Projects Austin Somerset Gasser Build (DragNasty)

Hey it was a awesome day for sure and that will probly be the only time I ever get to outrun your car but it sure felt good lol once you get that thing sorted out it will be unstoppable The two passes I made in the Willys I won both times but they were bittersweet victories as both people I put on the trailer were good friends and great guys then the motor in the Willys let go on the last run so back to the drawing board


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Just a few DRAGNASTY candid shots from the event.

















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There is no need to change tires. The package just needs to be dialed in. The only result that would be achieved by putting Radir (or any of the other "hot rod") slicks on the car would be a whole bunch of wheelspin. They are not race tires, just a look alike. Ask Kerry what his dragster was like at the HAMB drags a few years back when it made its on track debut.
As for the M & H comment, their tires are sticky too (and Mickey Thompson and Goodyear).

Roo

 

I agree with roo I like my towel city tires they have the right look and are good street use but when it comes to drag racing they are not good enough I put m/t tires on it and wow that thing really goes good changed my 60' times from 2.8 seconds to a 1.64 just with tire change I think if Randall will get the wheelie bars fixed and put some air pressure in the tires it will work good the suspension and motor is working good now to get the rest of the car to do its part all will be fine


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WAIT A MINUTE! WAIT JUST A MINUTE! I just found this photo (evidence) from another HAMB DRAGS thread! I call foul! No wonder you were so fast...You had Fred Flintstone on board AND he had on his NIKE running shoes!


LMAO!!!

 

Roo and Wrench are spot on. The Radirs have to hard a compond and side wall. I have run them on the track, thats what I know. Racer X had a formula to soak them with, and it softens them to get a bite.

 

Yeah that's right it's the only way my crap would make it down the strip


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I didn't know Fred was a drag racer? And it looks like he's a street racer! Aren't those cheater slicks?

 

Man, the way that thing hits, I would think long and hard about removing the bars!! You might end up wadding up the lower quarters and then taco'ing the front axle when it comes back down!! Maybe raise them a little bit, but completely off might be a recipe for disaster.

 

Probably a good call...we rolled it off the trailer and onto the rack when we got home. We are going to get under it this week and have a good look around. I bounced the crazy thing pretty hard a whole bunch of times. If everything is intact after this weekend's poundings, I would call it all nearly bulletproof.

At the very least we have to redesign the bars with some flex etc. The issue we have is the same at every corner of this car...room! I looked around Saturday at several guys wheelie bars set ups and I have a few ideas.

 

You might check out the wheelie bars that the southeast gasser guys use they work real good and are Fairly easy to make


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I thought the rear suspension looked pretty stiff when I saw it run at the track, but this clip almost looks like it's not stiff enough (shock wise). My 2 cents and no help at all. It was nice to see the car in real life!

 

Its the back to front scollops on the rear fenders...... car dont flow...
Seriously though, cars come a long way since you started this thread, and it been a pleasure to watch it coming to life.

 

Oh baby! I had a surprise waiting for me when I got home from work today. I went out to the shop and bent up this cool little bracket...any idea what it is for?!


CHECK THIS OUT!


Finally after almost 10 weeks, the wonderful state of Missery got me my plates!

 

Wow, thats the perfect plate.

 

This is about how I remember the drag nasty v. The Willy's


Then in the dragster class wrenchbender made a solid pass up until the timing chain, I mean um shoe string broke

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Lmfao that is awesome man


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Hilarious! I love the HAMB!

 

You know. I've seen ALOT of sedans "Hacked" into to two doors or coupes, But your car "really" looks like it came that way!! I don't know if it's the chop or what? It just looks RIGHT!! If I didn't know, I would never have known Austin didn't make a coupe.

 

I appreciate that, we worked pretty hard on it. At the hotel cruise Friday night there was a guy that spent a lot of time looking the car over. After a while he came up and when he spoke, it was obvious he was British. He said it sure looks like a Somerset but he had never seen a two door model, must be pretty rare. (He had actually owned several Somersets back in the day). That was pretty cool!

 

You got it right!

 

You know if you had put a Mexican flag on the top you would have a new name for it.

 

Yeah speedy mcslow lmao


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Like I said "you can't tell". The doors didn't even to be length end! A month ago there was a Devon on queerbay turned into a "Dorset". I t looked like HELL!! Looked more like a really bad stretch limo.

 

That is way Kool! Did you finally tell him you made it? Or did you tell him it was made just for the yank gasser market?

 

No I let him off the hook, I hated to send him out in the world looking for one...LOL. Knowing the original car's shape though, he really appreciated what we accomplished.

The most guessed make across the board has been Jaguar. In fact at a car show a couple of weeks ago a guy threw a fit saying he couldn't believe I tore up a Jag. He said he had been a Jaguar collector for years. I told him it was even worse, as I just found out last week it was a really rare XKJ2. They only made 40 of them and only exported 2 left had drive units. He was absolutely beside himself and Dad and I laughed ALL DAY LONG!

 

I got the jumping bean reference there James...very funny!

 

....And as for you "Senior Jackson"...I got your meaning too...but remember this:

 

Wouldn't that make Jackson Juan_broke_poke

 

Alright...well there is good news and bad news this weekend with Dragnasty. The good news is we figured out our rear suspension issues. The bad news is....we figured out our rear suspension issues. This morning we got an early start. The Austin has been on the lift, untouched, since we got home from the HAMB Drags Saturday night. The big issue I saw this morning was there are so many potential issues! So to begin with we decided to start eliminating them one at time.

If you remember way back, the coil shocks we have on there are really overload shocks. They were no where near stout enough to support the car on their own, which is what spawned the whole quarter elliptic system. After we installed the leafs, cut down from the factory Austin rear springs, they were so strong we decided to try those shocks to simply dampen the suspension travel a bit. It had a great stance and was very firm when we finally got weight on it so we left everything alone.

So here is the deal. Dad and I disagreed about the mounting points on the rear axel for the quarter elliptic springs. Dad thought maybe the springs might be binding up and not letting the suspension travel. He thinks we need shackles on them. On the other hand, I didn't think they were really working like leaf springs. I felt like they were just pushing down on the rear end from the direction of the suspension rotation. So just to prove him wrong we started right there. I unbolted the shocks and let them hang. So now with only the springs hooked up, I tried to carefully activate the suspension a bit while Dad watch the travel. There was none.

If I was right, we should have been able to jack up the rear end, into the springs and depending upon their strength they should move a bit before they lifted the entire chassis and body etc. However there was no movement there at all. The second we started to jack it up, the whole car went up. As usual, Dad was right, the whole thing was bound up. So I sat about building some heavy duty shackles with about 2 inches between the holes. After finally getting them installed we lowered the chassis back down and sure enough we finally got movement...that is until the chassis arch above the axle bottomed out on my new shackles.

After staring at it for a while in disbelief I finally came up with an idea. The spring eyelet ends and the shackles had to make it up between the frame rails back there but the head of the shackle bolt simply would not clear the frame rails. Remember this whole crazy little car has been a story of tight tolerances. After finally cutting the head off the bolt and welding it solid in the upper shackle mount point we cleared the chassis.


So finally, with uninhibited suspension travel we put the old girl back on her own feet. The car traveled all the way down until the chassis bottomed out. After looking at the springs now, they are worthless. They bent right past the max spring arch and back the other way. The were still bending in the wrong direction when the factory bump stop still attached to the under side of the frame sat on the ladder bar mount.


As usual, Dad was correct. From day one, because of absolute crazy dumb luck with spring length and placement etc. we mistook spring strength with chassis binding which made for some exciting driving after we finally put some serious torque to it. So what now?

Well I have quite a bit of time in this quarter elliptic system plus with it in place I don't need a pan hard bar etc. With that in mind, I think I am going to find me some proper springs tomorrow and start again. I am thinking of starting with trailer springs which I can easily get my hands on. Tune them by removing leaves etc until we have a nice stance (ride height) and rotating suspension. Then we will determine if the shocks we have will work or if we need to a standard shock (probably a 50/50 proportion).

If we can not make it work, I will just bite the bullet and drop a pair of coil overs on it with a panhard bar. But at this point I am not ready to give up on the old school approach we started with...