This 1970 Ford Mustang Boss 302 Packs a 427-cu-in Secret
Doug Miller’s Mustang Story:
“That Mustang was a rocket, I tell you, a rocket. What a blast. I had the motor of my dreams and a car that was made to handle it. The thing tracked straight as a string and it was as safe as being in your bed at night. Never squirrelly, just outrageous.
Back in 1973, my buddy and I found a 1970 Ford Mustang Boss 302 on a used-car lot in our town of Midland, Michigan. It didn’t sound very good when we started it up, and it read zero oil pressure. So before buying the Mustang, we took it to the Lincoln-Mercury dealer across town where we worked, ran it up on the hoist, and dropped the oil pan to check the internals. The oil pump drive was twisted in half, and there were lots of tiny aluminum pieces in the pan. We gathered the metallic bits up in a nice oily shop rag, went back over to the used-car lot, and dropped them on the salesman’s desk. “Let’s deal,” I said.
Right after I bought the Mustang, my buddy and I pulled the 302. We rebuilt the motor, dropped it back in the car, and I drove it for the next year. That 302 was great for racing streetlight to streetlight, but I wanted to go faster. I had always dreamed of owning a 427 Cobra, from the time I read about one achieving something like 0-to-100-to-0 in like 10 seconds. Well, in summer 1974, a local guy named Mike had this Shelby Mustang with a 427-cubic-inch V-8 in it. All the gearheads around town thought it was a 427 “Cammer” engine. I knew better. This mystery motor was Ford’s 427 FE overhead valve V-8, like the one used in GT40 race cars. The exhaust tube on the third cylinder, each side, crossed under the engine and over to the other collector. It made such a unique exhaust note.
Well, the 427 had started to make a little rattle or something, and Mike decided he didn’t want to mess with it anymore. He was tight with his money, and it was going to cost him big to send it down to Holman-Moody for a rebuild. Instead, Mike decided he wanted to trade the engine for something less radical. We ended up making this convoluted engine swap between three cars — nothing short of a backyard mechanical miracle. In the end, Mike ended up with a K-code 289 in his Shelby, and I had a 427 big-block, the motor of my dreams, in my Boss Mustang.”
(photo credit: Cameron Neveu - Hagerty)
