Larry Forgacs of South Park, Pennsylvania, bought his Road runner new in 1968 after honorably departing his duties in the service. What he really wanted was an AMX, but the salesman at his local dealership wasn't really interested in dealing, so Larry took his business elsewhere. His folks had just purchased a '68 Newport and suggested to Larry he should go to their dealer to see if anything caught his fancy. This QQ1 Electric Blue Road Runner did, and the rest, as they say, is history. That he still has it, and it looks like this, is testimony to his love affair with this blue B-Body. It served as the Forgacs family car and daily driver for 10 years in the beginning, but unlike many in Larry's position, he chose not to leave well enough alone. Instead, he opted to make his Road Runner better, faster, meaner, and sharper. But Larry's Plymouth is no gutted and stripped race car. in fact, it's still sporting all of its creature comforts including the heavy bench seats.
The ability to move nearly two tons of B-Body with alacrity is the responsibility of the owner-built 440 nestled snugly under the fiberglass six-pack hood. Featuring a .040-inch overbore, the 440 sports 11.3:1 TRW forged slugs, a stock steel crank and rods, and an Ultradyne solid stick with a lumpy 259 degrees of duration at .050 and a whopping .587-inch lift. Up top, a pair of ported and polished 906 castings with stock-sized Milodon stainless steel valves, Comp Cams valvesprings, Crane 1.5 roller rockers, and an old-school Edelbrock TM-7 intake and a Holley/Proform hybrid carburetor handle induction chores. Spark is provided by a Mallory dual-point distributor with Pertronix electronic conversion, an MSD 6AL with 8.5mm plug wires, and a homemade two-step rev limiter. Noise is produced by a set of CPPA 2-inch headers, a stainless 3-inch dual exhaust system, and a pair of three-chamber Flowmaster mufflers-all fab'd at home in Larry's garage.
Being the hands-on kind of guy that he is, Larry performed most of the pristine bodywork himself-with some help from his son Larry and friends Jim Davis and J.J.-including the deep blue QQ1 paint and the addition of the fiberglass six-pack hood. In the cockpit, Larry added woodgrain dash inserts from a '68 Satellite and performed all interior reconstruction. Larry likes to row his own, so he maintained the factory 833 New Process four-speed trans, but added a Hurst Competition Plus shifter to make power shifts that much easier. A Centerforce Dual-Friction clutch is responsible for transferring all that RB power through the trans and on to the bulletproof Dana 60 packing 4.56 Richmond gears. Larry stuck with the proven combination of Super Stock springs, a pinion snubber, and a leaf-spring relocation kit that moves the springs a full 3 inches per side, making way for a whole lotta tire when combined with the homemade mini tubs. Competition Engineering provided the rear three-way-adjustable shock absorbers, and Summit the front adjustables, otherwise, the car rides on the same torsion bars with which it rolled down the assembly line. The suspension obviously works judging by the consistent 1.65-second short times. Bite is provided by a set of gargantuan 345/55R15 BFGoodrich Drag Radials, and direction is the responsibility of a pair of 215/75R15 BFGoodrich Radial T/As, all mounted on Weld Draglites. Larry also made the subframe connectors out of tubular chromoly.
So what's it all worth? Larry has been able to hustle the entirely home-built, two-ton behemoth to a scorching best of 12.008 at 112.42 mph-proving the capabilities of Larry Forgacs. Not only does the Road runner look great, but it'll also lay down a whoopin' to anyone foolish enough to challenge Larry in a stoplight duel. Best of all, the car is all Larry from top to bottom. How many can claim that?