Mark, what was the difference between SS/W and SS/X? I remember some SS/X cars on the west coast from '72 but most of those were '60 4-doors as well as Barry Raichlin's '61 Impala. Those were the guys that perfected the 2-barrel "leakers."
Based strictly on stories I've been told and a few personal observations of the practice (but without empirical personal experimentation) the term "leaker" would refer to a car that was set up to facilitate the practice of allowing additional air to be drawn into a running engine in the form of "vacuum leaks" thus approximating the same engine with a larger carburetor. There have been a few discussions of this practice in earlier posts but they were most flagrantly employed in the early days of Super Stock following the 1972 purge of Stock Eliminator that forced a few car owners with two-barrel induction to move into Super Stock classes with grossly under-carbureted, over-cammed combinations. Some of these cars ended up in a new class for 1972 that was identified as SS/X. A simple example would be something like leaving the nuts on the carburetor-to-manifold studs loose so that flooring the accelerator linkage would pull the front of the carb off the gasket and simulate the effect of having larger throttle bores and that's only one example (there were more complex approaches). Of course, cars so equipped would need to be egregiously over-jetted to compensate and would, frequently, be pig-rich on the jetting for driving around the pits and staging lanes. Another indicator was the sound that emanated from a leaker at idle (remember the J.C. Whitney "wolf whistle" gimmick that used engine vacuum to emit a piercing, high-pitched whistle for attracting the attention of passersby). There are undoubtedly plenty of people left who remember the "leakers" and who can embellish my feeble recollections.
Chuck is right on the money that is exactly what was done. That's why they introduced into the rules were lines saying NO VACUUM leaks and all carb bases must be securely fastened.
Chuck, X was the bottom class. 14.70 index? The 62 2drs. were too light and ran in W ..14.40? The 61 2dr HT used the weight of the PG to make SS/X in a stick shift class. After seeing Barry's at the Winters, Joe and I slammed one together for a few months in 1972. We sold it to some boys in Canada when we got the Bob Johnson deal. They painted it bright silver..Some of you might remember it around Sanair and Napierville
Thanks, Mark. For some reason, I have no memory of anyone out here running a SS/W car although there were a couple of X cars. Of course, that doesn't mean that there weren't some around. Memory these days really isn't all that one would hope for. I have about eight pairs of reading glasses scattered around the house and shop as well as a couple of burner phones that appear to have grown legs and wandered away. c
McLaughlin was the dealership in Porterville, CA that sponsored Ronnie Broadhead. I believe that Ronnie was the cousin of another central California standout, Butch Leal, but he was a tough customer in his own right. Either of them could handle just about anything equipped with a 4-speed.
I did not know about the Broadhead/Leal connection until I called Ronnie to get some background for a piece that I was doing for Traditional Rod and Kulture magazine. I finally got to meet him at the CHRR the year that Butch was the Grand Marshall. When he told me about H.L. Shahan tuning his car I mentioned that I had a shot of Leal's car with H. L.'s name on the front fender and that is when he told me that he and Burch were cousins. Roo
I'm not sure about the provenance of the '63 in the foreground but Al Means was the supporting dealer for Phil Bonner during the banner years of S/S and A/FX factory wars. That's an interesting illustration of how quickly things were developing in those classes during the early 60's. The "square top" 2-door post car has lettering that is indicative of a dual-carbed 427", 425 horsepower in A/S but the "fastback," dealer-supported version on the ramp truck as campaigned by Bonner was in Super Stock trim. In this part of the world, most of the square top sedans were equipped with the milder 406/405 version of the FE motor but it's logical to suspect that some 427 motors found their way out the door in square-top bodies. It's difficult to tell if the S/S car has the trademark "bubble" hood that would have accompanied the High-Riser 427 but the lack of luster on the front bumper suggests the fiberglass component option that would have lopped off a couple hundred pounds and that alone could have moved the car up in class. No real facts here, just conjecture. c
Yes I have read that some of the later boxtops indeed got a 427 but the early ones had the 406 as it's biggest option. The SS car may have appeared when NHRA was still trying to decide on their use in A/FX.
After contemplating on it I'm pretty sure when they first came out with the Fastback 427's there was a time that Ford had not yet installed enough in the production cars to be legal for A/S so they were relegated to S/S until the magic number of production cars were released and then they could run A/S. Same kind of thing with the Thunderbolts that were coming out soon there were too few in the beginning and classification was disrupted until their production numbers caught up.
I did a little follow-up on the '63 Ford configuration and found indications that all 212 of the cars produced during the preparation of the '63 "Lightweight Galaxie" project were (drumroll, please) Galaxies so the 300 sedan pictured as an A/Stocker in the post above would not have been a light weight car. Also, I had never been aware that the famous light weight "bubble" hood was not a part of the original package but was, rather, an addition approved later in the season. I clearly remember Gas Ronda's '63 running under the banner of "Downtown Ford" at San Gabriel and he had the bubble hood on his car as early as July 1963. A few of the 212 cars were reportedly equipped with fiberglass doors but that option was cancelled early in the program due to concerns that the cars could actually end up on the street. In spite of the serious weight reduction measures (aftermarket seats, Model 300 lighter frames, glass bumpers, glass hood, rubber mats, radio/heater delete, etc.) the cars were still too heavy to pose a serious challenge to the best of the well-prepped aluminum Plymouths and Dodges. They had good power but needed to be put on a more stringent diet in order to compete at the upper levels. Following up on one more thought, I checked Dwight Southerland's online source for classification information <www.classracerinfo.com> and discovered that the "light weight" package is now accepted by NHRA for ALL '63 sedans, not just Galaxies. Haven't seen one of those on the track since about 1964 so it's probable that the combination is still not really competitive in A/S (stick only) at 3450# these days. The 1966 and 1967 427 Fairlane combination is very competitive in A/S and carries the modern blue oval successfully.
Love the car and the concept but don't particularly favor the odds of it not being a parts breaker. Between the early rear end, a 4-speed trans, and a two-piece driveshaft, there was a lot that could go wrong every time the hammer dropped. Hope it was a killer! c
How do you let a car deteriorate from this (below) to the above condition? It always boggles my mind how many people let race cars go down hill like this. Put a car cover on it if you can't park it in a garage. What's so hard about that?? Running in E/MP.
Haven't forgotten them entirely but I also had several years of experience with a '64 Impala 327 Stocker running at 3670# and dead-hooking it on 9" tires with an 8" converter in front of a Powerglide. As the weight goes up and the traction improves, the weak links show up fairly soon. In the case of the car that I ran, we could make the axles and even the driveshaft support live for a season but when the last ring and pinion set expired, I happily hauled the whole car off to the crusher, pocketed my $8 and never looked back.
The Jalopy Journal
