Well last nite we tried it again. Towed the dragster 2hrs south of my house to Sikeston Drag Strip.A nice 1/8 mile strip. A bunch of my neighborhood friends and Tom Masa's group with Johns 32 roadster. Well after the MoKan Donut http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzmquQKO4T0 I thought I'd try to launch it a little easy and just drive the car up to speed and see how it handles. FIRST PASS- Revved the motor not hi at all and dumped the clutch, bogged the motor but still popped a wheelie toward the wall, (right side), straightned it out and stepped on the throttle hard and started to build speed then the front wheel started to bounce. SECOND PASS- Reved it hard , dumped the clutch and nice launch, then had to pedal it. But when I lifted, the engine died (it was cold we forgot to warm it up) THIRD PASS- The way it should be, Reved it HARD dumped the clutch and smokie wheelie and smoked the tires about 250 feet. Started to drift to the 330ft cones and when I lifted the fuel dead headed at the nozzles and sprayed me in the face. I forgot to pull down my visor. Well more seat time will fix stupid shit like that. Im havin fun with this thing. I would like to thank Tom and everyone that came to help and watch. Falconmad took a cell phone video of the last pass and Monsterflake has it in his hands. Since it is cell phone it isnt a great quality, but I am glad to have it, thanks Justin. This photo is of me and tom messin with the injector. Where it all began, http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=174060&highlight=zorbas+ghost
Sounds like you're having a lot of fun....love the car. A suggestion though....why don't you figure out how to get the car down the track. I mean quit worrying about launching it hard or doing wheelies. Ease into it and get the car to the top end and find out what it will do there. Once you know how it will react at speed, then start putting on a show. Just my $.02....from a guy who knows next to nothing about drag racing.
That is what the first pass was going to be all about and the reason I went last nite. Just didnt seem to work out. They had a bracket program going and I had 3hrs to do something. It is a dry block too so it needs time to cool down. So that 3hrs gets tight. I am not trying to do wheelies, that is why I try to rev it high , to over power the tires. And smoke them. Like I said about the first pass I left at probably 2000 rpm and it yanked a wheelie as big as the mo kan donut one. It is direct drive so it needs something just to get it moving. This is a 60s engineered car on modern dragstrips. Not a easy thing to figure out. I am making a weight bar for the front of it now, just didnt get it done before Sat.
I did not know that Sikeston had a strip. I ran near there at Malden, MO back in the mid sixties and also at a strip near Saint Gen. You have a great car. I have watched the MOKAN video a bunch. I watched your 360 from the front of the staging lanes and I had never seen anything like that. Have fun, be safe. John
Nice to know your still working on it. Keep it up , I mean down, and it will all come togather. Good luck bro.
when I was running my rail doing smoke runs we never wanted to hook up so we used to over inflate the rear tires and stage to the outside of the groove...over in the marbles. we also didn't run soft compound tires we had the hard old stuff (NOS tires)
I would have to say that the testing you are doing is like an "endurance test" especially landing the wheelies. The chassis is holding up well and will let you feel confident to really let the hammer down once you get the ballast on the front axle. Good luck at the next test.
When I was in 10th grade, our explorer advisors had a junior fuel rail, small block/ individual runner, normally aspirated, fuel injection. Lotsa fun on a budget. Once in a while they'd get paired up with a top fuel on the last run, the inconsistency of those beasts gave us the win a few times, and sometimes they won honestly! Great memories, I know you guys are having a great time, and I'm read everthing I can about it. Good Luck!
Good job, Brain, keep chippin' away at it, and it will get there. Congrats, and can't wait to see you doin' it again, down the quarter.
nice run, shot on a cell phone, so it's kinda lo res... <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/LhK1OpCnn8o"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/LhK1OpCnn8o" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>
i would like to get all the videos from the hamb drags together, so if anybody would like to send me what they have, i'd appreciate it...
Sorry for the poor video quality, but I guess it's better than nothin. Trust me it looked kick ass in person.
HELL YA way to keep it real FOX Wish i was there ... NOW WE NEED TO GET A MATCH RACE THE HAMB DRAGS 08 ...
Biggen , match race hamb drags 08 sounds great!!! Wish you were there, your the best dragster lifter there is. But you had more important things to do. Congradulations on the birth of your first child, you will be a changed man.
it's WAY better than nothing, and it says a lot about the car, that it's awesome-ness can be conveyed by a cell phone camera
Get after it Fox. Remember a certain conversation we had a few years ago about an object that looks like a tube with shot in it clamped to the front axle? And no, it's not for putting jackstands under while you change the oil either. Lippy