Hot Rods Is your car fast?

I can respect that. but that's like saying 19's are fast because that's what the duesenburgs ran with stock parts. 19's aren't fast. that's my point.

rick

fine- i'll put the mill back in the fury and race you (since you have a dog in this fight). but you wont get me to admit that 12's are fast for a street car.

rick

 

12's are fast for a vintage street car built with vintage parts.

 

yawn . . .

 

no, its not fast, but it isn't quick either

 

Got rid of the points distributor, got rid of restrictive exhaust and now running full sized fenderwell headers, and i got a VR4 Paxton to use once i make my own bracket for it.

I got the nitrous kit first, but will probably not use it once the lung is mounted up. I like the idea of a blower never running out of bottle.

rick.

 

sounds like a lot of bench racing going on here , i only race my self, ha,ha

 

I guess it's all relative, if you spend every night at the playboy mansion getting happy with pin ups then it's hard for a gal on the street to get you excited, if you play in a top fuel car then no 11.99 is not fast, honestly, just how fast does the car that gets you to and from work in bumper to bumper traffic at 2 mph need to be? Considering that a new mustang weighs in at between 3400 and 3800 hundred pounds and even the 281 cobras with the OHC mills could just crack a high 12. An 11.99 street car that can operate, key word operate, in city traffic consistently in all weather day in and day out and pull sub 12's in all weather day in and day out with no parts breakage is highly respectable, I have however had the privilege of seeing the Spiro Pappas Camaro run under 8 seconds on the street in full trim, granted, this is not a HAMB friendly car, it is or has been in the battle for some time as the Worlds Fastest Street Car. Put it this way, Ive seen cars that run in the 8's on the street hand over a 5 grand match purse to a 12 second car because of parts breakage. Another point is, where in the heck do you think you would want to run a 10, 9, or 8 on the street in a big city, there just is not enough real estate to stretch the legs on these things.

 

Let's face it, they are all fast enough to kill you if you screw up.

 

Not any of my vehicles would be considered "fast". In the past I felt some may have been considered that, for their time, in my small circle of gearhead buddies. What we have here and now is comparing todays advancements/technologies to what we are building/striving for, which for the most part is traditional rods with traditional technology. So that being said, you win. I will give a slight smile to you, as you, and the modern techno gearheads blow by me. Funny thing is, most any of us could have spent our hard earned bucks and energies on some modern car off the show room floor for a Hell of a lot less money..but ,we chose not to, because we are all about keeping the old car spirit alive. It is more of a lifestyle then just going fast. I will always consider a street driven 11 second or faster tri-five Chevy, Willys, Model A, Deuce coupe, etc a fast car.

 

I have not run my 55 at the track yet. I will, but not this season. I just spent three years building this car, and I very much enjoy driving this car to work almost everyday. Is it fast? Yeah, it feels strong. It will need more gear for the track ( currently running 3.73s). So another nodular iron 9" chuck with a set of 4.10-4.56's will take care of that,but the're not cheap!
I have a 2008 Mustang Bullitt that I installed a Roush supercharger on it, and that very fast. $35K for the car, another $6K+ for the supercharger,never mind the 11 hours of my labor. Fast and reliable and civilized? Absolutely, but certainly not cheap.
I also own a Factory Five Cobra that I built with a DSS 347 stroker motor, Tremec 5 spd, 9 inch rear, and with 400+ HP in a 2200 lb car, it too is fast.Once again,not a small investment to be FAST.
All different cars, all fast, and all fun to drive. And I hate getting "spanked on the street" by any type of car. But I am old enough to know somebody always has something faster. And that's OK. Good for them.

 

It sounds like 69Fury has high aspirations but is struggling to get there..

So what if a Nissan Maxima can outrun my OT-DD '68 Chevy truck? I can pull up into a parking lot and park along 10 Nissan Maximas and my truck'll still be cooler. Not to mention, troubleshooting on a old truck is much easier than on a Nissan Maxima. Granted, I do wish my truck was much faster, but I'm not the kind of guy to bring his own egostic opinions on the board and spark a negative debate on traditional "fast" to modern-day "fast."

I do plan on one point in the future to make my truck a asphalt-eating, corner-carving, son of a gun but I keep my trap shut about it since that's not an on-topic discussion for this board, neither is your '69 Fury. Then again, I do have a hundred lifetimes worth of projects in my head and obviously have only one lifetime to pull off as many of these as I can. I'm only 22, so I still have a majority of my life ahead of me.. So, we'll see.

Now, my Model A Coupster, while it will never be the most talked about car or win a trophy, it is going to fall under the rules of this board. I aspire for it to be cheap, safe, and just an all-around fun little car to drive to school, to the local cruise night, maybe even make an out of state trip to a big car show. I guarantee you it'll never break 11 or 12 seconds, it'll still be plenty fun. So what if the 283 I may stick in there will never outrun a Subaru 4-banger? It'll have 4 times more character than that Subaru will ever have.

So what if you want your car to run 10 seconds, be fast by today's standards, and perhaps look traditional? Then that's your niche, and obviously not everyone on here shares that niche. My advice is to get off the computer and start working on it and maybe you'll finish it sooner than later.

And then, if it actually meets your expectations, then you'll have proven everyone on here wrong. Less keyboard-play, more car-work.

After all.. Didn't the great Henry Ford once say "You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do?"

 

I know when I take my slow t-bucket to grudge night racing I win more than loose. I've beat these modern muscle cars and those super rice burners. On paper I should have gotten it handed to me by some of these cars but while they are herky-jerking the clutch I'm out of there.
I guess what I'm saying is you can have a 10 second modern car but you do need to be able to drive or you're going to get beat by that 12 second old car.

 

Problem, The Hotrod by design is generally built to be a more delicate looking style of a car, a hotrod is supposed to be a dependable traditional and built to a certain artistic specification. That specification does not make it easy to hide the structure and cooling systems and support dynamics that a 600 HP plus engine require. Reinforcing the hotrod platform to endure this amount of power transforms it into a different genre of vehicle.
Study a bit of drag strip footage from the mid 50's, these guys would be happy with 12's.

 

hell yah!!

 

Hot rods are typically American cars with large engines modified for linear speed. The origin of the term "hot rod" is unclear. One explanation is that the term is a contraction of "hot roadster," meaning a roadster that was modified for speed. Roadsters were the cars of choice because they were light. The term became commonplace in the 1930s or 1940s as the name of a car that had been "hopped up" by modifying the engine in various ways to achieve higher performance.

 

i can do the quarter mile in 11 or 12 minutes - no problem here

 

Swade41, That reminds me of an evening last summer. I was in the passenger's seat of my buddy's '55 Ford Gasser - primer - glass nose - 292 y-block - BIG cam - 4 speed - 4.11 rear - lumpity bump bump - along side pulls up a brandy new Mustang - looking over to my buddy signaling to my buddy if he's up for a race (which he always is) and my buddy nods the Mustang squares up - as does my buddy as he hits the electric bypass switch for the open headers - he gooses it a few times and the guy in the Mustang gets SCARED and backs down before we even race!!!

We laughed our asses off - as that Mustang would have surely handed us our collective asses!!! But he never found out just how fast (or slow in our case) the old '55 was. Of course my buddy drives it like he stole it - and twists that poor old y-block way further than most say it will go & he's been doign that as long as I've known him. Always funny to go to a cruise or something and have someone tell him they can show my buddy how to get that y-block to live past 5 grand - my buddy always responds, "Why would I want to slow it down?" Shit before the rev limiter - that thing was north of 7 grand regularily - missed shifts usually Of ocurse I can't blame my buddy - there's a damn synchro bad in the trans we ain't got around to fixin' just yet!!!

 

I have to open my big dumb mouth on this thread....

Are 12's or 11's fast? That all depends. What are you doing 12 in?

When you are talking about a gasser type with leafs, and traditional power, then hell yes, and I can promise you, that it is much more of a hairy ride than a 9 second pass in a current day performance automobile.

I have a 2001 Trans am Drag car, it used to run 10.1 on radials, and was daily driven. I drove it from Texas to Virginia, and back. is it a fast car? Relatively, considering it is less than 370 cubic inches and will never drink anything you can't get at the local pump, no race gas! N2O in a relatively small dose though.

The new build on that car has a simple goal, 9.0 on the slicks, 9.9 on 275 street type 17 inch wheels, stock appearance in "street trim".

I am going to start on a gasser this year as a x-mas present for my brother, and if it runs 11's it will be badass...it is more about the look than about the fast, though it will be fast, considering what it is. Gassers by nature are un-aerodynamic, archaic, and beastly. that is what they are supposed to be.

My Dad told my a while back, "refining it can make if faster, but then it ain't a gasser"

It is a different type of machine altogether.

That 9 second gasser in the tech thread with the chromoly straight axle is a monster, but had to lose some of the tradition to go play, such as the location of the fuel keg.

To each their own, and let us all enjoy what ever part of this hobby we enjoy. Remember that the fastest car today, won't be next week! You hp number isn't a reflection of your "unit" and you keyboard is no place to race a car.... Run your car, not your mouth! That is what drag racing is about. Gassers are about tradition.

 

amen.........

 

Not to mention that a late model Mustang sounds like a Baritone Vaccum Cleaner!

 

Ask flamedabone!!!!

 

If I owned a 12 second car that was made 60 years ago I would have to call a physician for an erection that lasted longer than 4 hours. I have worked on plenty of modern stuff that puts 500 to the tires with one bolt on. Going 12's in a dinosaur is way more awesome...

 

He doesn't "Really" get it just yet, I'm addicted to making that 200 HP.

 

Amen! ! I rode in a 490 hp deuce roadster with a stick shift, and a drop axle with leaf spring rear. My drag car will stomp it, but I will tell you which one was scarier, and had me ready to wet my pants! ! !

It was very fast... again for what it was! !

Besides that how many of the new cars are funning old school parts to go as fast as they are? ?

the 1000 + hp turbo cars of today are using TH400's, Glides, 9 inch rears and 12bolts.... They must have been doing something right back then! !

 

I think it's closing time for a pointless thread.

 

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/?p=9917

Watch this video, if you "get it" then you will understand why I don't care how fast some guy's new car with the 1800 tensecondcamaroinabox parts package installed is.

I will walk past a thousand new Camaro, Mustang, Challanger, Nissan, ect..... cars to watch a couple of 12 second model A's battle it out.

 

I'm not sure, but I think a thousand miles a day is pretty fast.....

 

Nuff said! Close the thread. Wanna prove it? Show up at the HAMB drags and beat Flamed Abone. Jeff has the fastest car in the Valley. I hear there is a badass blackk 55 looking for him but he is too skeered to show.

 

Very true on all accounts- i'm sure that if i do realize my performance goals, it will be a wild ride-i've often caught myself realizing that I may be understimating this beast of a chassis. I know i've much to learn about taming it, but i will do whatever i can to keep the traditional vibe and still fend off the local punks in the newer ride.

haha, that's the truth.

One thing i hadn't thought of was that some want their engines traditional to the core-even if they could bump power by 50-75% without any downsides, they wouldn't- which i do respect-i just didn't expect.

rick

 

might not be fast but it beats the fuck out of riding the bus.
horsepower = $$$$