Technical Simple speed tricks

When i was a wild and crazy teenager, (now I'm a wild and crazy adult) i had a supervisor that was an older gentleman. He would sit at the table with us at work and join in on the hot rod stories. He was a flathead guy, always told us about his 40 Ford coupe and how they'd put pennies in the heat risers to keep them open. Busting gears and hauling ass! I said "how fast was ya going Junior?" He said "80 miles an hour!" I always enjoyed when he told us his stories. Then one day everybody was congregated on the hardware store parking lot with their cars. My old car had a sbc with the normal broke kid stuff, intake, headers, and a Holley. One of the old guys was looking at it, his name was Darryl Sloas, and he went over to his truck and came back with a screwdriver and a screw. He stuck it in the rear throttle shaft linkage of my carb and said "there ya go, now she'll run". I wasn't smart enough then to realize what he was doing but he converted me to mechanical secondary lol. He wasn't lying, car ran a lot better! So how many old school tricks are there? I miss them old days....

 

How about flipping the air cleaner lid upside down?

 

When we got to the drags in late 50's we jumped the ballast resistor-12V to points-take off after--did it help-who knows? Buy the good gas too at the drags-called "cheaters delight" then wind er up to about 3000 and advance till it stumbled a bit and crank back a hair and make a time run. Don't really know if it made much difference but seemed to.

 

Oh yeah! I remember that one lol.

 

I didn't even know what spark knocking was, but it always seemed quicker when it was pinging lmao!

 

I'm pretty sure chrome valve covers will make your car faster.

 

performance parts decals/stickers in rear side windows - spacers in front coil springs to raise front to give that drag racer look - install exhaust cut outs with spacers to allow some of the exhaust noise to come out for that "mean" sound even without dual exhaust - either lower the rear by putting bags of cement in trunk - or reverse the rear spring hangers to raise it up - take front bumper off -

 

Advance springs, flex fan, cowl induction hood jack, welded spider gears, zero lash hydraulic lifters.

 

You guys remind me of my misspent youth

K&N air filter, with sticker on rear window.
Washers between the hood and springs to raise the rear (redneck cowl induction)... then wonder why the exhaust fumes get sucked into the cowl vent and then into the cabin.
Pollution hoses removed, studbolt pushed in, and hoses put back on.
Exhaust cut off just forward of the diff (and wonder why the exhaust fumes come into the rear windows ).
Painting the factory brake drums red or the factory cast headers silver was good for 5HP (until the paint flaked off).
Space-saver spare wheels run on front wheels as redneck front runners.
Overly large Holley carburettor (add sticker to rear window too), then complain that the carb sucks more fuel than a straw.

Cheers,
Harv

 

Not sure how that would work on vacuum secondary carb. It would open the back barrels but wouldn't be getting the pump shot like a double pumper would. If anything there should be a big dead spot or bog.

 

I made a dual snorkel cold air induction system from some hoses I used at an insulation company I worked for. Did it help? Probably. Did I reject the carb like I should have? No.

 

Stick shift cars were more prevalent back then ;-)

 

My favorite was jack up the rear and put muffler clamps around the shocks to KEEP it up. Rode like hell but looked coooool!!
Oh yeah disconnect the cross-over pipe on the exhaust manifolds....sounded A LOT like a pulp wood truck!!
Am I the only one who ran the windshield washer hose to the rear tire and put bleach in the water so the tire(ONE TIRE!!) would spin really good!?
6sally6

 

Did it all...but I ran the washer hose and sprayed on the radiator.
Made a stop at the small airport to gas up. Did you ever wonder why some guys did not run their engines in
the staging lanes.....Nitro in their fuel bowls....NO2 in a small tank in the radiator plumbed through a teflon hose
to a water pressure gauge in the dash...The wire ran back under the intake to a small hole.....got the setup from my radiator shop..the best place to take a leak. When I was younger I had two chevelles that I bought from street racers.
Always heat your tires before you run on the street. The newer one had a great win record.....only lost once to a 486 Chevelle....ON my 1962 Ford Country wagon I drilled a hole in the front face of he muffler and added a tapered metal lamp shade to the carb. Quick advance springs and no retard vacuum to the carb. Great story about beating an El Camino with the wagon....he was pissed, it was all in the timing of the downshift...

 

Take the advance springs right off on a Delco points distributor ..Get that quick tire spinning power !

 

"Time for way back story"
I started drag racing in the mid 1950s in to early 60s,helping out my buddy's. We won so much it seemed to EZ,and 1963 we build stockcar for local oval track=much harder to do.took longer, an that made it more fun.
But get back to OP,;;;Tricks at the drag strip we used,beside good tune on engine,was unloaded everything out of car that could be removed EVERY THING,Know the rules an use them ,if they didn't say you could not do this or that,do it !! What's not in the rules is more speed n power. Backed off brakes so zero drag for sure,set front tow at zero,we had a air pig to adjust tires with,for straight out hole shot,front tire at 65 lbs. rear as low as 9 lbs deppening on type of tire an side to side rears was not same/so it would come out straight,ran 10 wt. oil in tranny an STP with 20wt. in rear, Dry ice in new aircleaner,cool fuel can/ice in can with copper tubing fuel line coil in side the can for ice. All wheels balanced. Always went with two cars,one just for tools an crap,cooler ect. amn tow rope,, other to race. This was when we had a flagman/not lights,an we know the flagman's tell= how he would move the sec. before wave=often better start then other guy.
We won a lot. So we got on some days 5 or 6 runs to drive at about 13 to 14 sec. on 1/4mile< no BS 1/8 back then. Stock car racing at oval track added up to more fun,got to drive 2 or 3 practice's at 8 to 10 laps each,then a heat race of 10 or 12 laps,plus the main at 25 or 30laps,depenning on car count=lots more fun time racing. NOT FOR THE LAZY though,more work all week to do it. Plus you need to know a lot more about how a car works,not just keep it straight.

 

I did the self-tapper screw trick on a very, very OT Isuzu 4 cylinder (GM Holden Gemini). It ran exactly like you said... big bog off the line. It was cool in my head though

Cheers,
Harv

 

I always thought soaking the air filter in polypropylene made the engines qualify better and after a few laps there was nothing left for the tech guys to look for.
I have left out one other important ingredient that might give the secret away!

Does anyone know what that is?
Jimbo

 

Nitrous is cheap if installed incorrect! Lol

Had a couple o/t cars with a small bottle of sneaky Pete !

fun until things go boom !! Lol

 

Hey Dana, Cool story!!! And now I know why you have the Fonz as your avatar! LOL

 

Milwaukee Wisconsin, Typical kids car, mandatory glass pack mufflers, faster ? sure sounded faster, lots of supplier race decals on rear side window (not for me ) high in front with front with twist in spacers, welded spider gears, never worked for me, always broke . In my street racing days off and on depending on what car I owned at the moment 1964/1970, (I was pretty successful for a low buck kid) Steep rear gear, 4:11 to 4:88, posi unit, street slicks, these 3 things were essential (Also did the big 3, cam, carb, headers) In the arena I played in most street racing 1/8 mile type and I would pick and choose, after a while I knew where I fit in and what I could beat as there was pretty serious street racing, lots of hi performance muscle cars set up properly. I was in the fun $0/$10/$20 bracket class, it wasn't uncommon for $50/$100 races, one night I watched a $500 race between 2 Hemi mopar cars brought on trailers. Like Dana Barlow I went to dizzy track racing, dirt, Midgets then wing Sprint cars, LOTS of work/ money BUT the Memories, Priceless.

 

I ran my 1955 Chevy two door post with no front bumper until a guy in a 1958 ford hit his brakes in front of me as not to hit a cat. Resulting in new tail light lenses for him, and a complete nose change on my Chevy, which we did in the rain, and never shut the car off, just left the radiator, and radiator support in place, and replaced all of the sheet metal.

 

Man...every time Dana tells a story, I listen (read, whatever).

 

Road sign and some van seat foam to seal carburetor to jacked up hood for the poor mans cowl inductions.
Micro switch under throttle pedal to bypass the ballast resistor at WOT.
Different advance springs in distributor.
Different length pipe on collector to get best MPH.
Wire the second set of points in the duel point distributor separate so you can shut off one set of points for high gear retard.
Check the jets.

 

NITRO, my wing Sprint car, I used to run 20% at big shows for qualifying and the heat race, a lot of guys did, if they checked fuel it would be after the main. I did not use it often or all night as I only had one pretty good engine $18K in 1989, I was an unsponsored hobby racer, having fun, trying to balance fun factor verses breaking the bank, finally retired from racing hobby after 21 years of fun, 1991 Checkbook had a cardiac arrest event so it was time to come back to car hobby which IMO is very reasonable fun dollar wise compared to racing. I don't know what time frame or what you were racing, but NITROUS was/is big, I machined up in my shop for customers some interesting stuff to hide it related to carb intakes years back, also heard some interesting stories of how they hid bottle/supply lines/ container.

 

Foot long shackles with 7 sets of holes !

 

reminds me of the hudson i heard about that was obviously running alcohol (flagman could smell it), but tech could never find it. windshield washer!

 

How about traction bars? Always good for a few horses...

 

And a set of Atlas Bucrons too-used to get some from a guy who changed em out for folks with about 1/2 tread left. When I was running my 57 Pontiac tripower car in late 50's early 60's I used some of these tricks-Bucrons, air lift bag under right rear, loose front shocks and a few other little tricks-car left pretty well and no wheel hop-good for a few 10'ths

 

You guys are too young, you probably never knew the very best speed secret when I was a kid....... Mothballs in the gas tank!

Mick