A friend of mine has a 57 Chevy rearend in his 39 Chevy street rod. This year on his way back from the Street Rod Nats. in Louisville he hit a good bump at a rail road crossing and shortly after his right rear axle broke flush with the bearing surface. Luckily it happened only 25 miles from home and he got a roll back to bring it to his shop.
Lyn, at sixty-five years of age that axle should qualify for Medicare! That's what I call "wringing the life" out of your parts. Are you having fun with the '55? c
Saw this posted by Marty Strode over on the Drag Cars in Motion thread. We lost another great early last week. Ramon Lowe passed away last Tuesday, at 91.
Ramon was a father figure to a close buddy of mine, I met him at lunch once. Quite a guy, very active with racing, and riding Desert Motorcycles well into his 80's. He certainly knew his Pontiacs, and was close with Jay Hamilton.
Hitting the "LIKE" button on this post just doesn't seem to accurately describe the way I feel. Ramon and Jay Hamilton were influential players in Junior Stock, especially in Division 7.
unfortulatly if not for the weekly bracket program most tracks would have been closed years ago i think it all started when it became much to expensive to field a competative stock class car headsup racing became who spent the most usually won the regular weekly drag programs are aimed more at participation rather than spectating
A great Pontiac racer, a great Jr. Stock racer;one more from the Old Guard gone;there'll be plenty of old drag racers to greet him!!
Posted by Moriarity on the Corvette Hot Rods Picture thread. Don't have any further information but it's representative of the way that many of us got into the sport. c
The picture of this red Corvette was also posted on the Corvette Hot Rods Picture thread. "Scotty T" provided this shot of a clearly successful but unidentified enthusiast. Don't know anything else about him but it could very well have been me, living in a rented house with a wife and month-old baby but still devoted to the sport. (See black Corvette picture taken at Orange County Raceway in early January, 1968.) c
Yes, my first car was a 55 Chevy 2 dr. in about 1963. Had maybe 10 over the next 15 years. and a few 56's and Nomads. All were daily drivers. Turned a 56 into a Jr stocker, towed by a 56 Nomad
Jerry Hallman is my grandfather! Would you be willing to email this picture to me? I'm worried about the quality of the upload, and I'd love to give it to him!
Yep. Winternationals '77 or '78 qualifying pass. Richie Pauley's original '68 Cobra Jet Mustang in the far lane.
Chuck, tell us all about your 64. Back in the day our family had a 64 Belair 4 door with the 327 and powerglide in it but don't remember the HP rating.
This era of Stock isn't really within the "HAMB-friendly" range but, you asked so, here goes. There were two 327 combinations in the NHRA Guide for a '64 Impala. One was rated at 250 horsepower and the other at 300. I ran the 250 version because many of the bolt-on components were common to the 283 (cylinder head castings, intake, carburetor, camshaft) and I had a pile of parts left over from running a 283 '66 Nova in 1975. (The 300 horsepower version used an AFB carb, manifold, and cylinder heads with bigger valves.) Economical blending of parts was a big part of my program at that point in time. I ended up with a 4-door Impala because that's a body that fit favorably in the M/SA class. A '64 Impala SS would also have fit M/SA but that model was hard to find and considerably more expensive due to its popularity with the lo-rider part of the Southern California population. I think that I bought my car at auction for $100 while an SS Impala probably would have cost me more like $1500. Don't forget, at that time, Junior Stock was long-gone and the designation "Stock" required using factory pistons and tear-down procedures were more strictly observed than they were later on in those classes. There were a few features to be considered when using the "X" framed platform. 1. Header choices were limited. I ended up cutting the inner fenders and fitting a set of fender-well headers from a '55-'57 because available headers for that frame were fairly dismal. 2. the Rossi Powerglide that I had in the shop had been built with a long tail shaft while the '64 model was a couple of inches shorter. Rather than mess with the trans, I shortened the front part of the two-piece shaft that was a part of the '58-'64 platform. 3. The driveshaft center support that connected the driveshafts benefitted from reinforcement. A stock unit was good for about four races before it began to transmit vibrations throughout the car. Later I realized that I should have consulted some of the 409 guys regarding having a one-piece shaft made but there weren't many 409 racers left in our immediate vicinity so I went in a different direction. 4. The '64 used the same differential center section as had my '57 Corvette. Fortunately, I had enough rear end parts to last for several seasons. 5. The '64 was coil sprung and, unlike later Impalas had only one top link to stabilize and locate the rear end housing. The floor of the body needed to be reinforced at the point where that top link was anchored. I used an air-bag in the right rear spring and, if the air pressure in the bag dropped below about 20#, the car could be a little touchy when it launched. The car won M/SA class at the Winternationals of '76 before it was painted white. After that year, class eliminations at the Winters were scrapped and replaced by a qualifying format so all cars were a part of final Eliminations. We ran the car locally with some success for about three years. Before the car ended its career, it had won a divisional event (Fremont, 1980) while being driven by my good friend, Tony Janes. It proved to be fairly competitive in the class and eventually ran high 12s under good conditions. Later in 1980 we disassembled the car, salvaged all the usable parts, and took it to the crusher. Nothing else remains. c
Caught a guy in tech at our local track back then who had a 64 Impala claiming a 283 2-barrel. All he had done was swap the 327/250 4-barrel intake and carb for a 2-barrel setup. The Powerglide kick down linkage covered the casting numbers on the back of the block. However the front pad on the block still had the suffix "S" which was for the 327/250. Of course the 327 fender emblems were my first clue.
I'm doing a scale model of a Junior Stock 59 Corvette. This model has a pair of molded- to- floor tailpipes, which end just behind the X member center. Does anyone recall junior stock 'Vettes or other stockers running with tailpipes intact ( in any combo- fenderwell headers, uncapped conventional headers? Were weight breaks applicable to class structures? I can imagine a Smokey Yunick thing with concrete-filled mufflers hung on sand filled tailpipes as a ballast.
Yes mufflers and tail pipes were required in Jr. Stock..At least to the rear axle, I seem to recall. Didn't need to pass gas ;-) Yes , it was the shipping weight divided by the rated hp. Back then , jockey size drivers had an advantage. The minimum weight had to be made up somewhere. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some heavy gauge mufflers and pipes being used.
Thanks Mark Yac. I should explain- the pipes I speak of are from the tail back to the X-member area. So did such Vettes run with full pipes? with headers, uncapped? I see plenty of tri Chevys with fenderwell headers here. Did the Vettes run fenderwell headers with otherwise full exhaust attached?
Mark, I seem to recall having to step out of the car at the scale during the Junior Stock era. Does that coincide with your memories? I'm sure that, in both Stock and Super Stock, later on, we were weighed in the car but 170# was added to the shipping weight to approximate driver weight. It also seems that, during the last year or so of Junior Stock, the reqirement of often flimsy mufflers and tail pipes was eliminated from the required equipment list. Was that only a Division 7 thing or, quite possibly, am I hallucinating? c
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