Welcome to the third part of THE HISTORY OF A HOT RODDER- Tom Masa, first part here http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=223062 and part two here, http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=223963 { I understand that there is quite a gap between the 1966 US Nationals and this part. But Tom didnt tell me and I 'm not a man to ask. So here is part three of Toms hot rod adventure. KING } Here is the T bucket I built in 1983. It was powered by a 327 small block Chevrolet. Had 461 heads, Edelbrock cam, manifold, 600 cfm carb, 400 transmission, and a crazy high gear ratio of 2.79 or some thing like that. It was a real cruiser for sure. It did not seem to be too sluggish though. I finished the car about 11:30 one day. Drove around the block to see if any thing would fall off, took a shower, and a buddy of mine drove it to the first nostalgia drags at Wentzville ( about 25 miles away) It went straight and nothing fell off. What a way to start out having fun with that car. I sold it about three years later to fund building the 32 roadster. In 1991, my friend Dick built the lakester you seehere. I built an Oldsmobile quad four engine for it. It was a pretty mild engine. I took a Hilborn injector from a Cosworth engine and adapted it to the Olds engine. I used the distributor from a Vega and ran the engine with out the factory computer. Dick drove the car to a speed of 167 mph in a class where the record was 175mph. Dick went on to set the record with an engine built by a fried of his from Austin Texas two years later.This a picture of the engine for the Bonneville car we ran in 1991. I had Hedman sell me one half of a small block sprint car header and adapted it to fit the quad four cylinder head. You can also see the Cosworth Hilborn injectors.From 1993 to 1997 my son and I got into kart racing. Like anything i do, we jumped in feet first. Two karts, a trailer, built an engine dyno to tune the engines I built (five horse Briggs) Wish I could sell the dyno.Takes up too room in my shop. We had one kart for dirt oval racing. And one for road course racing. Had a great time bonding with my son. Kept him out of trouble during those teen years. Having been a Chevrolet mechanic at the third largest Corvette dealer, I get calls to restore engines for vintage Chevrolet engines. Shown here is an engine out of a 1958 Corvette on my test stand. Engines are run, tuned, before returning them to the owner. Working on a small block head. Just bowl clean up. Shop has lathe, mill, drill press, two band saws, ect. This my present hot rod. It is a wescott body, on a 32 chassis, 383 small block Chevrolet engine with 91 Corvette tuned port fuel injection, 400 turbo with 3.0 gears in the rear axle. This car was completed in April 1996. It has lots of road rash which is common for fenderless cars. However, I love driving this car. what I like the most is the tremendous torque it has. My son helped me with the sanding, prepping the car for painting. The car was painted at the place where I was working as service director. This car is owned by my friend Dennis Merkt. His mechanic is Jerry Reiss. I met these guys last year over at Gateway international. We became friends right away. My only involvement with the car is to help tune the engine for large percentages of nitro. .Specifically the ignition timing curve.And recently, some minor machine work on the torque converter. They are running pretty fast with the car. It is a 400" small block with a hybrid fuel injection. A two hole Hilborn on a tunnel ram manifold, down nozzles, set up by Kinsler. Tom is also involved in my dragster, Zorbas Ghost. It is named after his dragster Zorba The Greek. Here is a photo of me pickin up my engine from his shop. And the car in action at the Hamb drags. And us workin on it at Sikeston Drag Strip in southern Missouri . Thanks Tom for all the inspiration. Brian
wow. thats quite a resume! Its been a pleasure reading all three installments. This guy is the real deal...
WOW King!! That was really cool of you to let us all in on this story. What a great life he is living I think there is probably a bunch of us that are envious. Thanks
I try to avoid making comments to threads unless I can add something worthwhile. I'll break my rule now because this was such an enjoyable article to read that I must compliment you on doing a great job presenting this man's history. Thanks.
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