History Help me find some old photos of this Cedar Rapids Iowa 1940 Ford Coupe

Awesome! Thanks for posting. I have a pic or two that must have been taken the same day (without the guy standing in front of the camera!)
Hey your Dad's car was really cool. I assume it's the same one as the avatar and was finished at some point? Look like a neat mild custom.

 

I thought the Me Too Car Show was for a cause. Possibly to drum up interest for building a drag strip in this area? I think you already have info on Jack's old 40 from John Park. John was our neighbor and a good friend of my dad. And yes it is the same car as what is in my avatar. This is how it looks now.

 

@alchemy gave me a hard time in Des Moines about axle issues.....
So, I decided to upgrade the 10 bolt to a 9”.
New housing, 1/4” tubes, 31 spline axles, Yukon nodular case, Eaton posi, billet retainer and yoke.

I’ll be changing from a 3.73 to a 3.90 Motive gear set. All this stuff came from Quick Performance in Ames.

I need to change the driveshaft out as well. This will be a 3” tube with 1350 joints.

All this will work great with the Hemi some day.

Here’s a pic of the housing with the pads welded, and I had it powder coated last night.




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I notice you boxed the spring pads.
Not gonna have that problem again.

 

Yeah, that's my second pair! I put those on the GM rear after the Moroso ones folded up. These are from Calvert Racing and are super heavy.

You can see these don't capture much of the axle housing radius, and the formed foot appeared to have stress cracks from stamping that weakened them.



These are not only heavier gauge, but capture 1/2 the tube and the boxing really helps.

 

Nice

 

Bullitproof.

 

Had a short vacation out East, so I lost a weekend. I managed to get the third member painted yesterday, installed, and installed so I could measure for the driveshaft and order it on line.
It should be buttoned up in time......as long as Strange hits the early estimate on their lead time.

I’ll be heading down through Omaha this year on Friday. Daughter has her white coat ceremony at Creighton.





Pig in a blanket?



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Everything's together xcept driveshaft. It may not show up in time. Only other option might be to shorten the shaft I have and run a cross yoke in back.

Runs terrible. Not sure if it moisture in the cap or bad gas. Put new plugs in and it's still missing. I'll dig into that tomorrow.




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I ordered a 3" Chrome moly tube drive shaft with 1350 joints on each end and a new forged yoke. If it doesn't show plan B will be to see if I can get my other drive shaft shortened which is 1310 joints and run a cross shaft to convert to the 1350 on the new pinion.
Plan C.....Might be to bring the 3 window. And sort the 40 out at a few local 1/8 mile tracks before the Fallout in Rockfalls.

 

Well, better lucky than good. Changing from a 10 bolt GM to a 9” with a short Billet yoke did not change the driveshaft length appreciably (1/8”). So I was able to use a 1310 to 1350 cross yoke. All I could find yesterday was an Oreilly branded made in China. But that allowed me to break in the new gear set. I’ll pick up a Dana Spicer or Moog joint and swap it out.

If the new shaft assembly shows up in time I’ll run it.

Decided to box my lowering blocks just to make sure they are not a weak point.




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Hey thanks...Yeah just got my email acceptance today for the Fallout. I may even do both days, late in the year should be some cool air. Would be cool to see the 63 there. It would fit right in!

 

Well, no breakage to report this year.
A lot of driver error though... missed shifts, bad reaction times. I really need to go to a test and tune so I can get the car out of the hole better. Best pass was last of the day at 13.06. Way off the 12.63 last fall.

The fallout is next up late September!








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I crawled under and checked out the Cal-Tracks. They looked bitchn and sounds like they kept you from picking up parts off the track.

Car looks killer. -Abone.

 

I was pissed at myself when I lined up with you. I made my first pass leaving in third....., maybe that was alright to break in the ring and pinion one more time (it did run a 15 sec pass). I came back to the pits looked at the line, counted the cars left in the class was an odd number so I snuck back in line and spotted your car as a good pair up.

Car is still spinning out of the hole in first and second. I can feel the difference in pull between the 3.73 and 3.90. I was running about 22 pounds in the cheater slicks, not sure how far I could or should air them down. Also noticed that without a line loc I am not getting a lot of smoke out of the tires. I was being mindful of not blowing past the beams and spending a lot of time backing up with a 12-13 second car.

So I need to get the launch RPM optimized for the tire and track. The MPH was still 105 with some screw ups out of the hole. My best pass last year was a 108MPH and I am hoping to MPH at 110 higher.

Not sure how far to take this, but I am thinking a line loc, full set of Viking adjustable drag shocks, and more time at the track.....and maybe a 150 shot of nitrous to make up for any driver issues!

The Cal Tracs work, you have to back them off on the street or it rides like hell, and they hang a little low. I still like the concept of a Torque arm - Will try that in the Roadster chassis, and when the 40 gets the Hemi I will probably add the torque arm as you don't have to do any backing off between street and strip.

 

@saltflats gets credit for this photo. Thank you!

 

At the HAMB drags this year. Not too many passes with the rain but had a lot of fun bench racing!

 

A few more from the HAMB drags.
I ran down to Byron for the Pie Eating contest. The no-prep proved to be real equalizer and quite frustrating too. I couldn't get a decent pass in.

Last race was the Fallout at Rock Falls.....Had a great time. Made 11 passes on Saturday, could of made a few more. ET's were down, 13.11 the best. I was launching at 2000 RPM, the new tranny has a 2.64 1st gear instead of the previous tranny with a 3.42. But no part breakage!

 

Ain’t nothin in the world like a 1940 Ford, especially a black coupe. Congrats.

 

Still at it with the 40 running a best of 12.41 through the terrible block huggers and exhaust at the MSRA super secret fun run. Will be at the Fallout 8 tomorrow. Changed out fenderwell headers and few other minor changes. Hope pick up a few tenths.

 

Killer!

 

We were just talking about your coupe last week. I ran into the guy that bought it at the auction after Jack Brazier passed away.

 

Weather at the fallout didn't start out so well Friday as rain delayed racing til about 5pm and they kept it 1/8th mile and I got in two "ok" test passes. The delay allowed a lot of bench racing, checking out the swap meet, and they had a great band Friday night.
Today started foggy, then burned off, and it was nice and cool. My best passes were later in the day, a 12:34 not hooking up followed by a 12.08, still spinning out the hole and breaking loose a tad on the 1-2 shift. Very pleased!

 

Happy New year everybody…. A quick update on the 40, after unloading the car and parking it after the fallout I noticed a puddle of antifreeze coming out the header. I pulled it apart to confirm, and discovered the number 8 cylinder has some corrosion, so I’m pretty sure it started leaking last season and sat with some antifreeze in that cylinder.
So, it’s out and at an engine shop for a complete tear down and inspection to determine if it can be honed, sleeved, or rebore with new pistons. Right now it’s 409 9.2:1 with 76cc heads . If I can keep the bore the same, I’ll look at new 64cc heads to get to 9.8:1. If it needs a bore, then I’d target 10-10.5:1, and may consider a better head.

The hemi could be an option, but I really want to pull the body, paint the firewall and chassis, and that would take it off the road a little longer!

 

Glad to see updates of the little car, it is one of my very favorite '40 coupes.

10 or 10.5 wouldn't hurt with a lot of cam and an aluminum head. Kind of hard to know which way to go until you hear back from the machine shop.

Sure would like to get that thing in the 11s.....

-Abone.

 

Did you see that missing chunk of material around the valve seat? Not sure what you have going on there. Kind of odd.

-Abone.

 

Yeah not sure on that, maybe lean?, which precipitated the gasket, Or a result of ingesting water?

 

Put the Hemi in! Don't worry about the firewall or the chassis.

 

I vote for the Hemi just like when Jack Brazier originally built the car.