uncle drag raced a lot in the 60s in two brackets. With their 1964 Pontiac GTO they raced in the B/S class and ran 12.85 at 109.63mph. With their 1967 Firebird 400 Ram Air, they raced in the SS/DA class and also ran in the mid to high 12s: 12.47 and 12.51 at 111.56mph were their best times ever. So, being 17 I wanted to race my mustang to see what a 12 second car feels like.

When I convinced my dad and uncle that it was time to build the motor, we looked in a Summit Racing Catalog and saw a 347 stroker kit. The motors for the GTO and Firebird were 389ci and 400ci respectively. The measly little 289 seemed small, so when we saw that we could reuse the block and heads we already had on the car and increase the displacement to 347 cubic inches, we were excited to see what we could get out of it. The stroker kit came with a Cast Crank, rods, keith black 10:1 hypereutectic pistons, high output oil pump, and all the bearings needed to build the shortblock. The next mistake we made was going to Coast Motor Supply in Canoga Park to build it. They were not racing specialists and it took them over 2 months to do the job. We brought them new parts from PAW: Edlebrock Performer RPM aluminum intake manifold, Holley 670cfm Street Avenger (4 barrel vacuum secondaries) carburetor, Aluminum Roller Rocker arms 1.6 ratio, chrome molly pushrods, aluminum ford racing valve covers, aluminum edlebrock water pump, TCI Streetfighter 10" 3500 stall converter, new flexplate, and a Japanese high torque starter. We took the Cast iron heads to West Coast Racing Cylinder Heads. They did a valve job, replaced the valve seats for unleaded gas, tapped the bosses for threaded rocker arm studs, checked for cracks, milled the heads .025" and CC'd them down from 64cc's to 60cc's for what we calculated to be close to 11:1 compression ratio, and had them port and polish the exhaust ports. We went to Camonics for the camshaft. We were too conservative with a hydraulic flat tappet .480"lift intake and exhaust with 280 degrees of advertised duration. We got all the valve springs, keepers, retainers from Camonics with the cam and West Valley Cylinder heads tested the springs and installed them.

Once Coast Motors was finished and I was driving the Mustang with the new motor, there was a big difference coming from the worn out 289. I was told 1000 miles to break it in...guess where I was right at 1000 miles...Los Angeles County Raceway(LACR) for the first time. At that point in time, I hadn't replaced the transmission, or the radiator with built in tranny cooler, or rear end, or brakes, or tires. The car's best run that night was 14.81 at 94mph. Being an ignorant, inexperienced teenager I was disappointed because I though I would run 12s that first night. Little did I know that I would spent 10s of thousands of dollars more on my quest to run 12s.

Soon, the transmission got fried from the high stall converter without an external tranny cooler. Well my dad and I looked in the yellow pages for a place to go for the trans. One of the first businesses we saw was “Daves Custom Transmission” and it was close by in Winnetka. He was an experienced racer and told us he could build us a great racing transmission, a fully manual valve body C4. We beefed it up at the same time to use a 26 spline input shaft instead of the stock 24 splines. This meant buying a new torque converter. We bought an 11” TCI Break-Away 2400 stall. We used a B&M Quicksilver ratchet shifter with the manual valve body trans. We added a Hayden external transmission cooler. I really liked having the ability to chirp the tires with this new tranny. That was at least $2000.

The next thing that happened was a blown rear main seal after less than 3000 miles on the motor. So under warranty, coast motors said they would replace it. I made it perfectly clear to the owner that I had a manual valve body transmission put in the car and that the shifter needs to be in the “1” position not “D” when moved around his shop. Well you can guess what happened, he didn’t relay it to the person who actually moved the car and I got a call saying that it wasn’t just the rear main seal, but the transmission was leaking severely and they couldn’t replace the rear main because of the trans. leak. I was furious, I knew they had destroyed my $2000 manual valve body transmission. Dave Williams was extremely unhappy with Coast Motors for destroying the transmission he built. I had to tow the car back to Daves Custom Transmission to have him rebuild the trans again and flush the converter and had him fix the rear main at the same time. I didn’t like the TCI Break-A-way converter. So instead when he rebuilt it, we went with an 11” Continental 2500 stall converter. Over $1000 wasted on the trans.. Weeks later it was fixed and I was dying to race it.

Before I raced it again, I also went to PAW and bought March Pulleys and a full MSD ignition system. MSD Pro-Billet Distributor, MSD 6AL box, MSD Blaster Coil, and 8.5mm red spark plug wires. At that time, my goal was to make my car look good under the hood. I learned about a place called Mustangs Etc. in Van Nuys. I bought a 1 piece chrome export brace and chrome, curved monte carlo bar. I got the pulleys, the chrome braces, and all the MSD stuff put in and it was a huge improvement. I was actually proud to “pop my hood.” Then something terrible happened.

I picked my car up from the shop that cleaned up under my hood and installed all the new electrical ignition stuff and drove home. When I got home, I could not park in the driveway because 4 cars were taking up all the spots, so I decided to park on the street. Not 30 seconds after I got out of the car carrying empty MSD boxes, I looked up the street and saw a car with a right head light out, driving really slow and really too close to the right side of the street to avoid hitting my car. Sure enough CRASH! I freaked out and screamed and yelled and cussed. The person was a foreigner, under the influence, without a drivers license from any US state, but a temporary one. The car she was driving was not hers either. She caused serious damage to my perfect California special. Luckily the person who owned the car had AIG insurance and they ended up paying for my car to be fixed.

I was recommended to ChinoZ Auto Body in Winnetka. There, they welded on a 67 driver side rear fender and used a lot of bondo to repair the mangled trunk lid and tail light panel. They used Lacur and clear coat paint to repaint the entire car black. At the same time they added brand new chrome bumpers to the front and rear. When I got the car back from the shop I was overjoyed. However, it wasn’t long before I started having more problems. I dropped the driveshaft on Ventura Blvd. When I toed it over to Daves Custom Transmission, after the inspection we found out that my bearing seized up back where the yoke goes into the rear end. Then that got fixed and I was driving again.

Before I raced again, I had Bob Jennings do a dyno tune for my car. He modified the carburetor and set the timing on the distributor. Another problem that arose was the fact that when I brought him the car, it had 101 octane fuel in it and he tuned it based on that. At $5 a gallon I couldn’t afford to put that in my car everyday, so I tried using NOS black can octane booster at each fill up. On hot days, the car would ping even with the additive. So I bought an inside the car MSD Timing Module so that I could retard the timing until I didn’t hear pinging anymore.

When I finally made it back out to the drag strip to see what difference the transmission and tuning made I saw some improvement. On the 205/70R14 bald tires with an untouched 8” rear end with 2.79 gears. I ran a 14.64 at 96.3mph. The most interesting thing was I shifted only once in the whole quarter mile. I crossed the lights in 2nd gear at 6000rpm. My 60’ time was 2.4 seconds, which is pathetically slow and I never even got into 3rd gear. So the next step was to put some tires on the car and change the rear end.

I went to AFS Wheels on Deering and bought 17” Chrome Cobra R rims and Kumho Ecsta Supra 712s. The front wheels are 17x8” with a 245/45ZR17 tire and the rear wheels are 17x9” with 275/40ZR17 tires. These fit on the car pretty well, except when I went around corners the inside of the rear tires would rub on the leaf springs. These new tires provided a lot better traction. Being able to get traction puts a lot more stress on parts so sure enough another problem came about.

I dropped the driveshaft again, only this time I had previously installed a driveshaft safety loop so the shaft was bouncing around underneath banging on the unibody underside and the mufflers. So I towed it back over to Daves Custom Transmission and we observed the same reason for the driveshaft problem, seized bearings. While we had the car on the rack we were inspecting the damage from the driveshaft to the unibody and we noticed that there was a crinkle in the frame under the drivers rear quarterpanel from the accident that was never repaired. The next place I took the mustang was Valley Pacific Frame and Alignment in Canoga Park on Deering. They told me the car needed 20 hours of work done on the frame from the accident. I went back to AIG for an Additional to fix the framework because the insurance adjuster originally put down only half an hour on the frame damage from the accident. I was relieved when AIG approved the additional to get the frame fixed. While the car was at Valley Pacific, we paid them to install brand new leaf springs.

Next problem, when they pulled the frame to straighten it, it messed up the body work done by ChinoZ. I took the car over to Chino to have him bondo it. He warned me that because the frame had just been pulled the body would “settle” so if he fixed it right away the paint might crack later on. I really just wanted my car back at that point so I had him just go ahead and fix it right away. Luckily, I was able to go back to AIG and they cut Chino a check and had me sign off that this was the last additional.

The next upgrade necessary on my quest to run 12s was a rear end. With a Ford 9” rear end I wouldn’t have this problem of dropping the drivshaft or even worry about breaking parts inside the pumpkin. Through a guy named Jack I got the number for a guy named Bill who could make it happen for me. We used a 79 Lincoln Mark V rear end with disc brakes and had it resized to 60 7/16 end to end. This measurement would move my rear tires farther out on each side by ½” to look better and rid the rubbing problem. We used an Auburn limited slip differential with a 4.11 ring and pinion gear ratio and 31 spline axles. Hoopers is the shop that installed the rear end. When we did the rear end we put in long studs so we could run slicks at the track. About $2000 later, I got my car back from the shop again. The gears made a noticeable difference in acceleration and the rear discs helped the stopping power greatly.

So now the mustang looked really sharp and was pretty quick. But I ran into trouble again. After school was out, I was making one of those left turns where people are stopped and are letting you through. Well there was a far right lane and it was really hard to see if it was clear or not, and I went for it and some guy was just driving really fast, too fast for it be safe in traffic like that and he hit me on the passenger door. Because I was making the left turn and this guy happened to work for an insurance company he told me right then that I was at fault. So I took my car back to ChinoZ to get more body work done. He got me a new passenger door from another 68 mustang and used bondo and repainted almost the entire car. This time when he repainted it, I had him add white stripes on the hood and over the rear trunk lid. I also had him paint the tail light panel white. I picked up the GTCS stripe kit and some California special scripts. When I got the car back it really looked sharp. At that point I mistakingly considered it fully restored because the interior was nearly perfect, the exterior had been completely repainted and was flawless, the engine had less than 10000 miles on it. The transmission was new and so was the rear end. I also had some really nice wheels on it and had all disc brakes. At this point the car was still 10s of thousands of dollars away from being “fully restored” or a “12 second GTCS.”

The next modification was when I went out to Palmdale to Calvert Racing. I bought their CalTracs tractions bars and RanchoRS9000 rear adjustable shocks. This was a great improvement to the holeshot. I also bought Hoosier 26x9-15 slicks at that time and had ordered 15” 14lb. Aluminum Weld Racing rims for the slicks. So now that I had slicks, and gears was my mustang a 12 second GTCS?

Well I finally got it on a chassis dynamometer to see how great that motor really was. I was disappointed. A 347 cubic inch V8 with a cam in it, dyno tuned, intake, exhaust, with port and polished heads, with 11:1 compression should make close to 400 horsepower at the flywheel and maybe 330-350RWHP and about 300-350lb-ft torque at the wheels, at least that’s what I thought. Surprisingly the car made only 249RWHP and 275Ft-lbs. Torque at the wheels. At this point I realized that I had made several mistakes along the way. The cam was too small. The 68 Cast Iron heads, although ported and polished, didn’t breathe very well. I should have had the motor built by racing professionals. But, regardless now that I had slicks and traction bars and gears, I wanted to see what I would pull in the quarter mile. At some point in time, I got fed up with the Air Conditioning and pulled out all the equipment to save weight for racing.

Before I had the slicks on the car, I raced it at LACR again and ran a 14.307 at 94mph. I raced it at California speedway in Fontana and ran 14.34 at 94mph with slicks on the car. Fourteen seconds is a long way away from 12s. Soon afterwards, my manual valve body transmission fell apart on me. This time I went to A-1 Racing Transmissions on Canoga in Canoga Park. They rebuilt my C4 as an automatic that could automatically chirp the tires. I made the mistake of not changing the shifter when I got the new transmission. The quicksilver ratchet shifter wore out and the reverse block off malfunctioned and it went into reverse twice at +20mph. The transmission seemed to be okay, but I needed a new shifter. I bought the B&M Pro Shift ratchet.

Luckily one day, I ran into Brian Schapiro at the 101 octane gas station on Vanowen and DeSoto. I told him about my 347 and that it only made 249RWHP and I was only running 14s. I asked him what I could do to go faster. He told me, “change your heads, go bigger on your cam.” So I started looking into buying some aluminum cylinder heads. I asked many racers which heads are the best. The answer I got was “Air Flow Research.” So I met with some shops to see which AFRs I should buy. What I was told: “for what your trying to do(run 12s) you should get the AFR185s.”

All Mustang Performance, AMP, in Arizona was where I bought the heads. I bought them with the upgraded valve spring package, with titanium retainers. I also had them mill the heads to decrease the combustion chamber volume to 56cc’s. This cost me about $2000. When I got the heads, I wanted B&D Racing in Canoga Park to install them and change the cam at the same time. Brian told me that we were going to use a Lunati cam with cam specs of .544” lift on the intake and .560” lift on the exhaust. The duration specs are 232degrees duration at .05”lift on the intake and 242degrees duration at .05”lift on the exhaust. The shortblock had less than 15000 miles on it since it had been redone as a 347 originally. I figured putting these heads on that shortblock with the new cam should give me the extra 100HP that I was lacking at the wheels. Low and Behold another big problem reared its ugly head.

When B&D Racing pulled off the cast heads, they took one look at the pistons in the shortblock and said, “your motor is garbage.” The hypereutectic pistons were all broken in the same spot. Some were broken in two places. A few lifters were popping out of place because the retainers had disappeared. So what happened next was an entirely new shortblock. This time I wanted everything done right. We went with all forged components: Crank, Rods, and pistons. We used an 87-91 5.0 block with 1 piece rear main seal because in the lifter valley there are bosses to screw in the spider so that the new cam could use hydraulic roller lifters without having to buy the $460 dog-bone type. We had the block machined for the extra stroke and bored .030” over.

It took a month for the shortblock to be professionally blueprinted and balanced. When it was done, the AFR185 heads were bolted on. We re-used the intake manifold, carburetor, headers, water pump, rocker arms, and ignition system. We added some new Chrome valve covers and a Canton Deep Sump 7 quart oil pan. I was recommended to change the torque converter again. This time we used a Continental 10” 3500 stall. At the same time, I decided to upgrade the brakes. I went with a Baer kit that came with a new master cylinder and 13” cross-drilled and slotted rotors and performance calipers that I had powder coated red. This is October 2004 now. I broke in the motor and had the car chassis dynode again. Now it made 328RWHP at 6300rpm and 312Ft.-lbs. Torque.

Next time at LACR I went much faster. I ran in the low 13s, but had lots of trouble keeping the car straight on the 1st-2nd gear shift. If I could keep my foot to the floor and keep the car straight I thought I was almost at 12s. The next upgrades were through LaBree Motorsports. Brent LaBree built me a custom double-cross over with 2.5” piping that went into MagnaFlow mufflers that drop off at the axles. I gained 7RWHP and 9Ft.-lbs. Torque at the wheels from this alone. LaBree Motorsports also welded on subframe connectors to stiffen up the body to help keep it straight. The air fuel ratio was around 14:1, which is kind of lean, so I figured I’d have some more tuning done on the carburetor. Bob Jennings changed the jets one size bigger on the primary and on the secondaries to 69s and 72s and changed the spring in the vacuum diaphragm to a lighter spring to get the secondaries to open sooner. Now the chassis dyno numbers on B&D’s dyno are: 347RWHP and 308Ft-lbs. Torque at the wheels.

First time I ran 12s, I was at LACR on a cold night. I got it to do a 12.852 at 105.2mph on the last run of the night with a 1.8 second 60’ time. The next time at the track I ran in the 12s on 4 runs in a row very consistent 12.90s. I raced out at California Speedway again. This time I ran 12.75 at 106.7mph with a 60’ of 1.943 seconds.

The next problem I had was the transmission. The Hayden cooler I had on it was cheap and not adequate for the 3500 stall converter. Also, my cable that came with the shifter broke on a 2nd to 3rd shift and chewed up my high gear clutches. In July 2005 A-1 Rebuilt the trans. This time we added a deeper aluminum transmission pan to hold more fluid and we added a B&M Supercooler trans. cooler to properly cool the trans. I also wanted to keep my engine cool, so I bought a Griffin 1.25” core aluminum radiator and a SPAL electric fan. The SPAL fan failed after 3 days, so I went back to a pulley fan.

At Valley Pacific, I changed the front springs to V6 mustang springs so they come up easier and at the same time I went with Carrera 90-10 front shocks for weight transfer.

The next upgrade that I did was to upgrade the rear discs to the Baer Road and drag kit. The rear brakes needed to be small enough to fit into the 15” rims that I use for my slicks. At the same time I added a Hurst Roll Control Line lock to help me heat up the slicks. For a better 60’ time at the track, I bought a vacuum pump to help my brakes hold me at the line because with the big cam sometimes the brakes aren’t as strong at idle. Now I’m aiming for 12.60s at Fontana and 12.70s at LACR.

My best race at LACR now is 12.84 at 105mph with a 60’ of 1.777 seconds. However, I finally ran into another problem. This carburetor was the only problem left to deal with after B&D built the rest of the motor. It all comes back to what I always say, you do something wrong the first time and the second time you do it right from experience. The Holley Street Avenger Carburetor is the carb I bought for the first motor when I had no idea what a good carburetor actually was. It started giving me problems, so I am pulling it off and changing it to a Holley model 4779C or 750cfm “double pumper” with mechanical secondaries. Bob Jennings is going to modify the carburetor and dyno tune it next week. Today is March 17, 2006.

Just as this story never ends…I want to add one last thing to the story:

Today is May 10, 2006. Bob Jennings put on the Holley with some modifications: Machined off the Airhorn for the choke, went to larger emulsion holes and air bleeds, running 71 primary and 79 secondary Holley jet sizes. When he dynode it with the new carburetor, the needle was nearly pinned on his dynamometer which reads up to 400RWHP. He said it read close to 380RWHP. So I put it on B&D Racing’s dyno and the airfuel was very close to the optimum 12.8-13.0 range across the RPM band and it made 375RWHP and 342Ft.-lbs. Torque at the wheels. This was like a 30RWHP and 30Ft-lbs. Torque gain at the wheels just from changing the carburetors. Got the mustang out to LACR on April 30 to see what a difference in quarter mile racing times this would be. The temperature was like 90 degrees F and the mustang still ran its new best: 12.685 at 105.675mph with a 60’ of 1.754 seconds with a reaction time of .069 seconds.

The excitement I get out of my CS will never end…there are many further improvements and restoration details to come, but first thing is first…I want to see if the mustang can pull a 12.5 at 108mph at California Speedway in Fontana….