March 24 2026 - UPDATE

 With the decision to rebuild my original 460 into a "460CJ", I've started reassembling the 460 that is in the Tomato now so I can get the car mobile again and get her into a shop for final bodywork and paint. When I pull the current motor out of the car I will then detail out the rest of the engine bay components that I'm unable to access with the engine in place. With that decision made, I've started putting the 460 back together....

I have a very good friend of mine, Charlie Mills who is now retired, acting on my behalf visiting local engine builders to see what their capabilities and knowledge of the 385 series Fords are. He has found a couple very good prospects to tackle the task and one even has an in house dyno!😍

Now the race is on to get the car mobile by the end of Spring so she can finally 🤞🤞🤞get her final colors on!!!

February 15 2026 - UPDATE

 Well after a very long hiatus due to weather and lack of drive, I FINALLY made a bit of progress on the Tomato this past Saturday.

I had recently scored a rare '71 429CJ Rochester QuadraJet carburetor for the rebuild of her original engine. I had also picked up the 429CJ intake a couple years ago and got it all blasted clean in December of 24 so I figured it was time to pull it out and see how things looked together.

Here is the intake before...

and here it is after blasting.

A drive screw that holds the baffle in place on the underside of the intake had it's head snap off during removal. The remnant can be seen in the upper left corner of the baffle area. Also have a little work to do on the baffle itself to get it straighten out...

 

Once I got the remnant drilled out, I flipped the intake over and set the QuadraJet in place to see how things lined up and what was missing for it's use on my engine...

Couple items I noticed were the bracket and throttle solenoid for use with air conditioning as well as the bits and pieces for the divorced choke arrangement on the Rochester.

Did a quick Google search for the original FOMOCO parts but there are none available at this time. I'll do some digging and see what I may be able to substitute or fabricate.

UNTIL NEXT INSTALLMENT...

ZEBRA 3 OUT