Every now and then, when I’m looking for one thing, I end up finding another that’s even better. Today is one such case…after some discussions over what should be powering a guy’s 1977 Mustang II that he just dug out of who knows where in a Facebook group, the discussion boiled down to two options: a 302 swap or putting work into the 2.3L four-banger the little Deuce already had. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’d happily beat on a V8 Mustang II like I genuinely didn’t care one bit about what the consequences would be, but this is a young gun who is excited about a build and to be fair, the car is actually in pretty decent condition. So I wanted to show off what a naturally-aspirated 2.3L Ford can actually be built to do. Per the normal course of events, this led to a YouTube black hole of sorts that led me to this car and this particular video.

The driver of “Four’s Wild”, a Fox-body Thunderbird Turbo Coupe racer, is Fred House and the car itself is a monster. This is a car that runs easy mid-7s at nearly 170 miles an hour, both figures being conservative. This is four cylinders of bonafide anger being fed by an overachieving hair dryer, and the results speak for themselves. But this run isn’t the normal A-to-B blast that House usually enjoys. Towards the end of the run, it appears that something at the very nose of the Thunderbird sprays out and in the middle of a run that still managed to be a 7.99 ET lap, the Ford cocks sideways. Reflexes kick in and somehow House keeps the Bird off of the wall and in one piece. Bet that raised the old pulse just a little bit!