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VINTAGE DRAG RACING

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APRIL 2017

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THE ORIGINAL

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EVENT DETAILS • MULTIPLE-CLASS DRAG RACING WITH CASH PRIZES

JUL 28-29 AUG 19-20 SEP 29-30 OCT 13-14 • EDITORS’ CHOICE AWARDS • CAR SHOW ‘BEST OF’ WINNERS NATIONAL MARYLAND ROCKINGHAM TUCSON TRAIL RACEWAY INT’L RACEWAY DRAGWAY DRAGWAY RECEIVE THE COVETED ORIGINAL HEBRON, OH BUDDS CREEK, MD ROCKINGHAM, NC TUCSON, AZ SUPER CHEVY SHOW JACKET

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ON THE COVER: In a time before safety equipment, the quest for speed meant seriously risking life and limb. Innovative and fearless drivers pushed boundaries and paved the way for the beloved sport of drag racing. Photography by Dominick Damato.

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Contents 08] Starting Line: Give the Kid a Chance 10] Where It All Began: Dual-Engine Dragsters 12]] HOT ROD Anything: y g R/C Madness 14]] HOT ROD Through g the Yearss 16]Take 6 5 With the Drag-On Ladyy 18] 8 Weird and Wacky, Shortened Tri-Five 20]Hemi 0] Dragster g Unearthed After 50 Years

26] Old-School Speed Parts Stash 30] Early Dragsters Try to Cheat the Wind 46] Max-Wedge-Powered ’29 Ford 52] Meet the Mail-Order Rocket Engine 62] Found: Lightest Fuel Dragster to Hit the Strip 72] Budget Big-Block Recipe Takes Engine Masters 74] Streetable 496ci Is a Torque Monster 76] SAM Tech’s Monster LS on the Dyno 78] 850hp Nitrous Build on the Cheap 83] Daily Driver Diaries: Boiling Point 84] Why the Rare Willys Is the Go-To Gasser 86] Quick Tech: Where to Mount EFI Injectors 88] Solving a Mysterious Vibration 96] Kick-Down Cables and Eye-Watering Idle Fumes 100] Go-Fast Parts Go F tP t For Fo Your You Ride Rid 106] In the Words of Freiburger… g …

62 6 CON ONNECT WITH US:HOTROD@HOTROD.COM S HO O @HO O OM

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EDITORIAL Network Content Director Douglas R. Glad Editor-in-Chief Evan Perkins Managing Editor Phil McRae Senior Technical Editor Marlan Davis Senior Editor Thom Taylor Feature Editor Brandan Gillogly Staff Editor Phillip Thomas Video Host & Producer Mike Finnegan Tech Center Manager Calin Head ART DIRECTION & DESIGN Creative Director Edwin Alpanian Assistant Art Director Jonathan Gray Assistant Art Director Steve Hernandez ON THE WEB CarCraft.com CircleTrack.com ClassicTrucks.com HOTROD.com MoparMuscleMagazine.com MuscleCarReview.com StreetRodderWeb.com

SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES Email hotrodmagazine@emailcustomerservice.com, call 800/800-4681 (386.447.6385 international), or write to Hot Rod, P.O. Box 420235, Palm Coast, FL 32142-0235. Please include name, address, and phone number on any inquiries. For change of address, six weeks’ notice required. Send old as well as new address to HOT ROD, P.O. Box 420235, Palm Coast, FL 32142-0235. Occasionally our subscriber list is made available to reputable firms offering goods and services we believe would be of interest to our readers. If you prefer to be excluded, please send your current address label and a note requesting to be excluded from these promotions to TEN: The Enthusiast Network, LLC, 831 S. Douglas St., El Segundo, CA 90245, Attn: Privacy Coordinator. Canada Post: Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to IMEX Global Solutions, P.O. Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2. ADVERTISING INFORMATION Please call HOT ROD Advertising Department at 310/531-9183. Related publications include Car Craft, Circle Track, Classic Trucks, Engine Masters, Hot Rod Deluxe, Mopar Muscle, Muscle Car Review, and Street Rodder. Reprints: For high-quality custom reprints and eprints, please contact The YGS Group at 800.290.5460 or TENreprints@theygsgroup.com. Back issues: To order back issues, visit TENbackissues.com. Any submissions or contributions from readers shall be subject to and governed by TEN: The Enthusiast Network’s User Content Submission Terms and Conditions, which are posted at http://enthusiastnetwork.com/submissions/. Copyright 2017 by TEN: The Enthusiast Network Magazines, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

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STARTING LINE

Give the Kid a Chance Behind the counter at auto-parts stores across the country, there is a kid who has no clue what he or she is doing. We’ve all met that person. Maybe they asked, “What year, make, and model?” for your washer-fluid purchase or sold you the wrong part a time or 10. When you’re in the trenches, time pressed to get a car fixed, it’s easy to write these folks off—their eagerness seems braggart, their inexperience seems ignorant. But before you give up hope, remember: You were that kid. So many of us transpired through the very same right of passage, cast out into the hostile territory of auto-parts retail, empty-headed and wet behind the ears; of course, we knew everything. We certainly thought so, anyway. But every so often, a wizened gearhead would come along and put us in our place. In that seemingly commonplace interaction was a pivotal moment, a turning point of passion and career. Did this individual demean, insult, or

break the burgeoning interest in cars? Or did he nurture it? From that simple exchange, a fork arises: to pursue a life around cars or shake off the genre altogether. It seems an eon ago now, but such was my story. Ken Gillispie, the man responsible for meticulously restoring the 1960s fuel car you see on this issue’s cover could have marked me down as the stupid kid at his local parts store. Instead, he welcomed me into his garage, shared knowledge and tools, and helped spark a lifelong passion for cars. Few among us can say we didn’t have a mentor—or at least someone who motivated us to do better, learn more, or keep at it. Unfortunately, as fewer and fewer people work on cars, it feels that such a role is missing in a lot of young gearheads’ lives. Behind that counter stands the next generation of hot rodding. Will you scorn them or hand them a wrench? hHOTROD.COM/Evan-Perkins

[Top: Here’s a sneak peak of an upcoming tech story. Time to answer some myths about engine building. [Bottom: Who would have guessed this little dragster, found in the rafters of a shop, could have connected so many people.

CONNECT WITH US: HOTROD@HOTROD.COM 8 HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/

IN MY OPINION More Tech As we continue to bolster HOT ROD’s handson stories, let us know what topics you want to read about by sending an email to HOTROD@ enthusiast network.com. 6 Degrees of Separation The Underdog dragster was the first car I ever worked on—I think I helped tighten a bolt. It’s amazing how one car can tie so many people together and so greatly influence a life. That’s a Lot of Rings I just gapped 32 piston rings (for one engine) for an upcoming tech story/ test. That’s all I’ll say. Fourscore and Four Doors Finding the two-door muscle car of your dreams is tougher than ever before. As prices climb and the available fleet of vehicular nameplates shrinks, fourdoor cars are starting to look like a pretty good option.

hHOTROD.COM/B O O CO /Brandan-Gillogly

R Running the new ZL1 at Willow Z Springs was probS aably the most fun I’’ve had driving a new car. Aside from even more f power, it’s going p to t be difficult to improve on the im overall package. o I wonder how the aftermarket will a reespond.

hHOTROD.COM/Thom-Taylor

From a transcript of a discussion with 2016 Pro Stock champ Jason Line for an upcoming article: “Are you writing this for your article?” “Absolutely.” “So other teams actually told you this?” “Absolutely.” “That’s crazy. That is unbelievable. I’m ﬂoored by that, I really am.” hHOTROD.COM/Phillip Thomas

I wonder if some OEM engineers secretly ensure an LS will ﬁt, so when their project ships with some inferior fourbanger, they know that they’ve done the world a favor: an act of goodwill to make sure a Miata or a 240SX will ﬁt a proper V8 between the rails.

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WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

10 HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/

Duel of the Duals

Hail to twin-engine tremendousness! You know the hot rod credo is that bigger is better and two is better than one. To celebrate one of the hot rodder’s Ten Commandments, here’s the Bob Muravez–piloted, twin-Hemi version of John Peters’ black Freight Train and driver Ray Motes in the red Motes & Williams Top Gas dragster from Russell, Kansas, at the Ontario Speedway for the 1971 Supernationals. Owner RC Williams’ Motes & Williams dragster was one of the most successful Top Gas dragsters ever and also one of the last. Snagging the 1970 Springnationals and World Finals on the way to becoming Top Gas champions, and taking the 1971 Springnationals toward another Top Gas championship, Motes hit speeds of more than 210 mph. Cooking with those twin-392 Hemis, this was also a looker with its abundant use of chrome. As with so many other classes in the early 1970s, Top Gas was killed in 1972. Motes & Williams would go on to run in Top Fuel through 1974. For the last year of Top Gas, Peters teamed with Walt Rhodes to run the almost 800ci twin-Hemi Train, with their best win at the 1971 Gatornationals. Here’s a salute to them all, including such faves as Gordon Collett, Schultz & Jones, Ohio’s Jim Bucher, Texan Eddie Hill, Ron Braun’s GSTA, Cope Brothers, Frakes and Funk, Jack Moss, and so many others.

HOT ROD Archives

hHOTROD.COM/Thom-Taylor

HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/ 11

RODDIN’ @ RANDOM

Hot Rod Anything!

The Bomber R/C

The RR10 Bomber is fashioned after Randy Slawson’s rockcrawling rig and named for Randy’s Bomber Fabrication shop in Nevada.

The RR10 is four-wheel drive, with King of the Hammers–style suspension and loads of travel.

DO YOU HOT ROD EVERYTHING? 12 HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/

Adjustable coilovers are mounted on the suspension links instead of the chassis for stability, and there are provisions for aftermarket sway bars and multiple shock setups.

The car’s front axle features crossover steering, and transmission gears are adjustable for top speed or better crawl ratio.

If you’ve hopped up anything that’s not a car, let’s see it! Hot leaf blower? Bitchin’ gas grill? Customized kitchen cabinets? Anything goes. Email pics and details: HOTROD@HotRod.com.

This thing roosts! It also has enough suspension travel to land on its feet from a couple of feet in the air, goes 18 to 20 mph with a 3S battery, and still makes a pretty good rockcrawler. So what happened? Lithium-battery technology has improved over the last 10 years, allowing the guys at companies like Axial to create a new breed of highstrung R/C vehicles. The key is the discharge rate or how quickly power can go from storage to the electric motor. Lithium Polymer (LiPo) batteries can do this at several times the speed of the old nickel-metal design. The result is lightning-fast responsiveness and a lot more overall speed. For our fun, we used a 5000mAh, 11.1V, 3 S battery, the biggest battery Axial recommends for its electronics, plugged into a RR10 Bomber 1:10-scale electric 4WD. The first number that describes the battery is like the gas tank. The higher the number, the longer the battery will last. The voltage gives you speed. Out of the box, the RR10 Bomber will keep up with most non4WD R/C vehicles. The included battery is the highestvoltage battery Axial uses. What makes this thing a hot rod is you can modify it. The overall gear ratio is in the transmission with a removable front cover. By adding two or three teeth to the pinion, you can get more speed. Or go the other way for more crawl ratio. Axial offers an array of pinion and spur gears in CNC-cut metal. You can also access the front and rear differentials and change those ratios to either under- or overdrive the axles. If you noticed, the RR10 Bomber is fashioned after Randy Slawson’s rockcrawling rig and named for Randy’s Bomber Fabrication shop in Nevada. He earned this honor by winning the King of the Hammers contest in 2013 and 2015. To fit the theme, the RR10 is four-wheel drive and has off-road goodies like multiple chassis mounting points and loads of suspension travel. Little touches like adjustable coilovers that are mounted on the suspension links instead of the chassis for stability, and provisions for aftermarket sway bars and multiple shock setups might event get you into off-roading. The coilovers allow for ride-height and preload adjustments. Finally, all the R/C extras like brushed motors with less turns (again, more speed) or brushless motors are all plug-and-play. It’s like owning a hot rod without using all the garage space. hHOTROD.COM/Douglas-Glad

Readers’ Projects Want to share your car with the whole world? Send photos and info to HOTROD@HotRod.com.

Patrick Tingle

Ed Baba // Las Vegas, NV

Patrick’s worked on hot rods since age 13 and built his Ed has owned this 1970 Oldsmobile 442 W30 for more ﬁrst car before having a license (1953). His son, Jeremy, than 30 years, and he has been a HOT ROD subscriber sent a pic of Patrick’s Studebaker Commander hardtop. and fan for 50 years! Thanks so much, Ed!

HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/ 13

The HOT ROD Archives

HOT ROD Archives

RODDIN’ @ RANDOM

1997 20 YEARS AGO

April 1997 (140 pages, $3.50): Our timing was perfect for freezing Pro Street’s transition from street to pro. Pro Stock builder Jerry Haas transformed Mike Moran’s wrecked 1995 Camaro stocker into the first street car to hit 200 mph in 1,320 feet. A funny story entitled “Pontihack” that involved and energized the entire staff (plus late1970s alum Al Kirschenbaum) was unjustly crammed into three pages in the back of the book—as if management anticipated blowback from a story showing how to chop 3 seconds of e.t. by chopping a 6,050-pound, four-door 1970 Bonneville into a 455-powered dune buggy. The one-day diet dropped nearly 3,000 pounds en route to an altitude-corrected 14.68 at 90.84 mph.

1977

40 YEARS AGO

April 1977 (140 pages, $1.25): Nobody ever distorted our logo quite like Linda Vaughn did in this comfy photo studio. Outside, it was 10 degrees when Gray Baskerville took Gratiot’s Angelo Giampetroni for a spin on snow-lined Woodward Avenue in the topless Track-T kit car. “Basketcase,” a SoCal native attired year-round in shorts and flipflops, ventured back onto Detroit’s frozen streets for this issue’s rod test. “[A]n almost-deserted freeway” and prodding from owner Joe Ruggirello enabled Gray to stab the legendary Gapp & Roush–built Mustang II up to 140ish mph. Our new-car road test of the month warmly welcomed the Z28’s return from a two-year timeout, despite dismal ratings of 170 hp (49-state) and 160 (California).

60 YEARS AGO

1957 14 HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/

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April 1957 (76 pages, 25¢): El Caballo II took the long, wrong way around to its cover date. The Hemi-powered Kurtis sport special was being built for the deadly Mexican Road Race before Mexico’s government canceled the event in late-1955. Co-drivers Ak Miller (seated) and Doug Harrison (front) defaulted to Italy’s version, the 1,000-mile Mille Miglia. Three months before its April 1957 departure on the U.S.S. United States, the car burned in a shop fire. Master-tinbender Jack Sutton (left rear) was still building the replacement body when Petersen photographer Bob D’Olivo arrived. hDave Wallace

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RODDIN’ @ RANDOM

Take 5 With

SHIRLEY SHAHAN

16 HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/

She’s now retired from her more than 30 years with the So Cal Gas Company, traveling and enjoying life with her second husband of almost 40 years, Ken. In 1997 she was inducted into the Drag Racing Hall of Fame, and in 2005 she received the NHRA Lifetime Achievement Award. hHOTROD.COM/Thom-Taylor

HRM] There’s a rumor you were racing while you were eight months pregnant? SS] I don’t know that I was eight months pregnant, but I was pretty pregnant. HRM] Do you still follow Pro Stock today? SS] Yes. Some of the cars that were on top of Pro Stock this year were not last year since the change to fuel injection. I watch the races on TV and still have a few favorites like Erica [Enders-Stevens], who was on top last year, and now she’s on the bottom. But, yeah, I still watch it. HRM] Do you miss participating in drag racing? SS] I don’t miss it until I can smell the fumes and tires and clutches—then I miss it because those smells bring back a lot of good memories. For so many years after I remarried, I didn’t have anything to do with racing. Then when the nostalgia stuff started happening, people got interested in me again and I got interested again, especially going back to the American Motors national events I was invited to speak at. I had no idea people were interested in stuff that happened in the 1960s. It was fun back then—I don’t know how it is today, but back then it was a lot of fun. I know they talk about being one happy family today, but it just can’t be

HOT ROD Archives

Shirley Shahan is the first woman to win an NHRA event in a pro class. While that’s a drag-racing milestone and represents a legendary accomplishment, especially in 1965 when drag racing was completely dominated by men, if that’s all you know about her life, then you only know the easy part. Known as the “DragOn-Lady” with then-husband HL Shahan, who tuned her cars, she was also working full time raising three children as well as participating in another sport she loved: fast-pitch softball. Softball developed her upper body, which helped slamming a four-speed in the quarter-mile. Racing every weekend in the 1950s with her kids in tow, she won the first Bakersfield March Meet in 1959 with her four-speed 1958 Chevy in a Super Stock field of 40 men. By the mid-1960s she was racing for Plymouth full time. A woman winning races in those pre-women’s lib days did not always go over well with the competition, and she was winning a lot of races. Switching to AMC products in 1968, she represented the company both on and off of the track, as her novelty status and winning ways brought attention to the company. With AMC funding diverted away from drag racing in 1972, and with a chance for HL to build racing engines full time, Shirley’s drag-racing career ended. Also in 1972, another Shirley came on the national drag-racing scene. Shahan’s racing career included both AFX altered-wheelbase nitro cars and Super Stock, becoming Pro Stock in 1970.

like it was back then; there’s too much money involved now. HRM] How did you get involved with Chrysler as one of their factory Super Stock drivers? SS] We raced a 1956 Chevy, then a 1958 and a 1963 that we raced. Then [then-husband] HL [Shahan] was working for Ronnie Broadhead [Junior Stock] and then Butch Leal. Then HL went to work for Hank Taylor in Texas,

and that gave HL more national exposure. Hank ﬁrst got a 1964 Max Wedge Plymouth, and then Chrysler gave him a Hemi Plymouth in the spring. They came to me at the end of 1964 and asked if I would drive for them. I think it was a combination of hearing that I could drive, and they wanted someone on the West Coast for exposure in this territory. We didn’t pursue them. When we got our car, Butch got his too, so we were a team. We were both out

of Visalia, California. Butch drove the stick-shift car and me the automatic. Butch ran his Chevy out of our shop in Tulare; in fact, we had five to six cars running out of our shop. So we continued for one year as a team. HRM] You always drove fourspeeds, but then Chrysler wants you to go with an automatic. Did you transition well to racing with an automatic? SS] It was OK. What I had to adapt to was driving by a tach, because I had never driven that way with the fourspeeds. Instead I always drove by ear— we didn’t have tachs. Dick Maxwell at Chrysler said I’d have to drive with the tach and I told him, “But I’ve never driven with a tach before.” For me it was looking at something rather than hearing something that was so different, but it didn’t take long to adjust to it. Maxwell thought I couldn’t handle a stick-shift car, so I had to live with that. HRM] When you started racing for Chrysler you had a full time job at the Southern California Gas Company and had three kids in tow. How did you manage that? SS] When we got the 1965 Plymouth, I was running NHRA Division 7, so a lot of times when races were in Oregon, Washington, or Utah, I would get off work early on Friday and we’d drive all night long. Sometimes we would fly, and then when the races were over on Sunday, drive all night long so I could get to work on Monday. Sometimes we’d bring the kids with us, or my mother-in-law would babysit and watch them. If it was more local, we would bring them. They grew up at the races—they loved the races. I’ve got pictures of Janet when she was two posing with the trophies. Steven, our youngest, was helping at the shop when he was 10. HRM] Did any of your kids get the racing bug? SS] My youngest, Steven, crewed with Ed McCulloch for a few years when he was a teenager and then he crewed with another Funny Car team I don’t remember the name of. He also did off-road racing competitively until two years ago when the cars were sold. Today he has a T-shirt silk-screening and embroidery business doing a lot of local race-car, boat, and flat-track stuff. My son, Robert, has a replica of my 1968 Dart he races. My daughter,

Janet, and her husband have a fourengine Hemi Unlimited Tractor Pull called “Git-R-Done,” sponsored by Lucas Oil. She hasn’t been home in two months, which reminds me of myself back in the racing days. So all of my kids got into racing in one form or another. HRM] And what is the greatgrandchild count these days? SS] You don’t want to know. [Counting] I think 27 great-grandchildren between my husband, Kenny, and myself. HRM] Why did you go from Chrysler to American Motors? SS] When we switched to American Motors in 1969, the L.A. Dealers Association sponsored us, and they wanted us to mainly run in L.A. and California, other than national meets. Since we were local, I was able to go back to the gas company part time. We got a salary from American, whereas we got the car and parts from Chrysler—but that was all. From American I got a personal car to drive, along with the race car and all the parts we needed— and a salary, plus I got to stay home, which was good because the kids were getting bigger and had school-related functions they needed to be around home for. And I got to race a fourspeed again. HRM] How did you ﬁrst get started in drag racing? SS] When I was in high school, my dad raced jalopies and I was the oldest child, so I was the one to hand him the wrenches and so forth. I was his crew chief [laughs]. I was always mechanically inclined—I took an aptitude test in the ninth grade and it said I should be a mechanic. I would use my dad’s Studebaker pickup to drag Main. I learned how to shift with that truck. Then when HL and I got married, we had the 1956 Chevy we raced, and I would occasionally drive it. I guess I was a natural—maybe because I’m ambidextrous. In softball I’d pitch lefthanded but bat right-handed, and I golf right-handed. HRM] These were still the early days of the sport, and this was in and around the sparsely populated San Joaquin Valley of central California. What was drag racing like back then? SS] We had a lot of races here in the San Joaquin Valley. We raced in

Madera and Visalia, and of course Bakersﬁeld, Porterville, Dinuba Rosa had a track, too. Up north we had Fremont, Half Moon Bay, and Santa Maria. We had a race to go to every weekend—there were so many. HRM] You also drove AFX alteredwheelbase cars with nitro? SS] On the 1965 car we would swap out the intake for injectors and move the rear wheels forward 4 inches and run it like that for match races. Then when we’d go to a national meet we would put the carburetors back on and move the wheels back to be Super Stock legal. The fastest I went was around 9.80 at 148 with the Pro Stock Hornet. HRM] With the kids mostly grown and you being out of racing, what did you do? SS] In 1975 when I went back to the gas company, I got into management. When I retired I had seven supervisors working for me and over 100 employees, and a $6-million-dollar budget. We worked at Ponderosa Ranch in Lake Tahoe for nine seasons, helping at the stagecoach lines and with the horses. Closer to home we help put on the car show at our local church to help underprivileged children. We also volunteer for the agriculture show in Tulare for three months, and we sing for the Turkey Transit Trolley, which uses donations for Visalia emergency aid. I’m also putting together everything from my racing days for the local Tulare Historical Museum archives, which will do an exhibit some time in the future. HRM] Was drag racing the only racing you did? SS] I drove in the Mobil Economy Runs for Chrysler in 1966, 1967, and 1968. We’d drive from L.A. to Boston or L.A. to Detroit. In 1968 we were supposed to drive to New York, but there were riots after Martin Luther King had been killed, so we ended up in Indy and called it there. The last year I won my class. I got a letter from the VP of Chrysler thanking me. They would get over 50 cars and drivers and lay out a detailed route you were expected to ﬁnish based on their estimated times. There were three people in the car: a driver, navigator, and official that monitored you so you didn’t run stop signs or go over the double yellow lines—stuff like that. It was hard, and I think I’m as proud of that win as my drag racing because I had to do it on my own.

SHIRLEY’S SECRETS Shirley is ambidextrous. In softball, she’d pitch lefthanded but bat right-handed; she golfed right-handed, too. When she raced for Plymouth, they gave her an automatic, even though she had only raced four-speeds, because Chrysler’s Dick Maxwell didn’t think women could handle manuals very well. Shirley turns 79 in June. Her unique fame crossed over onto TV, where she was a contestant on popular game shows Hollywood Squares and To Tell The Truth (Bill Cullen guessed that she was the drag racer). Parting words: “The ladies racing now are doing such a fabulous job. I take my hat off to them.”

RODDINâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; @ RANDOM

Automotive Archaeology

Shortened 1957 Bel-Air Convertible

I was in the middle of Alabama when I spied the tail of a 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Air convertible sitting neglected in a carport. The owner was more then happy to show me the car, but something seemed amiss. It looked fine from the road, but it was way too short up close. The car was originally a 1957 Bel-Air four-door, and a previous owner cut two doors out and moved the body forward. He then chopped the front door frames off and mounted a convertible top to the body. The car was then mounted on a 1972 Cadillac frame, so up front is a 500ci V8. Because the steering shaft coming from the column and the Cadillac steering box were so different, the owner welded sprockets on each and ran a chain between them. This is one of the most unique vehicles Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve come across. The owner said he used to drive it all the time, and what a ride it must have been.

Ryan Brutt

hRyan Brutt

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UNEARTHING A LEGEND

Hemi-Powered, Front-Engine Dragster Unearthed After 50 Years Tommy Lee Byrd hRacing legends are often hidden in plain sight. Whether referring to legendary cars or legendary people, it’s common for them to blend into society after they’ve run the course and retired from a lifestyle of speed. A legendary racer may be sitting next to you at the bar without you ever knowing his story. He doesn’t wear it openly as a badge of honor. On that same token, a legendary car may be hiding in the woods, fading into oblivion without an ounce of recognition. Some remember the car and the guy who built it, but those memories get fuzzy after a few decades. Even to the owner, the car’s story may simply be a bunch of memories that pale in comparison to the memories created with his late wife, his two daughters, and his grandchildren. Alas, those racing memories bring a smirk to his face as he takes another swig of PBR. By now, we’ve painted a pretty clear picture of a man who made an impact on people without even trying. And though he won’t take credit for the drag-racing craze in his hometown, Jim Smith

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is the type of guy who not only built cars for himself but also influenced local gearheads to make their cars faster. Do you remember the guy in your town who inspired you to build a fast car? Jim Smith is that guy in the town of Dayton, Tennessee, and this is the story of his Hemi-powered dragster that was recently unearthed and reconstructed. Jim Smith was a teenager when he began drag racing. He started with a Chevy-powered 1936 Ford, running against another local hot rodder, Ken Rhodes, who pedaled a Cadillac-powered 1934 Ford. Jim then built a Chevy-powered dragster, using driveshaft tubes as the framerails. As he became more serious about drag racing, he decided to build a new car, one that would be a step better than his previous effort. In 1962 Jim and his older brother, Tom, started with a pile of round tubing, and by the end of the drag-racing season, the Smith boys had a few trophies to show for the tremendous amount of

[After decades resting in the woods, Jim Smith’s Hemi-powered dragster is reconstructed using the parts that were scattered throughout the woods and barn on Jim’s property.

[Jim’s property houses a couple dozen old cars and a bunch of parts, but it’s also home to cattle. After the car was reconstructed in Troy Byrd’s garage, we took it back to its home for a photo shoot. The cows didn’t seem to mind.

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UNEARTHING A LEGEND

[In the background is a line of crusty Chryslers. Those crashed and abandoned sedans held many of the dragster’s parts, such as the headers, clutch can, and even a damaged piston from a dropped valve.

engineering, fabrication, and time that went into the build. Racing at tracks like Harriman Drag Strip, Brainerd Optimist Drag Strip (Hixson, Tennessee), and Loudon Drag Strip taught them how to deal with different racing surfaces—and the local competition. Even though the brothers had great success early on, they knew they had to outwork and outthink the competition to stay ahead. The original configuration of the dragster featured a 98-inch wheelbase, but after flipping through an issue of HOT ROD in 1963, Jim saw Don Garlits’ new “longer” dragster (now chronicled as “Swamp Rat 5-B”) and stretched the car to 134 inches. Jim gas-welded the chassis, using 15⁄8-inch tubing for the main rail and smaller tubing for a truss support rail. Tubing benders weren’t common at the time, so Jim took his tubing to Sharp’s Plumbing in Dayton to have the roll-bar hoop bent to his specification. Tom Smith, in adoration of his younger brother, mentioned that Jim visualized a design, sketched it out, and made it come to life. Tom said, “Jim was the brains behind the operation—I just handled some of the grunt work and helped where I could. It was a real eye-opener to watch Jim build this car, and even more when I saw his designs work on the track.” One example was the homebrew torsion-bar front suspension setup, mated to a round-tube front axle with 1940 Ford spindles. While his previous dragster was small-block-Chevy powered, Jim was a Mopar man at heart, and he chose the ultimate motor for his new piece: a Hemi. He traveled to a junkyard in Mableton, Georgia, to get the 354ci Hemi engine and commenced to hopping it up for serious abuse on the dragstrip. Tom was responsible for porting the cylinder heads and spent nearly all winter making sure they would flow enough air to make use of the six Stromberg 97 carburetors set atop a Weiand Drag Star intake manifold. Meanwhile, Jim called Bruce Crower and gave him all of the car’s specs so a custom camshaft grind could be developed and implemented to the original camshaft core. The aluminum fuel tank was another homebuilt piece and was held in place with two springs from a screen door. Jim later built a larger tank when he switched from gasoline to a mixture of alcohol and nitromethane. Jim said, “We were supposed to be running A/Gas Dragster, but we ran it on straight alcohol for a while.” He eventually added a mixture of 60-percent nitromethane toward the end of the 1964 season. It’s interesting to note the car never had a fuel pump; Tom was responsible for operating a hand pump before each run to obtain the precise fuel pressure it needed to make a pass. This was especially crucial when the car was running on “fuel.” Tom would pump up the system, hop in the 1959 Dodge push car to start the dragster, and pump the system again before Jim let it rip down the quarter-mile. The dragster used a direct-drive system—another homebuilt setup—that worked beautifully. He used a 52-pound flywheel from a Dodge truck, and it mated to a Velvet Touch dual-disc clutch setup. All of these components rode inside a homebuilt clutch can, mounted to the frame as well as having a mount for the steering box. Moving rearward, Jim narrowed an Olds rearend housing and

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[The 354ci Hemi isn’t operational, but most of the parts are still there. Jim kept the Weiand Drag Star intake manifold and six Stromberg 97 carburetors inside his garage all these years, but the patina matches the rest of the car nicely. [For motor mounts, Jim used a pair of connecting rods from a 60hp Ford Flathead V8. They ﬁt well, thanks to their 1.599inch rod journal. The main framerail was 15⁄8-inch tubing.

[Jim built the steering system and steering wheel from scratch, and made the clutch pedal from a DeSoto brake-pedal pad he turned sideways and lightened with “speed holes.”

[Above: Photographed in front of the Cox-Burnette Motor Company in downtown Dayton, Tennessee, Jim stands proudly with a trophy from Harriman Drag Strip. Judging by the signage in the window, this photograph was taken in late-1963. Note the shorter wheelbase: this was just before Jim added 36 inches to the frame. [Below: Jim is still all business, but he probably would’ve cracked a smile if the old Hemi was running. He kept his car all these years, but it has been more than 50 years since he last saw it sitting on all four wheels.

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UNEARTHING A LEGEND

A LEGEND’S BROTHER As we compiled information for this article, we spent time with Jim Smith, but we also quizzed his brother, Tom Smith, about his experiences with the car. Here’s what Tom had to say: “It’s hard for me to accept that we built and raced this car more than 50 years ago. Jim built this car on an uneven slab of concrete at our old home place, and it always amazed me to see him come up with an idea and put it into motion. Jim could build anything, and I guess you could say I was the supporting staff. It was all new to me—the torsion bar, the direct drive, the nitromethane—but I was eager to help. We had each other’s back in every way during those days. I went with him every time the car went to the track. I drove the push car and helped him on the starting line by pressurizing the fuel system and making sure the engine was up to temperature before he made a pass. He let me make a couple passes in the car at Harriman Drag Strip, and I was more concerned with getting stopped than going fast. It was a thrilling experience. Some of my favorite memories include testing the car on Highway 30 and watching the crowd of spectators scatter the ﬁrst time we ran it on fuel at Harriman. Seeing this car again brings a tear to my eye because it was such a big part of our lives and it was such a great bonding experience for us back then.” Special Thanks: Jim Smith, Tom Smith, Jamie Ridley, Angie Smith, Troy Byrd, Kyle Shadden, Jesse Shadden, Dennis George, Tom Taylor, Tom Pelfrey, and Ron Cradic.

THE RECOVERY

[We were excited to ﬁnd the 1942 Harley-Davidson military motorcycle wheels and Metzeler tires Jim used up front. The tires still hold air!

[Also in the barn was the expired 354ci Hemi engine. One side of the barn had the short block (missing one piston and connecting rod, which was later found), and clutch assembly, while the other side of the barn had the heavily ported cylinder heads.

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[Hidden in plain sight, the dragster chassis would’ve continued to decompose if it continued to sit in the dirt. Thankfully, Jim allowed the car to be pulled from the woods and reconstructed using parts he saved all these years.

[A sizeable pine tree had grown around the frame, so the retrieval took some special effort. Kyle Shadden is wielding the chainsaw, and he also offered lots of help with the car’s reconstruction. Holding the tree is Dennis George and Troy Byrd.

matched it with a centersection from an ambulance, which was the only thing he could find with a gear ratio of 4.10:1. He didn’t want to spend money on tooling for a local machine shop to cut and respline the axles, so he cut and welded them himself. He did spend a few bucks on tires, getting M&H Racemaster slicks from Honest Charley Speed Shop in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The Smith brothers had three years of trial and error under their belts by the end of the 1964 season, and they went out with a bang, winning the final race of the season at Harriman Drag Strip. The fastest recorded speed for Jim Smith’s dragster was 157 mph on a blazing run at the newly relocated Brainerd Optimist Drag Strip in Ringgold, Georgia. As the 1964 season came to a close, Jim heard the local tracks were cutting the purse for the dragster classes. Though Jim still had a huge interest in going fast, his drag-racing days were over. He disassembled the dragster and hung the chassis in the Smith-Clayton Dodge dealership for a while, eventually ending up in the woods behind his house. Anyone who knows Jim understands his collection of cars and parts is a huge part of his life. He hasn’t sold many things, but the dragster recently went to a new home. You might initially question his decision to sell such a meaningful car, but when you consider the nature of the transaction, it will put your heart at ease. Dayton, Tennessee, resident Troy Byrd is one of the guys influenced by Jim in the 1960s, and his passion for fast cars trickled down to his son, yours truly. The Byrd boys bought the remnants of the car and reassembled it to pay tribute to Jim. The plan is to fabricate a body to replicate the original tinwork and paint the car to match the original color combination of blue with a white engine. For now, the car serves as the ultimate conversation piece inside Troy’s garage, and with each shared story, the legend of Jim Smith and his homebuilt dragster continues to be uncovered.

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[Looking through the 8-foot garage door offers a view that most gearheads can only dream about. Troy Byrd’s garage is packed to the gills with vintage drag cars and rare speed equipment. Highlights include two frontengine dragsters, a Kellison Funny Car, a Simplex motorcycle, a twin-engine go-kart, and a stack of magnesium wheels.

One Man’s Junk Troy Byrd’s Garage Is a Nursing Home for Retired Drag Cars Tommy Lee Byrd

hIf you’re looking for organization, Troy Byrd’s garage isn’t the place to find it. However, you will find an epic collection of historic drag cars and a tremendous hoard of vintage speed parts. Troy is 64 years old and has spent the last 45 years wrenching, sanding, and beating on old cars, motorcycles, and just about anything with wheels. He’s painted thousands of cars through the years, and he’s been buying, selling, and trading car junk as well. Lately, though, he has been buying cars and parts

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that he doesn’t want to sell. His stash of vintage drag cars and parts grows with each passing year, and he’s starting to run out of room. His solution is not to stop buying, but rather to find a bigger building. One of the cars in Troy’s collection is the Hemi-powered dragster featured on page 20 in this issue. As we were documenting the reconstruction of Jim Smith’s dragster, we realized just how much stuff has accumulated in Troy’s garage. A portion of the garage is still

a place he uses to make a living doing paint and bodywork with his partner, Wally Smith, but it’s mostly a gathering place for old hot rodders who want to share memories about the good ol’ days of drag racing. Many of the cars and parts in Troy’s garage have a rich history. But given enough time, the congregation of car guys can make up a pretty believable story for the random stuff that comes along. Guys like Bill Sims, Tommy Dillard, Denny George, and Mike Walters are “regulars”

and they’ve been hanging out together for years. Among the old drag cars are dozens of vintage racing wheels that were scoured from swap meets. Other parts and pieces have accumulated naturally, but the old drag-racing equipment has really piled on in the last 10 years or so. What one man considers “used-up junk” might be Troy’s latest treasure, and that mindset has led to a garage full of history.

ONE MAN’S JUNK

[The go-kart is rusty (but complete) and features twin McCulloch two-stroke engines. Nearby are a few of the magnesium wheels: the ﬁve-spokes are 15x4-inch American Racing Torq Thrust, while the rears are “pre-American” Romeo Palamides mags wrapped in dusty M&H Racemaster 7.60-15 piecrust slicks.

[There are countless Chevy engine parts sitting around the shop, but this particular engine is special: It’s the original 365hp (L76) that came out of the 1964 Corvette coupe he gave to his son. Sitting on the shelf behind it is the Corvette’s original M-21 Muncie four-speed transmission.

[The first vintage drag car that caught Troy’s eye was this Lyndwood dragster. It has yet to be fully identified and documented, but it was built in 1964 and was one of the final Lyndwood Welding frames offered to the public. The Pete Jackson fuel injection atop the small-block Chevy is also a rare piece.

[Even though Troy still has to make a few bucks out of his shop, it’s mostly consumed with old drag cars. He admits that reconstructing Jim Smith’s Hemi-powered dragster is one of the most fun projects to enter the shop.

[Above: This 409 engine ran in Don Roberts’ B/Gas-prepared 1955 Chevy in the 1960s. It features an over-the-counter block, ﬁlled with the best GM equipment, and was reportedly built by “Dyno” Don Nicholson. It now features Edelbrock heads and a Comp Cams hydraulic roller and the plan is to recreate Don’s gasser with the hopped-up 409 under the hood. [Right: While he isn’t really one to jump in front of the camera, we caught Troy testdriving Jim Smith’s dragster after pulling it out of the woods. He certainly knows how to have a good time with old cars.

28 HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/

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BEAUTY BEYOND THE TWILIGHT ZONE A 60-Year History of Drag Racing’s Attempt to Harness the Wind Thom Taylor

HOT ROD Archives and Jere Alhadeff

hYou’re traveling through another dimension—a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of atmosphere. It is an invisible dimension strong enough to make a vehicle fly or instantly turn left. Or right. When you launch a dragster through it, the atmosphere can push down, increasing traction, or spin you backward. Since drag racing is as much about punching through the atmosphere as generating power to increase the punch, racers have devised all kinds of ways to help fling a dragster through it more effortlessly. Many of their efforts are things of beauty. Streamlining a dragster has been a pursuit forever, from using a flat, wooden board to artful bodies for air to flow over their surfaces like stroking a cat’s back. The downside has mostly been twofold: the beautiful bodies and structure necessary to support them add weight, and the seat-of-the-pants guessing game as to how the atmosphere will react has caused some scary moments—and sometimes much worse. The streamline trend has died and come back more than a couple times as ideas, materials, and the need for speed have compelled builders to risk finding the magic. The trend really took hold in 1964, and by 1970 a new twist was the “wedge” dragster. Disappointing times—and, in most cases, spooky handling—gave builders and drivers second thoughts, killing the wedge idea. We’ve assembled more than 40 examples—a thorough, though not complete—assemblage of many of the streamline dragsters that have come and gone to prove how imaginative, desperate, and resourceful drag racers have been trying to find the other side of The Twilight Zone.

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GLASS SLIPPER: 1957 Built by Ed and Roy Cortopassi from northern California, with workmanship on a par with the era’s nicest show cars, the “Glass Slipper” won the title “America’s Most Beautiful Competition Car” at the 1957 Oakland Roadster Show. With an unblown small-block Chevy, it ran 168.85 mph in the standing kilometer at the FIA International Acceleration Records held at Riverside’s March Air Force Base in 1958. Later that year, it caught ﬁre and was not seen until 1960, featuring a GMC blower with Hilborn injection. In this guise, it ran a best of 8.93 at 172 mph at Lodi and Vacaville in California. Retired a year later, it was restored in the 1990s.

MICKEY THOMPSON PANORAMA CITY SPECIAL: 1955 Appearing at the first NHRA Nationals in 1955 at Great Bend, Kansas, Mickey Thompson’s dragster is thought to be the archetype for the slingshot chassis configuration. At a 97-inch wheelbase, it featured a complete body with enclosed cockpit and rear tires. In this image, the front bodywork is removed. At Great Bend it ran 142 mph when competition was just shy of the 150-mph mark. Later that year it went 151.26 mph, becoming the first single-engine dragster to top 150 mph.

MICKEY THOMPSON, FRITZ VOIGT DRAGSTER: 1958 Originally intended for the quarter-mile, an impromptu stop at Bonneville during Speed Week resulted in Thompson and Voigt temporarily abandoning their drag-racing intentions to instead capitalize on the dragster’s off-thetrailer ﬁrst run of 242 mph on the salt. Later that week Thompson hit a oneway best of 294.117, breaking a connecting rod during his backup attempt. The front 392 Hemi was placed backward powering the front axle, while the rear 392 was in a traditional conﬁguration, powering the rear axle. Lessons learned on this car resulted in the four-engine “Challenger I” Bonneville car. Thompson did extensive tests with this dragster at Lions Drag Strip, which he built and operated. Hitting 149.50 mph in the high-9s sans body, the twin was slower than contemporary slingshots hitting mid-9s.

TOGNOTTI GOLDFINGER/ BUSHWACKER: 1964 A NorCal effort to promote Tognotti’s Speed Shop in Sacramento, the 156-inch chassis was built by Pete Ogden with an aluminum body by Arnie Roberts. Christened originally as “Goldﬁnger,” it made its ﬁrst appearance at the 1964 March Meet. With a Hemi built by Ron Welty and shoed by Lyle Kelly, low-8s at 196-plus mph were its early numbers. In 1965 Don Honstein repainted the body, then known as the “Bushwacker.” It ran at three March Meets and local tracks campaigned by Welty before being sold. It resurfaced in Oklahoma in the 2000s and was restored in 2006.

T.V. TOMMY IVO VIDEOLINER: 1965 Another beautiful Steve Swaja design, Frank Huzar built the chassis and Bob Sorrell pounded out the aluminum body. This was the car Ivo planned on barnstorming around the country for 1965. Testing at Fremont, Ivo said the Videoliner wanted to swap ends in the lights, calling it a “reverse teardrop.” Besides handling woes, exhaust and burnt rubber channeled into the cockpit caused vision and breathing problems. Initially Ivo cut holes in the body above the slicks and vented the exhaust into the wheelwells, but pressure blew holes in the body panels. Yikes! Some of the body’s rear was sawed off, scalloping the fenders in an attempt to lessen the spooky handling. A best of 7.82 e.t. at 199 mph was achieved, but Ivo never sorted out the car’s evil handing, pulling the engine to use for the more conventional “Red Wing” dragster he soon built to replace the doomed ’liner.

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BEAUTY BEYOND THE TWILIGHT ZONE

SCRIMA, BACILEK, MILODON SCRIMALINER: 1964 Designed by Ronnie Scrima, he built the “Scrimaliner” with George Bacilek, while Bob Sorrell made the aluminum body. Don Alderson of Milodon built the blown 392 Chrysler. The idea for the exposed engine was in case of an engine ﬁre or blower explosion the shrapnel wouldn’t be trapped inside of the metalﬂake red body, possibly injuring the driver. Built stout for running rougher eastern tracks, the car weighted 1,600 pounds, making it one of the heavier dragsters at that time. It debuted at Lions in August 1964 with Roy “Goober” Tuller driving. With a best of 8.14 e.t. at 202 mph, Scrima attributed its good numbers compared to other ’liners to the long tail and stiffer frame. Later Pat Foster got some seat time.

LISA AND ROSSI FLYING DOORSTOP: 1972 Built by Roy Fjastad at his Speed Products Engineering (SPE) shop with a Tom Hanna aluminum body, Fjastad hoped the inverted bellypan would create downforce for better traction while the body would push the dragster effortlessly through the wind. An in-house experiment, when Fred Farndon saw the car under construction, he purchased it. Just as quickly it was sold to Vince Rossi and money buddy Tommy Lisa. It set a series of records both by Billy Tidwell at Lions and Danny Ongais at the 1972 Supernationals with a 243.24-mph run and the ﬁrst 5-second pass at Lions, which some dispute. When Rossi got out of racing in 1974, the car was sold and soon became an econo-dragster for years running mainly out of Texas.

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EL TIGRE/SHADOFF SPECIAL: 1966 A repurposed Bonneville streamliner owned by Mal Hooper with a chassis by Carl Fleishmann and ﬁberglass body designed by Dean Batchelor, “El Tigre” was originally built in 1953 and raced as the “Shadoff Special,” setting 15 FIA International records between 1953 and 1960 with a best speed of 273.68 in 1960. By 1966 it was reconﬁgured as a mid-engine dragster by Ted Worobieff with Don Rackemann at the wheel.

HERM PETERSEN-SAM FITZ CAN-AM DRAGSTER: 1974 After a horriﬁc 1973 crash at Orange County, Herm Petersen came back with his Can-Am Top Fuel dragster for 1974. A Woody chassis hid beneath the innovative blue-anodized body, running a Donovan 392ci Hemi when most had switched to the 426ci elephant. Mid-6-second times were far off of the low-6-second qualifying times needed. It only ran 19 times, the last run being at the 1974 Northwest National Open shoed by Harlan Thompson. Petersen claimed the body’s 200 extra pounds caused the disappointing times, as he otherwise praised handling and general car feel. He sold it and went back to a conventional Top Fuel dragster, winning Division 6 for 1974. In the 1980s he found the Can-Am car and restored it. The dragster can be seen at the Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing in Ocala, Florida.

BEAUTY BEYOND THE TWILIGHT ZONE

JOCKO STREAMLINER: 1958

GARY ORMSBY’S CASTROL GTX STREAMLINER: 1986 Penske Racing’s lead engineer in the 1980s was Nigel Bennett, who drew some bar-napkin sketches for Ormsby crew chief Lee Beard. Beard took these crude “plans” to Pete Swingler to enter into a computer and simulate wind-tunnel tests. Eloisa Garza used vacuum forming to create the carbonﬁber and Kevlar composite body, resulting in a 130-pound body, much more lightweight than aluminum or ﬁberglass. In some respects the body resembled an elongated Indycar body. Early testing revealed chassis torque caused body contact to chassis and engine components, with the potential for damage. Debuting at the 1987 Winternationals, enough body problems existed that, in a last ditch effort to qualify, the body was removed and a disappointing 6.47 e.t. at 152.54 mph result was too slow to make the show. Continual problems, including headers burning the body and other technical gremlins, plagued the Top Fuel effort. Wanting to run sans body as the season progressed, part of Ormsby’s Castrol sponsorship required the full body emblazoned with the Castrol GTX billboard, so the body remained. The dragster’s best run was 263 mph when Garlits was hitting 275 mph.

Jocko Johnson’s rear-engine dragster debuted in July 1958 to mixed results. Then in May 1959 the Chrysler Hemi-powered streamliner started setting records, though this could also be attributed to his courage to tip the nitro can more—ﬁrst at 60 percent, then 75 percent—running 8.80 e.t.’s when the fastest fuelers were in the mid-8s. Downforce shattered the ﬁberglass body soon after hitting 175 mph. Reproducing the body in aluminum (and with Allison V12 power this time), it was never faster than 175 mph, which Jocko attributed to the 3,200-pound weight. In the early 1970s the body returned for a short period campaigned by Garlits on one of his dragster chassis. He got spooked by its handling and handed the wheel to other drivers before soon abandoning it.

TONY NANCY GAS DRAGSTER: 1963 Tony Nancy’s AA/Gas “Wedge I” and similar “Wedge II” were penned by Steve Swaja, with Wayne Ewing and Emil Deidt pounding out the aluminum body over the RCS chassis. Powered by a wedge-head, 428ci Plymouth, Wedge I was said to “twitch” during runs. It flipped in the lights in July 1964 at Sandusky, Ohio, doing an endo at more than 200 mph. Nancy was unhurt and concluded along with Swaja that pressure created by the slicks trapped air, lifting the rear of the dragster and flipping it. For Wedge II, elongated slots were added to the body above the slicks to aid air escaping—and the wheelbase was lengthened. Power came first from another stroked Plymouth wedge, then a blown Chrysler Hemi, and finally a blown Olds. At Monza in Italy Nancy set a record of 195 mph in 400-meter acceleration runs. He brought it back to the U.S., stored it, and built a conventional Top Fuel slingshot. Years later, he restored Wedge II.

BREEDLOVE SPIRIT II: 1964 Built by Craig Breedlove and Nye Frank, with aluminum bodywork by Indycar builder Quin Epperly, “Spirit II” debuted at the 1964 HOT ROD Magazine Championships. This was a busy time for Breedlove to be putting efforts into a dragster when he was also embarking on a land-speed-record car. Notable for its covered front wheel “pants,” the theory espoused that besides streamlining for an additional 10 mph by cutting drag generated behind conventional open front wheels, this would aid in steering at high speeds. Why you would need that in straight-line racing escapes us now. The beautifully built ’liner ran 8.50 at 185 mph. Landing on the show circuit for a time, it now resides at the Garlits Museum.

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QUICKSILVER DRAGSTER: 1972 Shoed by both Dwight Salisbury and Roger Gates, the “Quicksilver” dragster was built by John Glaspey and Jim Moser in their Van Nuys, California, shop in 1972. Its Top Fuel dragster guise was ﬂeeting due to a series of mechanical issues. It resurfaced in 1973 as the Boraxo Top Alcohol dragster, with a best of 7.19 at just shy of 200 mph.

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BEAUTY BEYOND THE TWILIGHT ZONE

GEORGE SCHREIBER’S YELLOW FANG: 1966 Schreiber had Jim Davis build a 153-inch dragster chassis in 1963, but Schreiber was down on bucks. At nights he worked at Ed “Big Daddy” Roth’s, helping with fabrication that included Roth’s show cars. Over the years Roth workers threw loose change on the roof of a storage room, and it eventually collapsed from the weight. Knowing he needed money, Roth gave Schreiber all of the change and directed him to hit up Mickey Thompson for parts in exchange for the money he owed Roth for printing Thompson promotional T-shirts. This must have been enough because Schreiber contacted designer Steve Swaja, who came up with the basic design. Schreiber and Roth then tweaked it in a clay model they gave to Tom Hanna, who built the body— estimated to have cost $5,000. Roth painted it Diamond T Truck Yellow, christening it “Yellow Fang.” Bill Demerest built the 0.030-over 392 Chrysler, but soon Schreiber took over wrenching chores. Problems with the enclosed canopy in Connie Swingle’s shakedown runs resulted in removing the windshield, after which Schreiber piloted the Fang. Seeing an overseas campaign in Australia and a U.S. barnstorming tour in 1967 and 1968, Fang survives restored to its 1966 glory at the Garlits museum.

HANK VINCENT TOP BANANA FUELER: 1958 Over a period of ﬁve years, the team of Santos-Vincent-Govia campaigned Frank Vincent’s “Top Banana” B/ and C/Fuel dragster to national records in both classes. Hailing from Hayward, California, the red beauty was a staple at NorCal dragstrips running an Algon-injected small-block. It was considered so beautiful that it graced the October 1958 cover of Rod & Custom magazine. In May 1960 at Baylands in Fremont, California, Vincent was running through the eyes when the dragster veered off the track, launching into a 170-mph barrel roll. Vincent was impaled by the pushbar, killing him instantly, with witnesses saying he never lifted.

HATFIELD BROTHERS A/F MODIFIED ROADSTER: 1964 Streamlining caught up with Modifieds, too. The Hatfield brothers were building this 180-inch wheelbase Modified Roadster while helping on Manuel Gonzales’ “Californian” small-block dragster. Inspired by Holly Hedrich’s Speed Sport roadster, it was finished in November 1964. Unfortunately, it crashed in early 1965 at Lions, making images of it kind of rare. According to Doyle Hatfield, the brothers decided not to rebuild.

PULSATOR TWIN ENGINE DRAGSTER: 1965 Built by Nye Frank, who had a hand in a number of streamline dragster and race-car builds, “Pulsator” was a copy of his Freight Train Top Gas dragster, but with a ﬁberglass body. Both were driven by Bob Muravez, aka Floyd Lippencott Jr. Two 900hp, 327ci Chevy engines stroked to 364 ci on nitro powered Pulsator, tied by a sprocket at the back of the front engine and another at the front of the rear, wrapped with a chain. Inexplicable problems arose. Swapping engines front to back and to the front again, the rear engine would always exhibit extremely poor performance. On the dyno, each engine ran 900 hp, but tied together, they put out a combined 950 hp. Single-engine Top Fuel dragsters were hitting 1,500 hp, so no aerodynamic advantage could overcome the mysterious 600hp deﬁcit. Interference between the two magnetos and other theories were put forth and solutions tried, with no effect on the performance dilemma. Finally, Nye threw in the towel. The chassis hangs from Muravez’s garage rafters today, while the body found a second life as the “Ice Kutter” snowmobile dragster show car by George Barris.

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SUPER MUSTANG: 1967 This “off-the-books” Ford effort was shoehorned into its drag-racing plans while taking a break in 1967 to pursue the Cobra Jet program debuting the next year. With a Logghe chassis running an injected Ford SOHC built by Tom Marsh and Connie Kalitta, an automatic transmission, independent rear end (that driver Tom McEwen said was merely a Jaguar unit), and a Ford-designed, wind-tunnel-tested body, it debuted at the 1967 NHRA Winternationals. With an incredibly tight cockpit and canopy that squashed driver Tom McEwen’s head, it was an uncomfortable ride at best. Times were never good, running mid-8s at 180 mph when dragsters ran in the low-7s in the 220-mph range. Running only a few events, the dragster was never sorted out and was unceremoniously parked after six months of runs. It was restored in the 2000s and sold at auction a few years ago for more than $150,000.

LELAND KOLB “POLISH LOTUS” WEDGE: 1971 Yet another wedge attempt was Leland Kolb’s Top Fuel dragster. The theory behind wedge dragsters was that by covering the slicks, dirty air disturbed around the slicks would be cleaned up, with a bonus that the body acts as a huge spoiler for added downforce and translating into better traction. Kolb was all-in with a Woody chassis and aluminum body by Nye Frank. Kolb had some success with his wedge, including getting into the quarterﬁnals at the Indy Nationals in 1971.

PRUDHOMME FLYING WEDGE: 1971 A body built by Quin Epperly and Nye Frank covered a 220-inch John Buttera chassis for Don Prudhomme’s 1971 Top Fueler. Its first win was Best Engineered Car in its maiden appearance at the Springnationals in Dallas, but it qualified only 17th. Initially the exhaust ran through the top of the body, so an early fix was Funny Car weed burners as it was thought the exhaust disrupted airflow over the body. With a best of 6.41 e.t., by the Summernationals Prudhomme and crew chief Bob Brandt decided to run without the body. This was futile as the chassis was still heavier than conventional dragsters. Soon after Prudhomme replaced the “Flying Wedge” with a superlight 1,200-pound Kent Fuller dragster, which hit 6.17 at the 1972 Grand American at Lions, permanently ending any chance Prudhomme would continue with the Wedge. The dragster’s enduring legacy may be its rendition as a Hot Wheels toy.

MASTERS AUTO SUPPLY DRAGLINER: 1956 Sponsored by Masters Auto Supply, this was the first joint effort by Jim Nelson and Dode Martin, later to join forces to be known as Dragmaster—with Jim’s brother Tom building engines. The Dragmaster name originated from this C/Gas dragster. The successful Fallbrook, California, shop built hundreds of dragster chassis over the years. Built in 1956 with a Ford flathead, that engine soon gave way to a Chevy small-block the next year. The gold body and nose are fiberglass, from plaster molds made by Dode. At the 1957 NHRA Nationals, it won Best Engineered. Returning in 1958, it won C Dragster Top Eliminator. Sold to fund other Dragmaster efforts, it eventually disappeared, but Dode built a recreation in 2010.

HARRY LEHMAN’S AMERICAN WAY: 1971 The 220-inch “American Way” streamliner was the brainchild of Harry Lehman from Fairfax, Virginia, back in 1971, with a chassis by Byron Blair and Tom Hanna aluminum body that included a full bellypan, at a purported cost of $25,000. A 392 Hemi with a 6-71 blower and Enderle injection combined with a direct-drive Lenco transmission to power American Way. After testing, Lehman switched to an aluminum 417 Donovan with a two-speed Lenco and lengthened the chassis to 235 inches. In the early days of corporate sponsorship, Lehman snagged some U.S. Navy Recruiting Command dough, becoming the “Go Navy” car, while Don Garlit’s dragster was the “Fly Navy” car under a similar arrangement. It ran a best of 232 mph at the 1973 Englishtown Summernationals. At Maple Grove in 1974, driver Chuck Turner hit a dip in the traps, lost control, and collided with Jim and Allison Lee’s Fueler, causing major damage to both. Neither Turner nor Tom Raley in the Lee car was hurt. The Lees rebuilt, but it was the end for both Lehman’s and American Way’s racing exploits.

GARY MACARTHUR DRAGSTER: 1958 No, this is not the Top Banana dragster. This is Gary MacArthur’s 1958 rail from Oakland, California. Gary was a brave soul to buckle up inside that enclosed pill bottle of a dragster. Running an Algon-injected Olds, the aluminum body was the work of the Bay Area’s Jack Hagemann. It won the Oakland Roadster Show’s “Most Beautiful Competition Car” in 1960. MacArthur ran the dragster in the Bay area, and later converted it to a 4-71 blown smallblock Chevy with zoomies. According to longtime NorCal drag racer Denny Forsberg, MacArthur is still around.

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BEAUTY BEYOND THE TWILIGHT ZONE

SLAM’N SAMMY MILLER WEDGE: 1974 Slam’n Sammy was known primarily for his series of Funny Cars in the 1970s, his Vega Funny “Vanishing Point” rocket car in the 1980s, and the hydrogenperoxide-fueled “Oxygen” ice dragster with a best of 247.78 mph in 500 feet in 1.6 seconds. Yeow! Supposedly fed up with Funny Car ﬁres, he decided to try a wedge dragster in 1974. S&W Race Cars in Spring City, Pennsylvania, built the chassis with the unusual forward-mounted, mid-engine location. Sammy ran the car for the entire 1974 season with mixed results.

ROGER LINDWALL RE-ENTRY: 1966 Roger Lindwall’s Illinois-based “Re-Entry” was based on his experiences racing hydroplanes. With a mid-engine, 392ci Hemi enclosed within the swoopy aluminum body, it appeared to be a well-sorted dragster. Making its debut at the 1966 World Serties of Drag Racing at Cordova Dragway in Illinois, Re-Entry hit 200 mph, which is considered the ﬁrst 200-mph run for a mid/ rear-engine dragster. The next week at Indy, driver Wayne Hill won a single round of eliminations before crashing. A 201.34-mph time was recorded as it tumbled through the lights with a 9.52. It was not rebuilt, and Lindwall did not return to drag racing.

KENNEY GOODELL “WYNNS STORMER” WEDGE: 1972 “Action Man” Kenney Goodell ran his purple wedge dragster and his Funny Car at the same time in 1972. The “Wynns Stormer” featured a Woody chassis, contrary to some who say it was built by John Buttera. It is believed both the Prudhomme wedge and Goodell’s were built at Gilmore’s shop, but Buttera was working there, possibly causing the confusion. The wedge ran mostly in the 6.67 range for the quarter, which was about what Goodell ran with his Funny. It is believed at some point Goodell moved the exhaust to weed burners in an attempt to help manage airﬂow, with mixed results.

CHUCK TANKO’S NATIONAL SPEED PRODUCTS RESEARCHER: 1971

TONY NANCY T/F DRAGSTER: 1971 At ﬁrst glance, this looks like a typical full-body Top Fuel dragster, but note the cool rear winglet that, along with canards added later, were desperate attempts to help the front-engine dragster stay competitive against the rear-engine onslaught. This dragster was restored by Nancy years ago, so the next time it makes an appearance, check out the neat rear winglet.

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The National Speed Products Researcher 1971 dragster was the product of Chuck Tanko, shoed by veteran driver Kenny Ellis, who also built the aluminum body. Seen here in March 1971, it was running at the same time that Garlits’ rear-engine car debuted. At a 254-inch wheelbase, the Race Car Specialties chassis was considered quite long for the time. In shakedown runs, it went 7.20 at 210 mph. With injected 465ci Hemis on gas, it qualiﬁed at the last NHRA Top Gas race ever held: the 1971 Supernationals in Ontario, California.

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BEAUTY BEYOND THE TWILIGHT ZONE

LOGGHE-STEFFEY-RUPP/LOGGHEMARSH-RUPP DRAGSTER: 1964 LARRY SHINODA “AMERICAN DRAGSTER” CONCEPT: 1969 It seems that making the slingshot more aerodynamic tickled more than just hard-core drag racers. Larry Shinoda, credited with bringing the Corvette Sting Ray to production and conceiving the Boss Mustangs in his short time at Ford, started Rectrans with Simon Bunkie Knudsen after both were ﬁred from Ford in 1968. Rectrans is known for the swoopy RV they manufactured—designed by Shinoda. Little is known about this dragster concept, but it was created during Shinoda’s time at Rectrans. Rectrans was experimenting with composites and plastics, and the RV’s body was a ﬁberglass composite. Of course, Shinoda raced cut-down roadsters in Los Angeles before and after WWII, so drag racing was always near and dear. We can only wonder what might have been had this become reality.

The Logghe brothers’ unblown Chevy ’liner made its maiden run at the NHRA Nationals in September 1964. Though it ran a respectable 8.10 e.t., driver Maynard Rupp fought spooky handling through the quarter-mile from the 1,000-pound, 136-inch wheelbase slingshot. Replacing the fuel Chevy with a Chrysler Hemi, times decreased to 7.93 at 191 mph, but handling remained scary. Determining low-pressure areas existed alongside of the ﬁberglass body, this explained the dragster’s habit of sudden lane changes without warning. Yeow! Soon it was retired and survives today at the Gartlis museum.

BARRY SETZER MONOCOQUE STREAMLINER: 1972 AL BERGLER’S MORE AGGRAVATION III: 1966 With sponsorship from Gratiot Auto in Detroit, Al Bergler’s “More Aggravation III” was the product of Al and the Logghe Bros. dragster and Funny Car factory (also in Detroit). Bergler was the tin man for the operation, forming the inner tin for Funny Cars and shaping assorted dragster bodies over the years. This was his own car, featuring a 1923 Model T body and a 484ci Hemi on gas and direct drive, running in the AA/Comp Dragster class, with a best of 7.80 e.t. at 190 mph. At the 1967 NHRA Winternationals, Bergler won both his class and also Best Appearing Car honors. If you know where it is, Al is currently looking for it.

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When chassis builder John Buttera hired Louie Teckenoff for aluminum fabrication in 1972, the two brainstormed on a monocoque dragster. Teckenoff had monocoque-building experience, so together they constructed this dragster from 0.050-inch magnesium sheets assembled with adhesives and more than 5,000 rivets. Build time was six months, as this was a shop project with no customer money behind it. With three internal bulkheads and high-density foam between the inner and outer body skins, the blown Hemipowered machine was rigid. Nye Frank created both the front and rear wings, and the car was then sold to Barry Setzer for $15,000. What happened next is debated. During a test run at Orange County International Raceway with Pat Foster driving, the dragster did a scary wheelstand and munched itself landing. It was repaired, with some saying Buttera repositioned the engine forward to help launching manners, with eyewitnesses reporting that at three-quarter track things got real scary. After more adjustments, it was then reported the car wanted to ﬂy. Others say it was repaired but never saw another track. Either way it sounds like a spook show. It now resides in the Garlits museum.

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BEAUTY BEYOND THE TWILIGHT ZONE

JIMMY IGE’S SONS OF THE RISING SUN DRAGSTER: 1971 Culver City, California’s Jimmy Ige is more commonly known as a Jr. Fuel racer, but in late-1971 and into 1972, he drove this SPE dragster in Top Fuel called “Sons of the Rising Sun.” Looking similar to Chuck Tanko’s dragster, Ige switched it over to run in Pro Comp within a year

KENT FULLER SIDEWINDER III: 1969 There have been a number of “sidewinder” dragsters built over the years, including Jack Chrisman’s “Magwinder” and this Kent Fuller–built Sidewinder III of Hopkins, Thornhill, and Finicle, which is a lengthened version of the Magwinder. Seen here in 1971, the dragster featured a magnesium tube chassis at 123 inches and ran a blown 350ci Chevy in BB/GD. Chrisman also tried his hand at sidewinding a Mustang Funny Car in 1971, selling it to become the “Night Stalker,” which is the ﬁrst Funny Car John Force drove.

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DAN OLSON’S WEDGE: 1972 A seldom-seen wedge also from Woody Gilmore was the Dan Olson Racing Products dragster out of NorCal. Driven by Rance McDaniel, after running a few events in 1972, the body came off and it picked up more than a tenth in the quarter. That was the end of the body.

JACK WILLIAMS-RON LOWE SYNDICATE SCUDERIA DRAGSTER: 1963 Hailing from Vancouver, Canada, the team of Williams-Devine-McDougall took Williams’ old dragster and reconstructed it into the “Scuderia” Gas dragster. With a blue Lexan canopy matching the metalﬂake blue aluminum body, it ran a 404ci Chrysler Hemi with a Potvin front-drive blower and in-and-out box. With Devine and McDougall out and Ron Lowe in, the two hauled the dragster to the 1963 Winternationals in Pomona, where an early record run of 8.83 at 169.17 could not be bested after mechanical gremlins killed the dragster’s chances. Still, it won a “Best Appearing” trophy. Later at Arlington it set a Top Gas record of 162.22. Retired in 1967, Williams dusted it off and participated in 1980s West Coast nostalgia meets; he crashed at Fremont, sustaining serious injuries. Undaunted, Williams repaired and restored the dragster in the early 1990s and celebrated his 70th birthday with a hammer-down pass at Sechelt, British Columbia, in Canada.

MOONEYHAM-FERGUSON-JACKSONFAUST DRAGSTER: 1965

BOB ELLIC DRAGSTER: 1955 Even in drag racing’s earliest days, racers knew streamlining would help lower elapsed times. This 1955 shot of Bob Ellic’s dragster from Omaha, Nebraska, records his attempt at streamlining with a nose and bodywork, such as it was, covering the ﬂathead Merc engine for better airﬂow. Weight for this dragster came in at 1,475 pounds.

This ﬁberglass body designed and built by Jocko Johnson actually ran on two completely different dragsters with the same results. Debuting at the 1965 March Meet as the Chrisman and Cannon “Hustler VI” on a Woody chassis, the team removed the body after weak passes. The next day on a checkout pass, the body-less dragster was destroyed. Johnson then talked the “Jungle Four” team of Gene Mooneyham, Wayne Ferguson, Jerry Jackson, and driver “Jungle Larry” Faust into giving the body a shot on their 354ci Chryslerpowered Woody chassis that just came off of a 7.53-e.t., 200-mph record run in A/FD. At Lions for test sessions Faust experienced extreme steering problems, smashing into the eyes and causing damage to the nose. Johnson made repairs overnight and the Jungle Four team was back at San Fernando, where the same thing happened on the ﬁrst pass, causing the dragster to veer off the track. The team supposedly hired a NASA aerodynamicist, who concluded there was so much downforce on the covered front tires that steering could not overcome the pressure, rendering the car unsteerable. Its best time was 8.20 at 197.80 mph. The dragster survives today at the Garlits Museum.

JOE AMATO AERO EXPERIMENTS: 1991 STAN JOHNSON’S C GAS/MODIFIED SILVER BULLET: 1964 Johnson built this Modified in his Wisconsin garage, starting with a Lakewood chassis, opting for the then-new 273ci Dodge for power. He wanted mechanical injection, but with none available for the small block Mopar, he made his own. The handmade body is a combination of fiberglass and aluminum, and features wheel fairings covering the slicks and a canopy built into the tonneau cover. The “Silver Bullet” held the Drag News record for C/Modified at 142 mph, but Johnson would occasionally add nitro, upping the speeds to 162 mph. The car was sold and separated decades ago, but Johnson was able to get everything back and restored the Bullet to its 1965 glory in 2013.

Veteran Top Fuel champ Joe Amato experimented with a number of wings and things throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He introduced the tall, laidback wing that almost immediately became the standard Top Fuel wing in 1984. In 1991 he tried this short wing/pod/tunnel experiment. A tunnel was fashioned between the slicks, while the canard-like appendage combined with the pods directed airﬂow over the slicks, sucking the car down at the same time. Amato tried this at a couple tracks, including here at Pomona in 1991, with the dragster running in the 5-0s. He used this setup with a wider wing—and no wing on one pass. Kenny Bernstein had a similar side-pod setup around this time, too. Amato’s ground effects Fueler ended up in Australia, where it was run both with and without the aero. It was eventually involved in a bad crash in Sydney, with Wayne Missingham luckily walking away from the carnage.

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A WEDGED BLUE OVAL Built in a Small Family Garage in the Mid-1960s, Wes Wicksâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; 1929 Ford Model A Was Transformed With the Addition of Some Chrysler Max Wedge Power John Machaqueiro

46 HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/

[Circa mid-1965, just aft er this photo taken with chil completion of the Model A, Wicks (right) had dhood friend Arthur “Pu the background you can nky” Matherson. In see the same homemade hea a maroon 1931 Ford Model A coupe using der setup.

HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/ 47

A WEDGED BLUE OVAL

01] With a focus on preservation, Ray Helger Jr. opted to keep the Model A as original as possible when he reacquired it. As a result, it still wears the 52-year-old Candy Blue lacquer paint applied by Wicks in 1965.

03] Remarkably unmolested, this is the interior that Wicks had installed in 1965. Aside from the addition of a cassette player, its all original, right down to the hose clamps and duct tape.

02] After many years of abuse and neglect at the hands of previous owners, the tired Max Wedge installed in 1965 gave way to a 426 with Direct Connection Stage V heads and an Edelbrock STR-15 cross-ram intake sporting a pair of Holley 600-cfm carbs.

04] The back end of the Model A is all business. From the Moon gas tank to the M&H Racemaster slicks protruding from the rear fenders.

hWere the 1960s really simpler times? The Cold War was in full

great car,” Wicks recalled of the first time he saw the sedan. “I liked the lines and the whole shape of the body, so I bought it right away.” Working in a small garage on his family’s farm in early 1959, he transformed the Model A by boxing the frame, adding a 1948 Ford straight axle with split wishbones, and a Buick nailhead V8 backed by a 1939 Ford three-speed transmission, a 1939 Ford Banjo rear, and a fresh coat of gray primer. It was simple and somewhat crude, but built with one purpose: to go fast. After his tour of duty ended in 1965, things picked up right where they left off. Wicks’ Model A was rolled out of hibernation for a

bloom, with capitalism versus communism raging on all fronts. If you were a male fresh out of high school, there was a very real chance military service was in your future. Should that letter arrive in the mail, any plans or projects would be put on hold. For Rhode Islander Wes Wicks, an extended stay from 1961 to 1965 guarding against the Russian bear in Western Germany put a temporary halt to his hot rodding endeavors. Before heading off to serve his country, he managed to hop up his 1929 Ford Model A Tudor Sedan. “I thought it would make a

48 HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/

A WEDGED BLUE OVAL

02 05

03 01] Purchased in 1965, the rear wheels are American Racing magnesium units original to the car, wrapped in a set of period-correct M&H Racemaster slicks. Helger Jr. was fortunate that all the unique pieces to the Model A that were removed as it changed owners were never lost, including the wheels. 02] Keeping things in the Ford family, Wicks added an early 1960s Ford Fairlane steering wheel acquired from a salvage yard.

04 04] The Hurst shifter was included in the trade that Wicks made. Due to the ﬂowing shape of the shifter and the placement of the seats, a direct installation was impossible. His solution was to fabricate a mounting bracket that allowed him invert the shifter handle. 05] Dating back to 1961, this photo shows the rear end of the Model A painted in gray primer and with a Ford Banjo rear. This was snapped days prior to Wicks’ departure for West Germany, where he was stationed until 1965.

03] Pushed back as far as possible, Wicks installed the Max Wedge ﬁrst and added all the auxiliary components afterward. His goal was to make the Model A streetable by minimizing issues with the cooling system. Setting the engine back also gave him better weight distribution.

06] One of the many original parts on the car, the rear taillight housing shows the graceful aging that has taken place over the years.

renewed tour of duty with the addition of some Chrysler power. A right-place-right-time situation dropped a golden opportunity on his lap when one of the local gearheads made him an offer too sweet to pass up: a 426 Max Wedge engine. It took him about a month to slide the 426 into the Model A, setting the engine as far back as he could in the chassis. It was treated to homemade headers, exhaust, and an Oldsmobile rear end. The finishing touch was a Hurst shifter that he flipped to make fit. At this point, the gray primer was starting to age, so Wicks threw some color on the car. A local speed shop applied the silver basecoat and spent hours dumping Candy Blue lacquer to cover evenly. The Ford made a trip to the upholsterer for a real interior, and the last touch was a set of American Racing wheels—slicks on the back, of course. Stock, the little sedan would have weighed 2,200 pounds with a

wheezy, 24-horse, inline-four-cylinder engine. Installing the 415hp 426 was overkill in the best sense. To de-lethalize the combination, Wicks added a roll bar, but with the passing of time, Wicks lost interest in it as his passion for snowmobiles blossomed. He kept the Modal A until the mid-1970s when he needed to raise cash for a house that he was building. It didn’t go very far, as his friend Ray Helger snapped it up. The two had grown up together and were long-standing members of the Newport Drifters Car Club. Unlike Wicks, Helger wasn’t into racing, so it was used sparingly. He would often pick up his son, also named Ray, from school in the car. Those afternoon rides would often involve some spirited driving, and the fond memories would play a crucial role for the younger Ray. After about three years of ownership, the Ford was again on the market, where it would drift from owner to owner for many years.

50 HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/

07] Crude but effective, these homemade headers work and are a testament to the ingenuity of all the young guys back in 1960s who were building cars in small garages across the country. 08] Visually similar and still displacing 426 ci, the current engine has performance numbers equal to (or greater than) the original Max Wedge Wicks installed.

It was at a local car show Helger Jr. was reacquainted with the Model A. He spotted the car that was his gateway into hot rodding, sat in it, and eagerly inquired if it was for sale. It was not, but as the years passed, his speed-shop business grew and the supply of disposable income also increased. Still, the current owner held firm. “That car was my first real feeling of acceleration. It would pull so hard and just push you back in the seat. Of all the things I’ve driven over the years, all the race cars, I’ll never forget it, and I wanted that car back.” Those rides after school with his father left an indelible mark on him. Finally, Helger Jr.’s phone rang. The owner was ready to sell. The deal was done and the Model A was finally home, though it had been ridden hard and put away wet. The drivetrain was still the same. The wide slicks were gone, having been replaced by a set of radial tires. The original body-colored grille was also gone. The Max Wedge valve covers and air cleaners had also given way to shiny chrome units, though those were recovered later. Once Helger Jr. took ownership of it, the goal was to put it all back the way it was in his childhood. American Racing wheels were put

09] In a less-is-more statement, Helger Jr. replaced all the chrome pieces added by the previous owners with the original parts Wicks installed on the car. These parts, while less glamorous, define the car’s unique character. 10] Shot in a field at a local dairy farm, this was the first photo Wicks took of the Model A after he rolled it out of the garage with the newly installed Max Wedge. It illustrates how little has changed since it was put together.

back on the car with a set of period-correct M&H Racemaster slicks. All the chrome bits were removed and replaced with original pieces. While the cosmetics were fairly easy to sort out, the mechanical side was more problematic. The Max Wedge was in desperate need of attention after years of abuse, especially on the top end. The heads and Carter AFBs were in really poor condition—ditto the bottom end. It was a tough call, but Helger pulled the engine and built a replacement. In an attempt to keep it as faithful as possible, he started with a fresh 426 RB block as the foundation. The Max Wedge heads were replaced with a set of Mopar Performance Stage V heads. Clearance issues shelved the original cross-ram intake, so an Edelbrock STR-15 cross-ram intake crowned with a pair of Holley 600cfm carburetors was installed. Now the new engine looked the part and was still far more powerful than needed. The Ford was now was almost as fresh as the day Wicks backed it out of his small garage on the farm in 1965. For Helger Jr., it was all about the after-school rides with his father. And what of Wicks? Well, he has been working for Helger Jr. for many years, and anytime he needs a blast from the past, all he has to do is ask for the keys.

HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/ 51

THE INSANE TURBONIQUE TALE OF

MAGIC BULLET MADNESS Thom Taylor

52 HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/

HOT ROD Archives

[The Rauth and Venetti “Pegasus” Drag Axle– equipped Mustang on a hot pass at the 1967 AHRA Winternationals. Entered in the FX/T Factory Experimental Turbine class, it made several complete passes at more than 160 mph, winning the class. Gene Canham out of Chicago also challenged the quarter-mile for part of a season with his “Turbine Dart” sporting a Drag Axle, also back in 1967. Naturally, it crashed.

hThere once was a magic bullet for extra speed. It was a bolt-on device. Bolt it onto your rear axle and you instantly had 1,300 hp at the press of a button. Magic, right? The 130-pound device was called the Turbonique Drag Axle, and the Florida company that manufactured this and essentially a variety of other small rocket engines for racing conveniently sold them mail order.

Hassle-free horsepower! We aren’t making this up. When you’re a rocket scientist in the 1950s, the dreams of rockets for all humankind must have been overwhelming, especially for C.E. “Gene” Middlebrooks Jr. He was working for a Florida-based defense contractor developing Pershing ballistic missiles using solid-propellant rockets. This

is all good, except when you add Middlebrooks’ interest in racing. Then a slew of both horrifying and phantasmagorical combinations come to mind mashing the need for speed and rockets. Middlebrooks had the knowledge and means to test his rocket racing ideas for the masses—and to sell them, too. Sometimes just because you can doesn’t mean

HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/ 53

THE INSANE TURBONIQUE TALE OF MAGIC BULLET MADNESS [Top: “Captain” Jack McClure piloted this Drag Axle–equipped Z16 Chevelle numerous times in the quarter-mile. Here he explains the safety and speed aspects of the device in August 1965, before surviving a barrel roll through the traps in this car 12 to 13 times, according to witnesses. He would move on to Turbonique-powered go-karts. [Bottom: A Frankland Champ quick-change rear receives a jolt of rocket power through the back section of the aluminum housing. The removable ﬁnned plate that unbolts for accessing the stacked gear set originally to facilitate gear changes, now accepts an output shaft that reduces via a pinion shaft the 60,000 rpm of the turbine 8.3:1 for a more manageable 7,250 rpm. Still, the few examples that ran spun the tires most of the quarter-mile.

you should. In the 1950s Middlebrooks patented and then marketed an electrically powered supercharger for racing. The added weight from extra batteries needed to power the device, lackluster results, and indictment (but ultimately acquittal) for mail fraud kept him searching for another, better nonparasitic form of instant power. By 1962 he was satisfied enough with his experiments in self-powered superchargers to start a company called Turbonique to provide instant, excessive, and frightening speed for racers wanting a sharp whack in the back. Three different types of devices were manufactured to “establish a market for rocket technology,” according to Middlebrooks. In no particular insanity order, they were AP (Auxiliary Power) superchargers, “Microturbo” Thrust engines, and Rocket Drag Axles. Ignited by Turbonique’s own “Thermolene” fuel, some of these docile-looking Inconel 713C alloy contraptions were able to spin more than 100,000 rpm. For instance, Turbonique’s “Huffer” model, available in both vertical and horizontal applications, was a carbureted centrifugal supercharger the catalog waxed on about generating “enough compressed air to start a jet or turboprop airliner.” Yikes! With the press of a button, the supercharger received a blast of liquid oxygen and a shot of Thermolene, mainlining the engine into a Godzilla two-stroke. It seemed that in spite of the obvious death wish aspects of Turbonique applications, snowmobiles, hovercraft, and boats also joined in on the flashpoint of Huffer histrionics. Thermolene fuel was in reality N-propyl nitrate. It’s a monopropellant, meaning its chemical composition releases energy through exothermic chemical decomposition. In other words, it provides its own oxygen. So you’ve got the fuel and oxygen— what’s the third component needed? A catalyst to kick off the desired thrust; in this case, a button triggering a spark. Voilà!

54 HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/

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THE INSANE TURBONIQUE TALE OF MAGIC BULLET MADNESS [Here’s another shot of the Pegasus Mustang at Bee Line Dragway in Phoenix at the 1967 AHRA Winternationals. Rumors have the car still in existence, minus the Drag Axle, which is probably why it still exists.

[Right: Separate oxygen bottles for the initial combustion feed the twin–Microturbo Thrust engines toward the front of the chamber on this minibike. A single tank of N-propyl nitrate is fed via the large elbow ﬁtting to the chamber actuated by an electric valve release, both of which are visible here. The spark plug on top of the chamber ﬁres off the whole volatile mixture in one-twentieth of a second.

Stable under certain conditions, Thermolene could quickly decompose, producing an exponentially uncontrollable hurricane of hot gases surely launching an unimaginable catastrophe from what looked like a can of mouthwash. Oh, and even in stable form it’s extremely toxic. Able to melt both plastic and rubber, it would react to mild steel in the presence of water. Yeow! For the wilder Microturbo Thrust unit, advertising claimed for the model T-16-A Formula J Thrust Engine an additional 1,980 hp was at your fingertips. In reality a small rocket-thrust engine, once ignited, hot gases were instantaneously unleashed, spinning small turbine blades in the housing, with an optional turbine wheel available to create “spectacular flaming night runs,” according to Turbonique hype. This option was for those needing more sensorial input than the shockwave of 600-psi ignited

56 HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/

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THE INSANE TURBONIQUE TALE OF MAGIC BULLET MADNESS

LET’S FIRE THIS SUCKER UP! The procedure for starting a Turbonique Microturbo Thrust–equipped go-kart. • Flip the toggle switch for the spark plug or plugs. • Press down on the pedal attached to an electric switch to open the pressurized tanks. • The electrically actuated valves are now opened, releasing oxygen into the rocket chambers. Nitrogen-pressurized liquid fuel at 600 psi is also forced from the fuel tank to the rocket chambers. • The Thermolene ethylene oxide now mixes with the oxygen-rich atmosphere inside of the chambers. Hit the ignition button and the spark ignites the mixture, causing the oxygen ﬂow to stop from the pressure. Remember, ethylene oxide creates its own oxygen. • Hold on for dear life. • Do not try to reignite at any time, as the mixture will pool with the spark off, causing a massive explosion upon re-ignition.

rocket fuel slammed into a 100,000-rpm Inconel orb—all taking place right behind your head, as you glide an inch or two off the ground. The snail-looking device, with what looked like a child’s bicycle horn protruding from one end, came with “easy to follow installation and operating instructions.” We assume the operating instructions were basically, “Don’t do it!” As for the bicycle horns, those were aluminum nozzles used by NASA in space. They were just for publicity, and in actual use would have melted in seconds. Finding their way onto go-karts, which were quite popular at the time, a number of deaths were reported by this innocent mixture of instant 1,980 hp to just a steering wheel and four tires. Some of these incidents involved explosions caused by the Thermolene pooling in the combustion chamber as drivers decelerated quickly. Or should we say, too quickly. But why use only one Model T-16-A? It was suggested using two would propel your kart to more than 150 mph. Speeds were estimated to reach 160 mph within 4 seconds. Advertising announced alluring features that included: • Guaranteed minimum thrust levels. • Eight standard models available.

58 HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/

[The channel iron helps to support the Drag Axle hanging rather precariously off of the rear of the Frankland Champ quick-change rear, but regardless, the violent surge of thrust usually caused the rear end to fail. On the last pass of this rare Z16 Chevelle, the rear end locked up and caused driver McClure to barrel roll through the beams, which he survived. The car did not.

• Cost as low as 11 cents per jet horsepower. • Designed by a propulsion specialist (as opposed to, what, a tinkerer?). • Only one liquid required to make run. • Requires a simple fuel-supply system. • Moderate 2,000-degree Fahrenheit exhaust temperature (we don’t know whether this was a feature or warning). In the midst of this speed haze of monopropellants and decomposition of unimaginable consequences, one surely used extreme caution before creating anything beyond this small, basic rocket engine, but that’s not how hot rodders think. If small is great, then bigger is orgasmic. Middlebrooks increased the size and composition of his little rocket motor to create the larger and more powerful “Drag Axle.” The assembled model DS-28-A Drag Axle would set you back $4,695, almost twice the price of a new Mustang. At 1,300 hp, the “rocket drag axle” could also set you back into and through your seat. This latest creation from the everescalating delusions of a speed-crazed inventor was bolted to the back of a Halibrand or larger Frankland Champ quick-change rear end housing. Sometimes speed lust overtakes reason. Rather than creating thrust

power like a typical jet engine, the power was transferred instead through the quickchange gears to reduce the turbine’s 60,000 rpm directly to the axles. The fuel delivery and consumption was both simple and fairly lightweight. Besides the bottle of Thermolene fuel, a bottle of nitrogen gas kept the Thermolene under pressure, feeding the combustion chamber at 1⁄4 gallon per second. A third bottle with oxygen was used for the initial hit as ambient air temperature does not promote Thermolene’s ignition. Once ignited, pressure from the activation causes the Oxygen valve to automatically close, as the Thermolene lights up like a grass fire from a blowtorch. Otherwise, feeding oxygen to the volatile cocktail would result in a bomb, as the Inconel chamber would be unable to contain the force from the blast. Buyers, but more astonishingly drivers, were actually found for this experiment in explosives. Few cars were hosts to the Drag Axle, and virtually none survived the ordeal, including the Z16 Chevelle seen here, and the company’s own “Black Widow” Volkswagen, both destroyed in uncontrollable tire-smoking performances of your worst nightmares. Driving the Chevelle, “Captain” Jack McClure would start the car in Third gear. In spite of this, he said it would smoke

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1972 Chevelle® SS™ 396

THE INSANE TURBONIQUE TALE OF MAGIC BULLET MADNESS OXYGEN REGULATOR OXYGEN VALVE

PRESSURIZATION VALVE

CHECK VALVE

FUEL REGULATOR

SPARK PLUG GAS TURBINE COMBUSTION CHAMBER

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NITROGEN

Keeps Fuel Under Pressure

N Propyl Nitrate Fuel

FUEL VALVE

FUEL INJECTOR

the tires at least to half-track and still do more than 150 mph in the quarter-mile. The Achilles’ heel was the rear end not staying together. In fact, on its final run the Chevelle’s rear end locked up, causing a violent barrel roll through the traps 12 to 13 times. Captain Jack survived, only to shift over to a twin-Microturbo Thrust–equipped go-kart. Talk about a death wish! On a blitz down Tampa’s quarter-mile, the Volkswagen went airborne at over 180 mph, tumbling through the top end. Driver Roy Drew survived, even posing with the crumpled remains of the Widow for Turbonique advertising. Maybe this was to show that as crazy as your dreams may be, you can come out alive with Turbonique. All good things must end, and it seems that in 1970 what liability lawsuits couldn’t take down, a 21-count federal indictment for mail-order fraud did. It was not pretty. Middlebrooks waived council and defended himself. From a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals opinion by one of the presiding judges, “Middlebrooks argued with witnesses, interjected scandalous and inflammatory remarks, and violated miscellaneous procedural rules during his conduct of the trial.” One can only imagine. He continued, “The district court judge showed commendable moderation in keeping the trial on the tracks, and not prejudicing the jury against the defendant (Middlebrooks), in spite of provocatory conduct on the part of the defendant.” There were other problems for Middlebrooks besides conduct. For the amount of

THERMOLENE

OXYGEN

HOT GAS

For Initial Ignition

STARTER INJECTOR

CHECK VALVE [Top: Here’s a handy HOT ROD diagram for those who think in more visual terms. [Left: From our safe and sane 2017 perspective, it is incredible that you could order this jug of “monofuel for gasgenerating units” or N-propyl nitrate, back in the 1960s. The mail-order feature of Turbonique’s business model was also responsible for ending Turbonique’s rocket-enginesfor-all retail racing enterprise.

claims against Turbonique, Middlebrooks did not counter with a single customer witness having received a refund. A ledger he presented to the court indicating refunds paid out was deemed “a hodgepodge of unauthenticated records with no basis in fact.” Also, prosecutors revealed Middlebrooks had been indicted and acquitted of mail fraud in 1965, making this the third trial for fraud in less than 10 years. This third time would not be the charm, either. The jury concluded that while Turbonique kits were simple to execute for a rocket scientist like Middlebrooks, they were much more involved for teenage kids, and thus advertising claims became their

undoing. Also, distributorships were offered with moneymaking claims to those inquiring about kits, which is one form of a Ponzi scheme. Middlebrooks was found guilty on 16 counts, sentenced to two years in prison, and fined $4,000. Rumors had him running a Florida resort after his release, suggesting he picked something completely removed from his past enterprise and expertise to live out his final years. In some ways, Middlebrooks saved us from ourselves. Gene Middlebrooks died at Lake Mary, Florida, on August 4, 2005.

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FLYWEIGHT

FUELER This Little Doggie Had the Bark and the Bite Dave Wallace Dominick Damato

hWhen late-night bench racing gets around to comparing “weight freaks,” there’s never a shortage of nominees. Sorry, no contest: Not content to build the world’s lightest fuel dragster, Bud Morehouse found a 4-foot, 3-inch, 70-pound little person to drive it. Full of fluids, this flyweight hit the scale at 720 pounds, plus driver. It was hauled to and from Southern California tracks in the bed of a pickup. At a time when dragracing engines were cast iron, Morehouse went with a 215ci, all-aluminum Olds F-85 because the block weighed 65 pounds. Chassis tubing totals 40 pounds. The body weighs 10. A go-kart master cylinder feeds a tiny disc brake on one axle—only. Superlight spoke wheels are OEM Schwinn Stingray. Bud formed his own bellhousing, seat, and body panels from magnesium—exotic stuff in 1965. He converted five-lug rear axles and wheels to four. He replaced the standard outboard steering link, brackets, and rod ends with a German minicar’s tiny rackand-pinion, then hacked off half the rack. No weight freak worth his scales is ever completely satisfied, of course. Having drilled and chopped out every possible pound to get within a few hundredths of the magical 7-second zone, Bud reconsidered the “plus-driver” factor. That would be Karl Krohn, who’d steered since he helped Bud bend and weld the chromemoly chassis one Sunday in their pal Frank Huszar’s slingshot shop, Race Car Specialties. “I weighed all of 130 pounds, just out of the shower, soaking wet,” says Krohn, 77. “Bud said he knew a little guy running a four-banger rail. He wanted to see how quick we could go. I was all for it. Hell, yeah: Weight is horsepower! We’d drop 60 pounds, and all we had to do was move the pedals back.” Sonny Rossi is 80 now, yet describes his one-day, fuel-dragster career in detail. “Those were the thinnest pedals I’d ever seen,” he recalls. “All there was between

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FLYWEIGHT FUELER

The frame is so light, I could throw it over my shoulder and carry it everywhere. Those two guys never needed a trailer; they lifted the whole car into and out of their push truck.”

— Ken Gillispie

[Top left: A Herbert roller cam drives a conventional Hilborn fuel pump plus dual oil pumps hung below the balancer and sandwiched in with the fuel pump. One oil pump pulls from the pan; the other pumps from the dry-sump tank to the engine, constantly circulating oil. Richard Lockerman helped Morehouse rework F-85 cylinder heads to accept 327 Chevy FI valves and custom rocker-arm studs and pushrods. The late Don Zig rebuilt the original Joe Hunt mag. [Left: When restorer Ken Gillispie returned the old injectors to Hilborn for rebuilding and flowing by Don Enriquez, “This old character suddenly appeared and said, ‘Where’d you find these? I remember making them for Bud Morehouse. There’s no patent number because this was our prototype, the very first set.’ When the guy walked away, I asked, Who’s he? Don said, ‘That’s old man Hilborn! You didn’t park in the parking lot, did you? He’s hit every employee’s car at least once. Stu’s in his 90s and still driving, but he really shouldn’t be.” [Bottom left: Born in the San Fernando Valley, this famous fueler disappeared for four decades without ever leaving Southern California, as far as anyone knows. Its adopted state is Wisconsin, where the “Underdog” looks right at home in the nostalgic surroundings of Wisconsin International Raceway. No wonder: This race car and racetrack were both built in 1965.

me and two spinning axles were little pads for my thighs. The owner was really, really weight-conscious. It was a squirrelly thing, hard to hold straight, because the rearend was locked. When it got even a little crossed up, the car shot sideways. I thought sure I was gonna turn it over on one pass. I think we ran close to 180, the fastest I ever went at the drags or Bonneville.” Krohn adds, “Rossi got out of the car that day and told us, ‘I really don’t want anything to do with this.’ You had to really feel it to drive it because both wheels turned the same. If one tire grabbed and the other didn’t, it got real twitchy. Between runs, Sonny helped me pack the ’chute. I dropped the tie cord on the ground. So I told him to put his hands around the pack and hold

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FLYWEIGHT FUELER

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Twice at Lions, crosswinds pushed my opponent’s parachute into my lane and sent me flipping and tumbling through the shutdown area. Willie Borsch’s roadster got me once, then Barry Kaplan’s Junior Fueler. Bud and I went home, checked everything, and it was all fine, both times. The car was so light that it didn’t even bend.” — Karl Krohn in the ’chute. I leaned over, heard this loud ‘pop,’ and he went shooting backward. The pilot ’chute had struck his chest and knocked him on his ass!” The “Underdog” eventually dipped into the 7s at 195 mph with Krohn back in the magnesium seat. Though his ride was built for Lions Drag Strip’s super-competitive Junior Fuel class and won more than its share against the heavier, more-powerful 301 Chevy rails that filled those 8- or 16-car fields, Karl’s greatest satisfaction came from upsetting supercharged dragsters. Some SoCal strips allowed unblown fuelers of any displacement to attempt qualifying for Top Gas and even Top Fuel, heads up. Any injected Chevy fortunate enough to make those shows without melting down typically became first-round fodder. Not the Underdog, which once went all the way to the Top Fuel final at its home track, then embarrassed a heavy favorite. “Harry Hibler was the San Fernando manager who wrote out the winners’ checks,” Krohn says. “When our turn came, Hibler said, ‘You two guys oughta be ashamed of yourselves, pickin’ on those poor little 480-inch blown Chryslers.’” Krohn remembers running three seasons without a major engine failure. Meanwhile, Goodyear was discovering drag racing, and the resulting “tire wars” with M&H helped hook up the overpowered competition. “We were still keeping up without killing parts, but Bud felt we were on the ragged edge of doing that,” he explains. “Just about everything inside those motors was handmade; custom, one-off stuff that you couldn’t go

03 04

01] Bud Morehouse benefitted from extensive R&D done by buddy Chet Herbert for a pair of twin-engined F-85 Top Fuelers. Inserting a welded stroker crankshaft from a 1965 Buick, an aluminum-plate main support, and beefy M/T aluminum rods necessitated serious massaging of stock F-85 blocks. Bud’s 1⁄6-inch overbore and 3.4-inch stroke enlarged displacement from 215 to 270 cubes. Individual header flanges trimmed weight (though not as much as welding the individual zoomies directly to at least one other set of heads, whereabouts unknown). 02] The Underdog seems eager to attack the quarter-mile, but current caretakers Brian and Tina Jaeger have successfully resisted the temptation to fire their race-ready motor (thus far!).

03] Redrilling the axles and magnesium Halibrands eliminated 20 percent of the usual rotating weight of ﬁve studs, washers, and lug nuts. The mag body panels and super-small parachute are original. The slicks are not; Morehouse ran the smallest tires in Junior Fuel, 7.10-15s, after wider, heavier rubber slowed the car down. 04–06]One of the earliest drag-racing applications of rack-and-pinion steering cut considerable weight while improving car control. For good measure, Morehouse whacked off half of a German Goggomobile rack. He got around the usual fuel-tank obstruction by not going around the 2-gallon Moon unit.

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FLYWEIGHT FUELER

I think the car was so successful mostly because it didn’t make much torque. Tire technology was crap. The blown cars couldn’t hook up.”

— Ken Gillispie

out and buy, like you could Chevy or Chrysler parts. One night, he said it might be time to build a Chevy car, so we did. I never saw the Underdog again, never heard anything about it, for 40 years, until a friend called from Pomona to say my old car was on display at the 50th Winternationals [February 2010].” Boxes of blown-up and worn-out parts, a blue paint job, and unfamiliar cockpit lettering suggest to restorer Ken Gillispie that someone else had at least attempted to race the old slingshot he saw hanging in rafters in Colton, California. “The owner had had it for at least 10 years, couldn’t remember the seller’s name, and had no idea what it was. Four little F-85 motors, in various stages of build, were pretty good clues. I started asking around. Roger Gates, who also ran dragsters at San Fernando, thought it might be Bud Morehouse’s car. When I came across a four-page article in Drag Racing magazine

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[Dec. 1966], I knew it was. “This wasn’t hard to restore,” he adds. “Most of the parts were there. I build complete race cars and hot rods [GetSumRacing in Chino Hills, California], so this one was pretty simple: a motor with a clutch connected to a can to direct drive to a rearend. Figuring out Bud’s engine combination was harder. I had enough pieces to know that he used a welded steel crank and 327 Chevy Mickey Thompson aluminum rods. I had to figure out rings and pistons. Driveshafts for the two oil pumps were missing. Before

[Above: When this lettering was applied, and by whom, is among the lingering mysteries. Such an abbreviation of the word “you” is a style not popularized until long after Morehouse and Krohn quit, hinting that some subsequent owner raced the car. A Halibrand centersection and thin plates wrapped around open-tube axles are magnesium, of course. [Top: Lengthy for a Junior Fueler of its era, the 125-inch-wheelbase chassis is a combination of “oh-too-thin” chromemoly: 1x0.049-inch top rails; 7⁄8x0.049-bottom tubes; 11⁄2x0.065 roll bar.

FLYWEIGHT FUELER

01 02

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I made replacements, I had to determine ratios that neither overdrove nor underdrove the pumps. The easiest thing was replacing the worn-out rocker shafts. After I called around and failed to find any old stock, I took a shot and tried Range Rover, which still used the engine in 2009. I told them the model year and, sure enough, they bolted right on! The hardest things to get were brake parts. I finally found an Airheart rebuild kit for go-karts, and paid dearly.” Not until completing the three-month restoration did Gillispie accept the reality that he had no space and no good use for the Underdog. “My wife and I each had two nostalgia race cars at the time, and I didn’t want to risk cackling that motor. I built it to run on 80-percent and planned to at least push-start her once, but she’d never run a clutch car and wasn’t enthusiastic. We hauled it to a few shows. I wanted people to see it and learn the history, which I think is significant. I considered a long-term loan to a local museum until I heard too many horror stories about people having trouble getting cars back, or getting charged for storing them. We finally decided to put it up on eBay, hoping the car would go to someone who’d share it.” Enter current caretaker Brian Jaeger, 63, a veteran dirt-track and drag racer who still owns his first car, a 409/409 1962 Biscayne, among other fast toys. “My wife, Tina, and I collect vintage race cars,” he told HRM. “I love driving them, but, boy, I don’t know if I’d go as fast as Karl Krohn did. Guys like that had a little more courage than I did. What really intrigued me was the motor combination. Bud Morehouse didn’t just get on the phone and order this and that; he had to design and build this stuff with his own hands, for wide-open racing. It needs to be saved. We take the car to as many shows as we can. It’s so light that I can pick up the front end and walk it right up onto the trailer. I’d love to hear it run, but Ken warned me that probably half the engine parts could not be replaced. We met in Denver to make the deal. The last thing he said was, ‘Please don’t race it.’ Tell him not to worry. The car has a good, safe home here, with in-floor heat and dehumidifiers.” So we know the story has a happy ending. As for when, why, and to whom Bud Morehouse sold his tiny terror a half-century ago, and where it’s been, nobody knows. Each person interviewed for this article expressed regret that so many mysteries went to the grave with the builder—or did they? Now that the Underdog has resurfaced in HOT ROD, there’s new hope that someone who knows the rest of the story will share it with fellow readers.

03 05

04 01] The only unnecessary weight Bud allowed was a painted cartoon character on the cowl that some subsequent owner regrettably covered in blue. When restorer Gillispie was unable to uncover the original design without damaging the 0.032-inch-thick mag panel, he turned artist Bob Thompson loose to substitute his own version of the comic-book hero. Karl Krohn added his autograph after taking his old seat for the ﬁrst time since the late-1960s. 02] A contractor in real life, Morehouse evidently borrowed the stress-cable concept from suspension bridges. By counteracting torque, they successfully prevented the pinion from climbing the ring gear and bending an aluminum driveshaft. 03] Morehouse combined the larger dry-sump tank and separate “puke” tank into a single, weight-saving structure.

04] Among the invisible innovations are a twist-resistant torque tube and dual stress cables that connect the rearend to the top of the bellhousing. 05–06] Here’s what Ken Gillispie initially noticed and photographed in a Colton, California, shop. Incredibly, nearly all of the missing pieces plus several spares had stayed with the chassis, in boxes, for four decades.

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[Joe Carroll with PTS Engineering won the class with an average of 605.6 hp and 636.8 lb-ft of torque from 3,400 to 6,500 rpm.

Joe Carroll Pulls Spec Puzzle Pieces Together at Engine Masters Challenge Engine Masters Challenge Is Sponsored by AMSOIL, Presented by HOT ROD, and Operated by the University of Northwestern Ohio Phillip Thomas Robert McGaffin and Brandan Gillogly hFor the 2016 AMSOIL Engine Master’s Challenge Presented by HOT ROD, the Spec Big-Block class limited builders to off-theshelf Edelbrock cylinder heads, but allowed porting and chamber modifications so long as the valves retained the original dimensions from Edelbrock and no material was added to the head with epoxy or welding. This meant that each builder’s secret sauce would be in the ports and combustion chamber. Joe Carroll with PTS Engineering won the class with an average of 605.6 hp and 636.8 lb-ft of torque from 3,400 to 6,500 rpm. We know some readers guffaw reading about a Chevrolet motor winning anything, but for Carroll, it started at the valves: “We started looking at valve sizes on everything [allowed in the class] and realized that the big-block Chevy would probably have the best cylinder head for us with the biggest valve.” Using Edelbrock’s smallest spec cylinder

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head, the 100cc Performer RPM, Greg Good at Greg Good’s Cylinder Heads in Houston started with the blankest aluminum canvas possible for his own port work. Carroll hadn’t worked with Good before, and he didn’t know what to make of the newly hollowed-out ports: “When we got the heads, and I looked at them, I said, ‘Man, he has ruined a good set of heads!’” The ports looked huge and flowed 400 cfm on the intake side; Good’s port work shined. “We went to go make our first pull; we could’ve won with just that first pull—the heads flowed that good,” Carroll said. While cutting the combustion chamber open, Good also reshaped the chamber adding a “kick” to prevent the fuel/air charge from reverting back into the intake. “I think that’s what picked us up on the top end,” Carroll said. He also chose Doug Thorley headers for their long primaries, noting that the longer tubes tend to bring a boarder torque curve at EMC.

From there, the bottom end is all attention to detail. John McLemore at PTS did a substantial amount of machine work to weed out any friction and drag from the rotating assembly, along with building a custom crank scraper. “We were worried about oil control, so we used a scraper. That’s a big deal on a big-block. That could be worth 20 hp, easy; I was surprised we didn’t see more of them out there.” A 4.186-inch bore and 4.250-inch stroke puts this rat motor right under the 470-cube limit at 468 ci, with that rotating assembly consisting of a forged Scat crank with Eagle rods and JE Pistons. While the immense machine work and preparation paid off, the camshaft selection is where EMC builds depart from a typical big-block combo. Carroll choose a Comp Cams TK camshaft, with custom-ground 248/252 duration at 0.050 tappet lift and a massive 0.850-inch valve lift. “We put a ton of lift in it. It’s almost like you can’t put too

BROUGHT TO YOU BY

[These innocent Edelbrock Performer RPMs have been mined out, with the intake ﬂowing as much as 400 cfm.

[Joe Carroll, a lineman in Louisiana, says that his days building engines in Comp Eliminator gave him the eye for detail needed at EMC. Proper block prep and machine work are the foundation of every build and help squeeze that little something extra out of an engine.

much in these things,” Carroll quipped. They chose the TK series as it had the most radical opening and closing rate possible—street driveability and reliability aren’t a concern here, they just need that valve to open and shut as quickly as possible. The carburetor is the same story: as much and fast as possible. A PRC Precisiontweaked 1,050-cfm Holley sits atop a spec single-plane Edelbrock Victor Jr. intake. “The biggest thing we learned is to have a carburetor that’ll draw enough fuel at a lower rpm,” so Carroll found that utilizing three-circuit carburetors allowed him to work around the lean spot he’s experienced on the dyno, created after the accelerator pump shot is spent at low rpm. “You want it to be a little fat on the bottom so when it rolls in it’s not lean, and you’re making good torque numbers [points]. Carburetor size is important, but you want the biggest thing you can get on the dyno.”

[Doug Thorley long tubes also help the average torque, with Carroll going for the longest primaries he could ﬁnd, with as much extension past the collector as the rules allow.

[Carroll’s 468-inch Chevy hooked up to the SuperFlow dyno at University of Northwestern Ohio’s Applied Technologies College.

HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/ 73

[Starting with a 1972 402 block, Atlas ﬁlled half of the water jackets with concrete for insurance before boring the block to 4.190 inches. A Scat 4.250-inch crank was chucked into a lathe, and the counterweights trimmed 0.250 inches before it was installed in the block with 6.385-inch Scat rods. Because of the odd bore size, custom p pistons were req quired. ed. Th ed. he ﬁnal all d splacem l em dis ement en wa as 4 9 ci 469 ci..

STREETABLE 469CI BIG-BLOCK CHEVY Atlas Performance Builds 700 HP Brandan Gillogly

Robert McGaffin and Brandan Gillogly

hThe Atlas Performance team of Bret Bowers, Jason Gonzalez, Keegan Dykeman, and Cole Wagner had to split development time between this Spec Big-Block and the Nitrous engine they also competed with in the 2016 running of the AMSOIL Engine Masters Challenge, Presented by HOT ROD. They didn’t have time to try a lot of combinations for the Spec Big-Block class, flow-bench testing a single set of heads to develop their ports. Still, it’s hard to argue with the results, as the wide powerband of their Edelbrock-topped Chevrolet delivered 661 lb-ft of torque at 4,800 rpm and peak power of 703 hp at 6,000 rpm. The biggest criticism of Engine Masters Challenge engines is that they’re too specialized for the competition and they’re not practical for any particular purpose other than “racing the dyno.” A number

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of our competitors would argue otherwise, and Bret Bowers is one of them, building impressive power from a streetable combination of parts. After serving in their 2008 Engine Masters Challenge competition engine, Atlas recycled the Comp hydraulic roller camshaft from their 2008 EMC engine. With 0.470 inches of lobe lift on both intake and exhaust and a split duration of 244/252 degrees at 0.050 inches of tappet lift, the 1.8:1 rockers give 0.847 inches of lift at the valve. Valve separation is a relatively mild (for the competition) 106 degrees. This easily duplicated engine combination is destined for Drag Week™ competition, so while we know how it did on the dyno, we’ll also get to see how it does during a harrowing week of realworld competition.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY

02 03

01] The headers are from Flowmaster, and they’re the same set the engine will wear when it goes into a 1968 Firebird destined to compete in Drag Week™ 2017. 02] The cylinder head of choice for the top two engine builders in the Big-Block class is the Edelbrock Performer RPM with 100cc chambers. They offered the best horsepower potential with the biggest valves at 2.19 inches for the intake and 1.88 inches for the exhaust. Atlas experimented by CNC-porting the heads with trapezoidal intake runners and gave them a dimpled surface like a golf ball using Rottler’s new CNC machine. 03] A billet 1,050-cfm, 4150-style carburetor from Advanced Product Design provided accurate fuel metering.

HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/ 75

[Team leader Zach Nelson selected American Racing Headers that use 17⁄8-inch primaries and buttoned up their 6.0L iron block with a Steff’s oil pan ﬁlled with 0W-20 AMSOIL synthetic. Fasteners are from ARP.

2.5 HORSEPOWER PER CUBIC INCH! SAM Tech’s Nitrous LS Takes the Horsepower King Crown Brandan Gillogly

Rob McGaffin

hWe’ll admit it: We hoped that by giving AMSOIL Engine Masters Challenge Presented by HOT ROD competitors the chance to battle in a nitrous-assisted duel we’d see some carnage. When the Nitrous class wrapped up on the final day of competition, there was no smoke to clear, there were no scattered parts to sweep off the floor— just impressive numbers, especially from the winning engine built by the students at the School of Automotive Machinists and Technology (SAM Tech). With the Nitrous class limited to 366 ci and no scoring breaks for displacement, competitors did their best to come close to the limit, and SAM Tech came in at 365.52 ci. The foundation for the SAM Tech entry is a 6.0L iron LS block filled with a 3.625-inch Callies crank, SCAT rods, and 4.006-inch Mahle pistons with 0.043-inch Total Seal rings. With big LS7 heads from Competition Induction Designs and the company’s matching two-piece intake, both ported to provide massive flow, the stage was set to make big power. Once the nitrous started flowing, the dyno could hardly keep up. The resulting 831 lb-ft of torque at 4,700 rpm and 921 hp at 7,100 rpm were enough to give SAM Tech the lead by a solid margin.

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[Competition Induction Designs (CID) LS7 heads were ported by SAM Tech and use 2.16-inch intake and 1.60-inch exhaust valves from Ferrea.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY

02 01] A Comp roller cam with 234/242 degrees of duration at 0.050 inches of tappet lift uses Morel lifters, Trend double-taper pushrods, and shaft-mounted 1.8:1 Jesel rockers to provide 0.741/0.759-inch lift. 02] The CID LS7 intake uses a large plenum with mildly tapered runners. Porting was done by SAM Tech students. 03] Using billet metering blocks, the Braswell B-4825 carb has spread bores for improved ďŹ&#x201A;ow.

03 HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/ 77

[The Atlas Performance team of Bret Bowers, Jason Gonzalez, Keegan Dykeman, and Cole Wagner brought this 364ci LS to the contest. It featured a 4.01inch bore and the factory 3.622inch stroke.

850HP LS FORMULA Atlas Performance 364CI LS + Nitrous hNew for the 2016 AMSOIL Engine Masters Challenge Presented by HOT ROD, the Nitrous class was created to add a bit of intrigue and another layer of one-upmanship to competition. We would provide the nitrous jets and let competitors choose how and when to apply their “hit.” Would competitors lean too much on their engines, no pun intended, to make a big power number at the risk of creeping up on detonation or would cooler heads prevail? The Atlas Performance team went with a tried-and-tested, naturally aspirated combo and used smart tuning to get into Second Place in the class. Their combination’s wide powerband had peak torque coming on early with 815 lb-ft of torque at 4,300 rpm; the horsepower peak was 847

78 HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/

Brandan Gillogly

Rob McGaffin

at 7,000 rpm. That sounds like just the ticket for a drag-race engine that will see sizable drops in rpm at each shift. Even more impressive than the overall power output is the fact that the short-block is so pedestrian. The Atlas team built their engine from an ordinary iron 6.0L GM truck block and kept the stock oiling system and pan. Even the crank, though polished, is factory. Scat rods and off-the-shelf, 0.010-over Wiseco pistons with 0.043-inch Total Seal rings complete the bottom end. The top end and valvetrain are a different story, as some serious airflow was needed to make it to the Engine Masters Challenge podium.

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[Wiseco pistons and Felpro gaskets, combined with the Mast Motorsports heads, resulted in 11.0:1 compression.

[Because the nitrous hit wasn’t extreme, the Atlas team chose their cam as if the engine was running without nitrous at all. The Comp cam had 242/250 degrees of duration at 0.050-inch tappet lift, a 106 LSA, and 0.810 inches of lift at the valve thanks to Jesel 1.8:1 rockers.

[Mast’s two-piece intake was also CNC ported by Atlas. The team has a lot of experience with the piece and already had lots of ﬂow-bench work with it under their belt. [The Atlas team ran their own CNC program for the Mast LS3 heads and installed 2.20- and 1.60-inch Manley valves. [Below: An APD 950-cfm carb sits atop a Nitrous Outlet Stinger III nitrous plate. Atlas looked to Robert Lane from Fast Lane Nitrous Racing Systems for ﬂow data on the plate system. Based on the prescribed 73 nitrous jet and targeting a 12.8:1 air/fuel ratio, Atlas used a 58 fuel jet. Fine-tuning was done by adjusting fuel pressure, while an MSD Digital 7 Nitrous retarded the timing when the nitrous hit.

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WRENCHIN’ @ RANDOM

Daily Driver Diaries

Boiling Point

You know that saying about the frog in the pot, and how if you turn the water temp up slowly, it’ll just sit there till it boils? It’s not true, of course. Anyone who knows anything about frogs knows that they won’t sit still anywhere and that they’ll pee on you as they are jumping away, and you’ll deserve it because why are you trying to boil live frogs anyway, you sicko? The point of the story is that sometimes if conditions deteriorate slowly, it won’t be noticed until it’s too late. Not true for frogs, but definitely true for daily drivers. Faithful readers of this column may recall months ago that I mentioned the 1969 Polara had a clunk that we figured was a wheel bearing, but never tracked down for sure. More recently, I felt that the shocks were going bad, since the entire 18.5-foot length of the green machine would roll around its axis like a verdant lawn during an 8.0 earthquake. Now, the unspoken rule of daily driver maintenance is to wait until at least two things are needed so all the work of sliding a jack underneath it can be justified. It had been a, uh, sort of long time since the Polara’s last oil change, so we put it on stands and crawled underneath to take a look while it drained. Apparently, the passenger-side bolt of the sway bar had been working its way out for months, causing first the clunk, and later the body roll. Reattaching made such a dramatic difference in driveability that I couldn’t imagine how I ignored it for so long. Guess I’m dumber than a frog. hHOTROD.COM/Elana-Scherr

[You don’t have to be a suspension guru to know that a sway bar works better if both ends are attached.

HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/ 83

WRENCHIN’ @ RANDOM

Thom On Design

Why the Rare Willys Was the Go-To Gasser

HOT ROD Archives

Fords are the most popular early hot rods for the simple reason they made gazillions of them, which made parts plentiful and cars cheap. That’s the hot rod

way of doing things. Which makes the popularity of 1933– 1936 Willys in the Gasser ranks of drag racing such an oddity. While lightweight, compact, and

cheap, they were anything but plentiful. Here’s why. By mid-1932 when the compact 1933 Willys 77—what became drag racing’s go-to Gasser—was ready to make its debut, the Willys-Overland Company filed for bankruptcy for a second time. Labor problems and the Great Depression meant “reorganization,” with the added twist that a federal court order stipulated deposits in 5,000-car allotments be received before a production run could start. This is not how to fill the pipeline with product. Willys was hamstrung. But it followed the order and sold only 12,820 of the diminutive coupes, sedans, and pickups in 1933, 13,234 in 1934, 10,644 with the addition of a panel delivery in 1935, and 30,825 in the com-

pany’s final year. That’s not a lot of volume for a mass-produced car in the mid-1930s, but somehow the company was out of receivership by February 1936. The next year started the beginning of production of the other iconic Gasser, the 1937–1942 Willys coupe, pickups, and sedans. They were a rarity when new—and must have been once they wound up in boneyards— so it’s one of those drag-racing mysteries how so many became the iconic image of Gasser madness. Obviously, enough of the 2,000-pound “77” coupes wallowed in junkyards awaiting their rebirth as the terrors of the quarter-mile. hHOTROD.COM/Thom-Taylor

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Where Should EFI Nozzles Be Located on the Intake Runner for Best Performance? It depends on the speciﬁc engine and application. Stockers usually place nozzles closer to the valve, downstream near the cylinder head; they’re primarily concerned with idle quality, low emissions, fuel mileage, and engine-compartment packaging constraints. Compared to a race engine, a stocker’s fuel-injector capacity is low, while inlet-runner velocity and low-speed vacuum are high. The smaller nozzle develops a good spray pattern that disperses uniformly within the incoming air stream. With good atomization, it can be located downstream, closer to the valve. Small injectors don’t have a lot of fuel to waste, so targeting the spray

toward the valve’s backside ensures the available fuel is used most efficiently. OEM-style downstream injector placement also makes fuel rail mounting easier. Everything changes with really large injectors (over 96 lb/hr). High-capacity injectors generate a relatively poor spray pattern with large fuel-droplet size. If the injector is too close to the valve, there’s not enough time for the fuel to mix with the air. Large injectors would most likely be used in large-displacement or high-rpm engines. High rpm translates into less time between injector ﬁring pulses, and the typically large-volume inlet runners needed to feed all those cubes generally mean

Marlan Davis

WRENCHIN’ @ RANDOM

lower air velocity downstairs. Moving the injector farther away from the valve (upstream, toward the top of the inlet runner) allows more time for the air/fuel mixture to atomize properly and remain in suspension when air velocity comes up at high rpm. This should improve peak power, but because of poor low-rpm velocity, at the expense of idle quality. There’s no free lunch! hHOTROD.COM/Marlan-Davis

Contact DUTTWEILER PERFORMANCE; Saticoy, CA; (805) 659-3648; kduttweiler@earthlink.net

[This 2,000-plus-hp Duttweiler 294ci, twin-turbo small-block Chevy uses 165-lb/hr injectors— the biggest available. They’re located more than halfway up toward the plenum for improved top-end performance and atomization.

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[His 1971 Challenger plagued by severe vibration, owner Bill Maher says, “I don’t think I put more than 500 miles on the car in six years.”

[The bad vibes started after swapping in a TKO trans. Six different garages and replacing the entire drivetrain had failed to ﬁx the problem.

[Maher’s driveshaft was too short with excessive yoke stick-out from the trans; worse yet, its front and rear angles were way off.

The Drivetrain in Kevin Maher’s 1971 Dodge Challenger Has a Serious and Constant Vibration. We’re Gonna Fix It. Marlan Davis

Jon Dumas, Joe Kaiser, and Frank Rehak

THE COMBO Years ago, Kevin Maher dated his wife in a classic Dodge Challenger. Ten years ago, Maher, now retired and living in Rosemary Beach, Florida, was looking to get back into cars now that finances and time finally allowed it. Purchasing a 1971 Dodge Challenger with a big-block, TorqueFlite trans, and 8¾-inch Chrysler rearend, he swapped out the automatic for a Tremec TKO 600 five-speed manual trans with a 0.64:1 overdrive using what was billed as a “complete bolt-in” aftermarket conversion kit.

THE PROBLEM After installing the trans, Maher says, “There was a constant vibration in all gears at any speed and rpm.” A six-year saga of futile attempted fixes accomplished nothing. “I had the trans in and out, gone through several times. I bought a whole new rearend: a brand-new Strange

NEED JUNK FIXED? 88 HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/

[Clockwise, from upper left: Vainly trying to improve the driveshaft angle, someone had inserted a 1-inch stack of shims between the trans mount and crossmember. It didn’t do much to improve the angles and actually caused the oil pan to bottom on the steering drag link. The bellhousing alignment was as much as 0.016-inch off-center due to an align-bored block. Add-in a badly set up hydraulic clutch, the result was a damaged trans input shaft and input bearing; with less than 800 miles on it, the nearly new trans wouldn’t go into Reverse.

If your car has a gremlin that just won’t quit, you could be chosen for HOT ROD to the Rescue. Email us at PITSTOP@HotRod.com and put “Rescue” in the subject line. Include a description of your problem, a photo, your location, and a daytime phone number.

[Cruise-In Restoration is known for laserstraight paint jobs and turnkey restos, but owner Jon Dumas says, “We take on anything.”

[The Driveshaft Shop’s CV-jointed aluminum driveshaft eliminated 80 percent of the vibration without cutting up the ﬂoorpan.

[After ﬁxing the driveshaft, clutch, trans, and engine mounts, all vibration is gone and the car can ﬁnally be driven as it was meant to be.

RULES FOR CONVENTIONAL DRIVESHAFTS BETTER

BAD

Ideally the yokeangles should be within 0.5−3˚of the shaft. The yoke centerlines should be parallel within 0.5˚. Traditionally a zero joint angle is frowned upon because the caps can’t rotate to distribute the grease, but Rehak says this is no longer critical due to improved lubricants and greases. Yoke angles greater than 3˚ greatly accelerate U-joint wear. Yoke angles that are out of parallel will create a vibration.

TERRIBLE [As shown here, there are strict rules for driveshafts with conventional (non-constant velocity) U-joints on street-driven cars. The Driveshaft Shop’s Frank Rehak further explains how this should work in the real world: “Think of proper drivetrain layout as a slow waterfall. Water wants to ﬂow downhill, and the ‘water’ should roll off the end of the trans at a gentle angle. The rearend [pinion shaft] should point slightly uphill.” These angles would be in relation to each other, not necessarily the ground.

Jeff Smith

[Left: There are several ways to check driveshaft angles, ranging from carpenter’s analog protractors, to digital angle finders, to free Tremec Toolkit apps that turn your Apple or Android smartphone into an angle-finder. Whichever the device, you’ll need to measure the angles on the back of the trans, at the front of the rearend pinion flange, and on the shaft itself.

60 with 3.91:1 gears and an Eaton Posi. I tried three different driveshafts—two of them were too short. I changed the flywheel and clutch. At least five reputable garages tried to solve the

[Dumas: “I could tell the driveshaft was too short. On a TKO, you want about 1.5-inch yoke stick-out past the bushing, and 3 inches inside the trans. Maher’s yoke was out about 25⁄8 inches past the bushing.” Need to order a new ’shaft from scratch? With the vehicle resting on the tires, measure from the trans end seal to the center of the rearend pinionﬂange U-joint.

problem; the last one was a fourwheel-drive lift-kit ‘mudder’ specialist that supposedly knew how to find and solve weird driveshaft-angle problems.” Along the way, Maher changed the motor out for a brand-new, 522ci, 545hp, stroker big-block built by Carolina Motors. “[But] the drivetrain still vibrated. There was no support from the kit maker, who finally went out of business.”

THE DIAGNOSIS With the problem still unresolved, a frustrated Maher says, “I figured it was time to get the car painted. It wasn’t really going anywhere!” Searching for a toptier body shop, his quest led him to Cruise-In Restoration in Salisbury, North Carolina. As it happens, the up-and-coming facility also does complete ground-up car builds—and about every-

HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/ 89

HOT ROD TO THE RESCUE

[The Driveshaft Shop built a trick lightweight aluminum driveshaft with a CV joint at the trans end, custom-fabbing the yoke, boot, and doublespline adapter to get it all to work. Shop owner Frank Rehak says, “The CV joint is at the front because that’s where the [angle] problem was. If the problem had been at the rear, it’s usually easier to change the pinion angle.”

[The CV joint tolerates fairly severe driveshaft angles. Dumas was able to relocate the trans-mounting pad above the crossmember, curing the oil pan-to-steering drag link interference problem without cutting up the ﬂoorpan or resorting to a pile of shims. Later, the hard polyurethane mounts were replaced with softer, vibration-absorbing, OE-style rubber mounts.

RobbMc

[Dumas says RobbMc bellhousing dowels ﬁt Chrysler blocks better than competitive products. Use an open-end wrench to rotate them for proper alignment, then tighten the center setscrew to lock in the adjustment; no need to pound the pins in and out or recheck alignment if the bellhousing is removed. Three offset sizes are available: 0.007, 0.014, and 0.021 inch.

thing in between. As owner Jon Dumas puts it, “We’re known for our paint work, but we can do just about everything. We do our research and make sure we know what we’re doing.” Dumas testdrove the car, confirming Maher’s complaint. “There was a terrible vibration when on the highway, and when you stepped on it, it got pretty violent. It was terrible! You wouldn’t want to go on a long trip with it! The higher the rpm, the worse it felt.” Detailed inspection uncovered a bunch of

90 HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/

drivetrain-related issues. Collectively, they all either contributed, or were the result of, the seemingly intractable vibration: Initially, Dumas determined the existing driveshaft was too short and its angles were off. “This could have been caused by the kit’s poorly engineered crossmember. We saw the trans had a pile of flat washers between the trans mount and crossmember, apparently to try and correct the angles. This caused the oil pan to hit the steering drag link. The car’s ride height had been low-

[Bellhousing alignment should be 0.005-inch TIR (total indicator runout) or less. Move the housing half the measured offset to achieve near-zero runout. Using the 0.007-inch offset dowel set, Dumas corrected the 0.016-inch runout to near-zero horizontally and under 0.003 inch vertically.

ered slightly as well; it moved the rearend higher in the tunnel— this also changes the angles. The passenger-side polyurethane engine mount was broken, likely from the vibration and binding and the mount’s lack of compliance. The trans shifted harder than it should and was nearly impossible to shift into Reverse.”

THE FIX: DRIVESHAFT A longer driveshaft was needed, but achieving the necessary angles would require rais-

ing the trans, and that meant major floorpan surgery. Dumas brought in The Driveshaft Shop owner Frank Rehak to see if there was a better solution. Rehak explained the dilemma: “The velocity on a conventional U-joint varies. To prevent vibration, the U-joints on each end need to be in synch. You do this by controlling the difference in the angle. There can be no more than a 3-degree difference between the two U-joints, and they shouldn’t be offset more than ½ degree. Usually, the motor/tranny angle points down

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HOT ROD TO THE RESCUE

and the rearend up, but on this car the tranny end pointed up, creating a negative angle relative to the rearend, which was at zero degrees.” Rehak’s solution: a trick aluminum driveshaft with a constant-velocity (CV) joint installed at the trans end. CV joints have gone mainstream on late-model Detroit performance cars like the Camaro, Challenger, and Mustang; Rehak says there’s no reason this newfangled tech won’t work in an older classic car. “We see this angle and clearance problem a lot today. Lots of people are installing bulky sixspeed Tremec 6060 or Tremec T56 Magnum transmissions in old cars behind their swappedin LS motors. They can’t get the trans high enough to achieve the right angle with conventional U-joints without cutting up the tunnel. With a CV-joint setup, the driveshaft angles can be 10 degrees off without any vibration problems. We do 15 to 20 CVjointed ’shafts a week now. It may be cheaper than cutting up the floorpan. “For the Challenger, we built a 3½-inch-od, 6061-T6 aluminum driveshaft with a front-mounted, German-made GKN CV joint. This is a well-engineered product that’s as strong as the 1350-series conventional U-joints on Pro Mod drag cars. We use a chrome-moly cage on the CV. They’re pretty much bulletproof.”

Late-model Detroit setups use a companion flange at the trans instead of the slip yoke usually needed on classic or aftermarket retrofit transmissions. No problem for Rehak: He fabbed a custom yoke that bolts to the front of the CV joint plus a double-spline 300M aircraft-steel adapter to connect the rear of the CV joint to the driveshaft. With overdrive, driveshaft speeds have increased dramatically, so balancing is critical. “Rotational speeds of 7,000 rpm or even higher are not unheard of,” Rehak says. “Only three companies in the U.S. have a high-speed balancer. The Driveshaft Shop is one of them.”

Aftermarket parts don’t necessarily bolt in. There are always other factors that come into play.”

— John Dumas, Cruise-In Restoration

THE FIX: MOUNTS AND CLEARANCES With driveshaft angles no longer critical, thanks to the CV joint, Dumas reworked the trans crossmember to solve the oil pan/drag-link contact issue. Going for a testdrive with the new driveshaft installed, Dumas reported, “The vibration was 80-percent better, but there was still a little noise and shaking.” He installed more compliant (and vibration-absorbing) Anchor OE-style rubber mounts in place of the existing polyurethane mounts, including the one that was broken. Continual improvement was noted, but now Rehak was able to hear noise in the transmission itself.

01 02

01] Dumas: “The clutch wasn’t engaging right. It wasn’t fully releasing and the ﬂywheel got real hot.” Checking further revealed the hydraulic release bearing had excessive travel. There was also insufficient multidisc clutch element “sandwich” clearance. Fortunately, the clutch discs had worn normally and could be reused. The pilot bearing in the crank checked OK, too. 02] The clutch manufacturer’s square shims for the multidisc clutch’s midplate-to-disc “sandwich” (shown) were too thin. Later, Dumas reshimmed to achieve 0.025-inch clearance using Seastrom Manufacturing 5⁄16-inch-od, precision thin stainless steel round washers.

03] Speedway’s hydraulic release bearing setup tool makes it easy to determine hydraulic release bearing travel. Hold the tool up to the bellhousing and push the rod in until it touches the pressure plate ﬁngers. Flip the tool around, place it up to the trans face, and push the rod in until it contacts the release bearing. Then read the scale to determine your clearance. 04] Using the Speedway tool, Dumas found, “The clearance was 0.275 inch when it should have been 0.150–0.200 inch.” Two 0.050-inch shims from Howe Racing shim kit PN 82873 put the clearances within spec.

92 HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/

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HOT ROD TO THE RESCUE

[After shimming the bearing forward, the release bearing guide rod (arrow) was now too short to keep the bearing from spinning on the input shaft. Dumas made a new rod by cutting the head end off a 5⁄16-18×4¼ ARP bolt to reduce its “grip” length (smooth area) to 3 inches. A 5⁄16-18 jam nut tightens it against the retainer. Cut the thread end short if it bottoms inside the trans.

THE FIX: BELLHOUSING, CLUTCH, TRANS Dumas inspected the trans, bellhousing, and multidisc clutch. The flywheel and pressure-plate surfaces were scoured. Dumas attributes this to improper internal clutch clearances plus the wrong release bearing travel. He sent the clutch and flywheel to Clemmons Speed Shop for resurfacing and rebalancing.

The trans input shaft seemed loose with excessive endplay. Spinning the trans by hand, he could hear gear noise, so Dumas had Chancy Taylor at Selective Gearing go through it. While those parts were out getting refurbished, Dumas checked the QuickTime bellhousing’s alignment relative to the engine crank centerline. It was out of tolerance, which puts excess side pressure on the pilot bearing, clutch plates, input shaft, and trans. Along with the clutch-engagement issues, it was responsible for hard-shifting into Reverse and the front trans bearing and shaft wear. Used by Maher to adapt the small-block Ford-pattern TKO trans to the Chrysler B/ RB big-block V8, QuickTime bellhousings have a good accuracy reputation. The issue was Maher’s align-bored block; this straightens the main-bearing webs out, but moves the crank centerline up relative to the rear block-face bellhousing mounting dowel locations. Dumas used RobbMc Performance adjustable dowels to correct the misalignment. Easy to adjust, Dumas says that (unlike many competitors), RobbMc’s dowels are properly dimensioned for a Chrysler dowel-hole size.

Dumas installed Seastrom stainless steel shims between the multidisc clutch plates and discs to develop the correct element spacing. A Speedway setup tool made it easy to check the hydraulic release bearing clearance, which was then corrected with a Howe Racing release bearing spacer-shim kit. As for the trans, up front it needed a new 26-spline input shaft and front bearing. At the rear, the vibrating driveshaft had lunched the rear extension bushing. Officially, the only way to get a new bushing for a Tremec is to buy a $350 extension housing (yikes!). A little “secret” that saves big bucks is that a Ford C6/ E4OD/4R100 auto trans rear bushing fits and the Pioneer replacement part is less than $7 from RockAuto.

LESSONS LEARNED

THE RESULTS

CLEMMONS SPEED SHOP; Winston-Salem, NC; 336.766.6919

All vibration and gear noise were completely eliminated. The drivetrain now runs smoothly in all gears, at any speed or rpm. “I can’t believe it’s fixed!” exclaims an exultant Maher. “I’m really happy!”

CRUISE-IN RESTORATION; Salisbury, NC; 704.857.7186; CruseInRestoration.com

Does not include shipping; miscellaneous standard hardware, consumables, and sealant (or sales taxes). Labor is included only if cannot be performed by the average home mechanic. Priced 12/06/16 and subject to change. All dimensions in linear inches, except as noted.

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PART DESCRIPTION

PART NO.

MOUNT, engine, rubber, black, 1970-1976 Chrysler A/B/E bodies w/ V8 2250 MOUNT, transmission, rubber, black, 1965–1980 Ford/Mercury cars w/ manual trans (fits Tremec) 2253 BOLT PKG., hex head, stainless steel, 170 kpsi, 5⁄16-18×4.250 UHL, 3.25" grip, 1" thread-length, 3⁄8" 622-4250 wrenching element, modified, 5/pkg., 1 used¹ 400-8652 NUT PKG., hex head, stainless steel, 140 kpsi, 5⁄16-18, 5/pkg., 1 used² LABOR & MACHINING, surface and balance flywheel/clutch assembly Labor DRIVESHAFT, aluminum, 6061-T6, 3.5 od, CV joint at transmission end Custom FLUID, synchromesh transmission, synthetic blend, 1qt (32oz) bottle 88900333³ SHIM KIT, hydraulic release bearing, 0.050 thk (10/pkg., 2 used) 82873 BUSHING, transmission extension, brass, 1966-1998 Ford C6/E4OD/4R100 (fits Tremec) 755014 PIN KIT, engine clutch housing lineup, adjustable, 0.496 od (most Chrysler 6/8-cyl.), 0.007 offset 10174 5710-322-5 WASHER, flat, stainless steel, 5⁄16 hole, 0.390 id×0.750 od×0.005 thk, for multidisc clutch5

SEASTROM MANUFACTURING WASHER, ﬂat, stainless steel, 5⁄16 hole, 0.390 id×0.750 od×0.020 thk, for multidisc clutch5 SELECTIVE LABOR, transmission teardown, inspection, and assembly SPEEDWAY GAUGE, hydraulic release bearing clearance setup BEARING ASSY., transmission main drive gear to case, TKO TREMEC GEAR, transmission main drive (input shaft), TKO, Ford 26-spline, 3.27:1 1st gear SEAL, transmisison extension rear oil, TKO, Ford 31-spline

5710-322-20 Labor 91381090 2606064 TCFM51986 TCSJ1277

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NOTES: ¹Use to make expedient hydraulic clutch release bearing pilot rod; cut off wrenching head, shorten grip to 3.00 inches. ²Use to tighten expedient bearing pilot rod against bearing retainer. ³Alternate PN ACDelco 10-4006. 4PN 1018, 0.014 offset; PN 1019, 0.021 offset. All are the same price per set. 5Use as needed to set multidisc clutch element “sandwich” clearance. 6Alternate PN 2606412.

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Contacts ACDELCO; Detroit, MI; 800.ACDelco; ACDelco.com ANCHOR INDUSTRIES INC.; Cleveland, OH; 800.444.4616 or 440.473.1414; Anchor-Online.com AUTOMOTIVE RACING PRODUCTS (ARP); Ventura, CA; 800.826.3045 or 805.339.2200; ARP-Bolts.com

EBAY INC.; San Jose, CA; 866.540.3229 or 408.376.7400; eBay.com GM CUSTOMER CARE AND AFTERSALES; Grand Blanc, MI; 810.606.2001; GM.com HOWE RACING ENTERPRISES INC.; Beaverton, MI; 888.484.3946 or 989.435.7080; HoweRacing.com PIONEER AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRIES LLC; Meridian, MS; 800.821.2302 (customer service); 800.647.6272 or 601.483.5211 (tech); PioneerAutoInd.com

PARTS AND PRICES BRAND

Don’t expect complex parts to just bolt-on without any detailed checks and corrections. In this case, a marginally engineered swap kit was fatally compromised because the crank had moved up and the body moved down.

TOTAL $2,285.05

QUICKTIME, A HOLLEY PERFORMANCE PRODUCTS BRAND; Bowling Green, KY; 866.464.6553; Holley.com/brands/quicktime ROBBMC PERFORMANCE PRODUCTS; Carson City, NV; 775.885.7411; RobbMcPerformance.com ROCKAUTO LLC; Madison, WI; 866.ROCKAUTO or 608.661.1376; RockAuto.com SEASTROM MANUFACTURING CO. INC.; Twin Falls, ID; 800.634.2356; Seastrom-Mfg.com SELECTIVE GEARING; Kannapolis, NC; 704.783.8697 SPEEDWAY MOTORS INC.; Lincoln, NE; 800.979.0122 (U.S.), 855.313.9180 (Canada), or 402.323.3200 (international); SpeedwayMotors.com SUMMIT RACING EQUIPMENT; Akron, OH; 800.230.3030 (orders) or 330.630.0240 (tech); SummitRacing.com THE DRIVESHAFT SHOP; Salisbury, NC; 800.564.2244 (orders) or 704.633.2380 (general & tech); DriveshaftShop.com TREMEC, A KUO GROUP CO.; Plymouth, MI; 800.401.9866 (customer service) or 734.456.3700 (general); Gateway: TTCautomotive.com; Toolbox apps: Tremec.com/menu.php?m=154

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Can you place the 2nd row of photos dating back to 1983? Chisenhall, Keith Black, HotRod (Quinell), Granatelli, Al Sheib, SVS, Poteet put the correct name to the lower row of cars - names are out of order here.

PIT STOP

Scott Sortor From Sebring, Florida, Asks…

Does a TH350 Need a Kickdown Cable? Marlan Davis and TCI

“Kickdown” and “TV” cables aren’t really the same thing. Let’s take it from the top: Many old-school automatic transmissions use both a governor and a vacuum modulator to help regulate automatic shift timing. The governor works off of vehicle speed and engine rpm. As vehicle speed increases, springs and weights inside the governor are thrown outward, causing the governor to increase the transmission’s internal hydraulic pressure. Higher pressures will cause the trans to shift automatically to a higher gear. Think of this as somewhat analogous to a distributor’s centrifugal advance mechanism. But there are some situations where engine vacuum (engine load) may not correlate directly to speed and rpm. For example, climbing a steep hill puts the engine under load, resulting in a low-vacuum condition—even though initial vehicle speed at the base of the hill may be relatively high. That’s where the vacuum modulator comes in: A rubber diaphragm located inside the modulator housing on the side of the transmission case is referenced to engine vacuum. Diaphragm movement induced by changes in engine vacuum actuates a lever or spring that acts on an internal hydraulic throttle valve to change the transmission’s pressure. In other words, a vacuum modulator “modulates” the transmission’s shift points to engine load rather than just plain vehicle speed. In the case of our hillclimber, low vacuum causes the modulator diaphragm and linkage to push the modulator valve further into the trans, delaying any upshift to help the car accelerate better up the hill. Here the rough analogy would be an ignition distributor’s vacuum advance system: Higher vacuum equates to more distributor vacuum advance in the case of the engine and higher transmission hydraulic pressure with consequent higher gear selection in the case of the transmission. Transmissions that use a vacuum modulator include the GM Powerglide, TH350, and TH400; and the Ford C4 and C6. These “vacuum modulator-assisted” transmissions will employ a kickdown cable (or an electric switch, in the TH400’s case) that serves only to “kick-down” the trans

[Other than the convenience of automatic downshifts into passing gear at highway speeds, there’s no real need for a simple kickdown cable on those transmissions like this TH350 that have a vacuum modulator.

ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE

TRANS CASE

DIAPHRAGM TRANS CASE CONTROL PRESSURE THROTTLE VALVE

DIAPHRAGM

ENGINE MANIFOLD VACUUM SOURCE

[A vacuum modulator references engine vacuum to sense engine load. Vacuum drops under highload conditions (such as engine acceleration), causing a modulator spring to overcome vacuum pull on the diaphragm. This pushes on the throttle valve, changing the hydraulic pressure to keep the trans in a lower gear.

into a lower gear for passing (when vacuum is otherwise high). At sudden wide-open throttle (WOT) under highway cruise conditions, the cable, lever, or switch actuates a kickdown valve in the trans. Because this is a full-throttle-actuated function only, there’s no fine adjustment required. In fact, if you don’t mind downshifting manually with the shift lever when passing, there’s really no need for a functional kickdown cable or switch at all. Even manual downshifting to obtain passing gear may

not be needed in the ultralightweight T-bucket’s case because it has so little inertia. Do not confuse a simple kickdown cable with the more sophisticated throttle-valve (TV) cable used on transmissions that don’t have a vacuum modulator, such as the GM 700-R4 and 200-4R and Ford AOD. In this type of trans, a TV cable directly actuates the throttle valve to regulate part-throttle downshifts, detent downshifts, line pressure, and (in conjunction with a still-present governor)

ASK MARLAN A TECH QUESTION: PITSTOP@HotRod.com 96 HOTROD.COM/2017/APRIL/

VACUUM

THROTTLE PRESSURE

Illustration: Ford Motor Co.

I recently bought a T-bucket with a 350 Chevy and TH350 tranny. I replaced it with a new 350 crate motor and a TCI TH350 Street Rodder trans (PN 311098). Does this trans need a kickdown cable or TV cable? The old TH350 didn’t have one, and it all ran fine, but I don’t want to destroy a new transmission!

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PIT STOP

[Hot rod engines have different vacuum characteristics than stockers, which may result in less-than-ideal, part-throttle shift points. TCI offers adjustable vacuum modulators that allow end users to ﬁne-tune diaphragm preload (and hence shift points) by turning a screw located inside the vacuum nipple. PN 350001 ﬁts the TH350/TH400. Summit sells it for less than $15.

[Changing the rear axle ratio, rear tire sizes, and/or desired shift points may require recalibrating the governor. TCI’s GM governor recalibration kit (PN 326500) comes with an assortment of weights and springs to permit ﬁne-tuning transmission shift points at both part and full throttle. The same kits work on the TH350, TH400, and 700-R4.

even upshift points. TV cables and linkage have sophisticated adjustment procedures. On transmissions designed around a TV cable, its presence is mandatory. You must install a true TV cable with the correct throttle-lever pivot geometry and then adjust it properly or you will burn up the trans!

Contacts SUMMIT RACING EQUIPMENT; Akron, OH; 800.230.3030 (orders) or 330.630.0240 (tech); SummitRacing.com TCI AUTOMOTIVE; Ashland, MS; 888.776.9824 or 662.224.8972; TCIauto.com

CATALYTIC CONVERTER AS A CRUTCH FOR RICH AIR/FUEL MIXTURE? I have a Torino that my father-in-law purchased new in 1969. In it I am running the original, but freshly rebuilt, 302 bored 0.040-inch over and balanced. It has a Performer intake, a Holley 600-cfm carb, Hedman long-tube headers, and one of the worst heads Ford ever made. The other head is not much better. Port-matching didn’t help much. But it was all doing fine until I ate a cam and scoured the cylinders. Since idle quality is of utmost importance, I selected a Thumpr cam. It does have a

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beautiful idle, but it stinks. With all that loping, there is a bunch of half-burnt and unburnt fuel in the exhaust. Can I run a catalytic converter to clean up the stinky exhaust on an old car? They used to make oxidizing converters to get hydrocarbons and reducing converters to get NOx. Now they make oxidizing converters. I am not so concerned with NOx because the exhaust doesn’t stink until it reacts with sunlight to make smog. And with very low compression, there won’t be much NOx. What do you think about running converters on an old car? Dan Johnson Vacaville, CA You’re really asking two questions here: (1) Can one install a catalytic converter on an old car that never came with a converter; and (2), if so, will it solve your problem? There is no reason catalytic converters can’t be run on any old car, provided that old floorpan can withstand the heat. As an extreme example, you definitely can’t run a converter safely on an old Corvette with its fiberglass floorpan. You’re right that an oxidizing converter would be the way to go. As you say, this type of converter takes care of unburned hydrocarbons and CO (carbon monoxide) but not NOx. You can generally find them on “non-closed-loop” car emission systems from the mid-1970s through the early 1980s, or on trucks through the mid-1980s. That said, the converter won’t work efficiently at air/fuel (A/F) ratios richer than 13.5:1 or so, and eventually may even get plugged-up. There needs to be about a 14.5–15:1 A/F ratio going into the converter. You can induce additional air to lean out the mixture with a smog-pump (Thermactor system in Ford lingo), blowing either into the headers or directly into the converter itself. But a smog pump is just a Band-Aid laid over a crutch. Your real issue is a poorly tuned motor. Since you weren’t specific as to carburetor list number or the specific Thumpr cam grind, I can only speak generally. First, the Thumpr series cams taken as a whole have lots of overlap and the intake centerline is ground pretty far advanced—that’s what produces what you consider a “beautiful idle.” However, what’s more commonly described as the Thumpr’s ragged, lopey idle demands careful tuning on a street-driven car. Normally, only a Holley carb’s idle circuit is active at idle. The idle mixture adjustment screws in the primary-side metering block respond to normal adjustments so you can adjust the idle A/F mixture for best idle/highest vacuum. Not so with a long-duration, high-overlap cam, where idle vacuum is extremely low: With a big cam, the carburetor’s primaryside throttle-blades must open wider to supply sufficient idle airflow. If the curb idle screw on the throttle shaft is turned in too far in an effort to obtain a stable idle, the throttle plate may

uncover too much of the idle transfer slot in the carburetor’s baseplate, activating flow through the transfer slot while deactivating flow through the idle-discharge hole. This causes the idle mixture screws to become unresponsive and creates a way over-rich idle condition. In extreme cases, the plate may open far enough that fuel starts to flow out of the main discharge nozzles. Today’s higher-end Holleys now have four-corner idle systems (a second set of idle mixture adjustment screws on the secondary metering block), and sometimes even replaceable air-bleeds so tuners can compensate for this situation, but entry-level Holleys and older midlevel Holleys do not. Nevertheless, even if your carb is just a basic oldschool entry-level unit, there’s a good chance you can tune-out this problem by playing with the ignition and spark-advance curve. As The Carb Shop’s Randy Robinson puts it, “Many apparent carburetor problems are really ignition-timing problems.” Basically, you need more base (initial) timing, but not more total timing (base timing plus the timing added by the distributor’s centrifugal advance curve). Plus, the centrifugal advance itself needs to come in pretty quick. On a low-compression 302 Ford, Robinson says a good rule of thumb is that 32–34 degrees total advance by 3,200–3,400 rpm is enough, but 18–20 degrees of that total should be the initial advance (base timing) as read at the harmonic balancer with a traditional timing light. The centrifugal (mechanical) advance in the distributor should start “coming in” as early as 1,200 rpm. This obviously requires “soft” centrifugal-advance springs, plus some sort of distributor bushing or stop to limit the total amount of centrifugal advance. You didn’t say what kind of distributor you’re running, but with the popular MSD distributor this would usually be accomplished by running MSD’s supplied “silver” centrifugal advance springs with a “black” advance limiter bushing. With this scheme, vacuum advance should not generally be used. With the proper timing and ignition curve, idle vacuum should increase. Idle-mixture and curbidle screw response should return. This should pretty much eliminate the car’s excessively rich idle condition. From this point, you would then proceed to dial in the carb as needed with jets, powervalves, accelerator pump shooters and cams, and (if it’s a vacuum-secondary carb) different-tension vacuum-secondary springs. On the other hand, if you really have two mismatched cylinder heads and scoured cylinders, all this is pretty much a waste. Just sayin’.

Contacts THE CARB SHOP; Ontario, CA; 909.947.3575; 909.947.3575; CustomCarbs.com

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So Much Love

[We recently did an episode of Roadkill in tandem with Marty and Moog, the guys from Mighty Car Mods in Australia. Finnegan and Moog were huggin’ it out. Marty seems to be avoiding that with me.

I’m writing this just before Christmas, which is also the temporal epicenter of speedindustry trade shows: SEMA in November, the Performance Racing Industry show in December, and a media trade conference in January. Each year at this time, I’m reminded of how the people of the gearhead aftermarket are like one huge, friendly community, because these events often feel like family reunions. Everyone may not know everyone else, but there’s only a degree or two of separation between any two people in our world, so anyone you meet becomes a friendly acquaintance almost immediately. We all live, hang out, and work as if we are very lucky to do what we do— because we are. But these meet-and-greets have been invaded by a new awkwardness: the bro hug. It was socially challenging enough to negotiate the minefield of professional-level displays of affection posed by the coed nature of the business, and now you’ve gotta make that judgment call with dudes, too. I’m fairly certain Don Garlits and Wally Parks never bro-hugged. I’m sure it never happened with Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison. Clay Millican and Doug Herbert, maybe eventually. But in 2017 I’ve got to run into, say, Troy Trepanier, who I’ve known for years and never hugged, and wonder if now it’s time to bro out. Probably not, because as it turns out, the bro hug is most

likely to play out with guys you really don’t know that well, but with whom you’ve shared plenty of social-media messaging and kind of feel a kinship with. And that’s weird, too. I’ve bro-hugged the guys from Street Outlaws on film. I’ve never bro-hugged my own co-host, Mike Finnegan. He bro-hugs everyone except Richard Rawlings. The age of social media has also made the trade shows a little weird, since you know people digitally so much more than you know them in person. It means you can greet people who you’ve only met once or twice, yet carry on a conversation with them like old friends because you know their every move all year long. Everyone knows what cars are being built, crashed, or raced, what events are going on, what records are being set, and what trips are being taken. Networking in person becomes an abbreviated conclusion to details already known about someone’s life. It’s a strange shift in interpersonal dynamics for a guy like me who started in the industry when fax machines were new. Also new to the trade shows— in a ramping up over the past decade—is the sheer volume of really high-quality parts released each year. There was a time when nearly any aftermarket part needed to be whittled to fit, but today’s CNC processes (machining, laser-cutting, tubebending) and 3-D modeling and communications have led to more better-performing and precision-fitting parts than ever before. There are also more parts available for more market niches, and the rise of internet chatter is sorting out the junk from the gems more quickly than ever. The ever-changing nature of relationships and trends is part of what makes these annual reunions so rewarding, year after year. I love our industry. I could almost give it a hug. hHOTROD.COM/David-Freiburger

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BEHIND THE SCENES

Best Instagram Pic This Month

It’s ﬁnally official: YouTube star Mike Musto, formerly of the show called Big Muscle, is now part of our video family. His new show, The House of Muscle, is appearing monthly on MotorTrendOn Demand.com. It’s December as I write this, and people are already asking about the four tracks that will comprise HOT ROD Drag Week™ 2017. We are almost ready to lock them down. The challenge is in ﬁnding four quarter-mile tracks within driving distance of each other, all of which can handle 6-second cars, all of which have the dates available, and one of which that will allow 300 trucks and trailers to be stored there for a week. Just getting dragstrips to answer the phone in winter can be a challenge. The behind-thescenes of Drag Week™ is more complex than it may seem. Car I Most Wanted to Build On the Day I Wrote This Hemi Gremmie.

[Speaking of bro’ing out with the dudes, here’s me with Farm Truck and AZN from Street Outlaws at the PRI Show in Indy.

Coming Next Month:

Tested: Chevy’s 2017 Camaro Heavyweight COMING

03.03.17 HOT ROD (ISSN 0018-6031), April 2017; Vol. 70, No. 4. Copyright 2017 by TEN: The Enthusiast Network Magazines, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Published monthly by TEN: The Enthusiast Network, LLC, 261 Madison Ave., 6th Floor, New York, NY 10016. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and at additional mailing offices. Subscription rates for 1 year (12 issues): U.S., APO, FPO and U.S. Possessions $20.00. Canada $32.00. All other countries $44.00 (for surface mail postage). Payment in advance, U.S. funds only. *Trademark registered. POSTMASTER: Send all UAA to CFS. (See DMM 707.4.12.5); NON-POSTAL AND MILITARY FACILITIES: send address corrections to HOT ROD, P.O. Box 420235, Palm Coast, FL 32142-0235.

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