History Non Straight Axle Gassers

For historical purposes, post your vintage shots and pictures of non-solid front axle gassers from back in the day. I'm partial to the Ford Falcon..

 

Let me see if I can find a pic or two for you

Here's a pic for ya.


O am pretty sure that the Wappid Wabbit was an A arm car at least in the beginning but I can't seem to find any pics

 

There were a hell of a lot of gas class cars that weren't straight axle than there ever were.
Before the advent of purpose built race cars gas class meant stock body with fenders and a non stock engine. That lowered 50 Ford Shoebox with the 51 Cad V8 in it was just as much of a gasser as the later jacked up straight axle 55 Chevys.

 

actually prior to the rule change in '65 a gas class car had to have OEM suspension. That was open to interpretation but a lot of techs took it to mean as the suspension it came with.

 

I remember when I was nine or ten and my stepfather traded for a 52 Ford Victoria with a 56 Thunderbird special engine and overdrive transmission in it that had run at Ellensberg Wa and held the C/G track record there at the time. Car was lowered to the max and had wide whites on all 4 corners and didn't the least bit look like what someone now thinks of as a gas class car let alone a hot race car. I think he won more than a few bucks in street races with it at the time with local hotshots that thought their new off the showroom floor car was the fastest car in town.

 

Outside of "big block" springs and spacers, what was the tick to achieving some of those lofty nose heights?

 

Some guy in Fremont (CA) used to cut axle stubs off '55-'57 Chevys and weld them back on 3" lower. There was a 1/4" X 3" triangular gusset...a friend had those on his '55. I offered to install a tube axle & semi elliptics, but he scoffed. Headlights were right at 50".
One of them broke clean off on El Camino, (Sunnyvale) and the '55 just scraped to a halt. Nobody hurt.
He said the rapid change in altitude gave him a light stomach!

Steering links on extreme angles...center of gravity conflicting with square of overall mass...I was surprised at the number of 'pilots' that said there was "no noticeable change in steering geometry". Some of these guys looked like they'd been driving for any number of years.
Some reached heights that were 'astronomical'. Nearly, then...

 

Ball joint spacers, or spindles. On some of the older chevys and corvettes up to the new string ray body style you could unbolt the cross member and put a spacer between the frame and the lower A arm mount.

In the '60s and into the early '70s there was a company hat built spindles that had the upright with 3 holes in it and you could move the spindle shaft up and down to achieve your desired ride height.

Those lofty nose heights for the most part are things of racing lore. It only lasted about a year or two then gas class cars which had become dedicated race cars for the most part were going to fast on the big end and started dropping back down so that they could slip stream.

Take a at Ohio George, in the early '60s he was running a Willys and bending every rule he could find to get an advantage. By about '66 or 7 he chopped the hell out of the Willys in order to try and get an advantage on the big end and by about '67 or 8 he was campaigning the Malco Gasser a Mustang fast back then set low enough and was aerodynamic enough so that he could compete at higher speeds.

Let me find you a pic







Uh sorry to take it off the rails fellas.

 

Ball joint spacers, longer than stock loose old shocks (remember this was mostly before 90/10 shocks came out), all front suspension parts lubed up nice, and those front ends would come way up. Had to use blocks or find a longer bumper jacks to get the front wheels off LOL.

 

Drove an E/Gas 57 Belair 2 door hardtop for a guy in Wisconsin in the summer of 1970. It had ball joint spacers and tall springs in the front. Had great weight transfer.
I would post a picture ,but my asshole brother threw all of my pictures away in 1976. Drag photos from 1966 to 1976. We still do not speak unless it is unavoidable .

 

In about 75 and 6 I drove and tuned a '55 for a guy that had lifted spindles. It was a street beast by the week and a race car on weekends. It actually set too high to pass tech at most tracks had almost 36" of crank center. But at certain outlaw tracks it kept the bleachers full.

It took us about an hour to switch from street mode to track mode. It was a handful until you got used to it but it would stand up and cut a straight line once to learned how to drive it. Never was going very fast on the big end 125-130 was all but it made top speed by about 850-900 foot mark. I liked watching my buddy try and make a pass, it was real entertaining. LOL

 

I like the ease of this set up.

 

The two spindle welded together concept.

 

These are cool

 

Outlawed for good reason.

 

Do these count?

 

In the beginning, the only Gassers that had straight front axles were cars that came with straight front axles from the factory. The Gasser class was made up of street cars with hopped-up engines. It was only later, when the Gassers were built strictly as race cars that the straight front axle craze started. In many cases that I saw Model-A type front axles and leaf springs (especially when dual leaf springs were used, like on '55 Chevys) weighing more than the OEM independent front suspension did...

 

What was outlawed? And what is the good reason?

 

Look at how close the spacer and the mounting point of the ball joint are to the bracket for the rubber snubber. How you see it in this photo isn't much of a problem until the suspension is unloaded under heavy acceleration. Under that condition the spacer hit's the frame very hard and after repeated hit's the bolts fail. The rest you can imagine.

 

The are only prohibited in "STOCK" classes--- because class requires stock suspension and no mods. "C" and spacer style ball joint style were designed for front end rise (lift) at the hit to transfer weight to the back as the front end came up further. Yes people used them to raise the front as much as people used extra long spring shackles to raise the rear. But were never "Outlawed" as some people claim. Better tires-tracks and suspension theory, made their use obsoleate

 

^^^^^ "Potatoe Potato" . How do they raise the vehicle with them? They were not intended for use with tall coil springs. But guy's did it and a secondary issue became of it, safety. The actual design purpose was for more upward front suspension travel under acceleration for better weight transfer. An advantage in "Stock" class.

 

In the late 60s I saw a car ('55 Pontiac?) run at Carlsbad. It wasn't really jacked up in the static condition, but when he loaded up the drivetrain just before the green, the entire car would lift 6"-12", and that car hooked on the big slicks and boogied. Suspension design vs caveman approach...

 

Anybody that wants to see a bunch of non-straight axle gassers should check out them in here there are a bunch of them:
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/tri-five-gassers.64869/