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Here's a pic of my Pantera.
I got taken Big Time unfortunately. Bought it off a former president of the Pantera Owners Club of America, researched the seller, and the car, everyone said "solid car, go for it", and it IS a monster of a car. 650hp stroked 351 (to 408) Scat crank and rods, Ross pistons, ITB's with EFI.
Unfortunately, the seller drove the p!ss out of the engine, and failed to mention that a couple rockers had failed on him, sending needle bearings and steel bits everywhere. He abused this engine (lots of time over 8000 rpm's)
An hour into owning the car, I changed the oil, and it wouldn't start. Turned out a chunk of steel had locked up the oil pump. My changing the oil had wooshed some steel bits over the lip of the racing oil pan into the pickup, and when I went to start the engine it instantly sucked steel chunks into the oil pump, locking up the oil pump and distributor.
I was told the motor was fresh, and never had any issues EVER, and it DID run well, with HUGE power, but after calling him on the steel bits in the pan, he admitted to the failed rockers, said he thought he got all the bits out, said "sorry about that", and then texted me saying he wouldn't be available to help me any more with the car.
Presently I have rebuilt rockers and new valvesprings going in, hopefully that's all that's needed to get it back to reliable. Oil pressure is good.
If anything else goes bad, I'm just going to throw a cover over it, and save for a rebuild/new engine. Something detuned a little. This engine is literally a full blown sprint car engine, and it's at the end of it's service life.
Next year I'll be rebuilding the engine and possibly refreshing the gearbox, set it up for the long haul.
The car itself is sweet. I just got ripped off by the seller, who knew darn well what he was doing. He even misrepresented the car in the ads, saying it had parts in it that it didn't.
I'm over it though, it's my car now, so hopefully in a week or 2 it'll be running again, and I'll be enjoying the car.
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