Current photos of modern day "Nostalgia" race cars

Here's a couple pic's of my modern day nostalgia gasser. 57' Olds engine, Isky roller, six Holley 94's, Ross aluminum heads.

 

Sure miss match racing with Tom, Wayne and Jack, best run was at Woodbun, 8.41 at 167 MPH, got a whole bunch of pics if I can get my son to post them, sure like the gasser deal Quain Stott has got going on down south !! we need that same thing out here. THANKS Chris Lytle

 

Did not run eliminations. Made an exhibition pass against Ken Kuhl, and did the cackle deal.

 

Here's the car I'm building...

 

Beautiful ride voxnut. Tell us the build details.

 

Thanks for asking! It's King Chassis with 4 extra inches behind the rear axle in order to get the 5-point roll cage angle what it was back in the early 60's with the 3-point. 135" wheelbase, 327 chevy with 1.94 heads with some bowl work, pink rods, Keith Black 11:1 pistons, will have a Schneider 299 cam, shorty headers, 1966 Hilborn 2 1/16" alky injector setup, vertex magneto. Estimated 425 HP, car weight 1200 lbs. Engine 31" out. Budget (lack of one) dictates a shorty powerglide for now at least. After I get seat time, if I hit the lottery perhaps a 2-disk clutch will take it's place. I'm in NHRA land with no outlaw tracks anywhere nearby, so it has to cert, which means $$$$. The plan is to launch in high gear from idle. No trans brake. That, combined with 3:55 gears in the Mopar 8 3/4 rear, and the weight box up front between the frame rails, should negate the need for a wheelie bar. I know the 60 foot times will be soft, but this is more hot rod than serious race car. It's important that it looks like a cackle car that can make passes. Shooting for the mid to low 9's. If I ever want to do some actual racing rather than fun runs, I figure it will be an NE 3 car on a 9.60 index.

I know the car would have more in it, but I don't know if my budget ever will. ET III 10 x15 wheels out back with M&H 10.5 x 30 tires. In the future I'll switch to a 9 x 30 slick. 17" Hayden front hoops with Chen Shin Avon copies up front. Currently broke and looking for the cheapest shorty powerglide I can find along with a 9 or 10" converter with a 4500 stall speed.

I've been blogging the build at http://rocinanteridesagain.wordpress.com

Here's another view:

 

Looks like you read same thread caption as me Frankinstein...lol Yes your car looks great, low and fast...How fast? if I may ask.....Al

 

Wish someone in my neighborhood could roll something like that out of the garage....I Like It....Al

 

Voxnut, really nice car, hope you get to finish it as you want.

 

If I remember right, one of the magazines did a write up on this and mentioned that although this set up was state of the art and may have influenced many other builds (Funny car style chassis, flip body etc) this thing handled horribly and was parked after much frustration.

But what do i know ?

 

Car looks Great , When I started thinking about getting back into racing ,your Blog was one of the things I found on the web ,but after starting building my car I lost your site , I am very sorry for the loss of your friend and glad to see you kept going on your dream, Tim Jones

 

Thanks much Tim- it has been a bit of a rougher road than I had anticipated, whenever I work on the car it's both rewarding and I end up missing Mark a lot- especially when I have questions that I know he'd have the answer to, being a master machinist. I also work on it and find myself thinking that I hope that Mark would be pleased with my work. While I've rebuilt plenty of things, I've never built anything from scratch, so everything is a learning experience with this car. There have been a couple moments where I have thought "I've got no business doing this." But the overriding feeling is to press on and keep working on it, so I'm continuing to plug away and doing the best that I can to realize my dream and to also honor Mark.

I've been following your build as well and have been pleased to see the great progress on your car- the fire up vids were awesome. I'm looking forward to seeing video of your first pass in it.

 

Thanks Jimmy, I really appreciate it.

 

Thanks to everyone who said nice things about the dragster- it means a lot.

 

C'mon down Al... I'm in Frenchtown.



Voxnut,
I see your reasoning on everything you've explained in your build. I have one suggestion - instead of a 9- or 10-inch converter I would use an 8-inch with at least a 5500 stall. I know, I know its probably more expensive but you will be happier with the result and can build on the performance potential of the car (i.e., low gear assisted eight second runs) in the future. Good luck

 

Your Car is JUST PLAIN RIGHT Looking!

 

I concur with the above statement. Its the right balance of being period perfect as much as one could make and still be legal to make a full pass. Reminds of the many junior gas dragsters that frequented Lions in the late 60's, early 70's.

 

ec164, Very nice looking comet.

 

The Frenchtown Flyer is right you should run a 8" torque converter, a friend changed to a 8" and went 1/2 a second faster the car was easier to drive and more consistent i've got a 7" but running a smaller motor 301"

 

Thanks for the kind words and the tips on the converter. Will the higher stall speed make a difference, considering the formula will always be to launch in high gear from an idle? I'm one of a small group of crazies- Gene Kreuger and Jim Rodarmel are a couple of the others- who find it important to go as period correct as possible, which means no wheelie bar. So I don't ever plan on getting to where I make banzai launches in low gear. Is it still worthwhile to go with the 8" converter with a higher stall speed?

 

I think it is.

When I built my RPU I put 2.47 gears in the nine inch rear and intended to race it as a high-grear-only ride with a 4000 stall 8-inch converter. The high stall converter will make it easier to transition from an idle to WOT. Think of it as a big rubber band between the engine and tires.

After racing it for one season in hi gear I started using low gear and, of course, the performance picked up significantly.

When did wheelie bars come into common usage on FEDs? I seem to remember them way back when.

Maybe you should just consider using a real tall rear gear like I did and start off in low gear. That way it will hook in a mudslide and never lift a tire. Then if you want you can wind it out, make the 1-2 shift and run some real top end MPH. Just sayun'.

 

Here are some pics of Wayne's truck at it's debut at Woodburn in 86'. The 180 crank flathead had some ring seal problems, but it still ran in the 12's!

 

From Thompson

 

We used a wheelie bar around 69 or 70

 

I thought so. I saw some in the '60s too. Most of the older ones were flat (yuk) leaf-spring style with casters bolted to the ends

 

Vox that is absolutly beautiful only thing wrong is it has valve covers.....ha ha ........love it!!!!

 

my 50 pontiac

 

GASSER FANS! Forgive the lack of progress in my expose of modern nostalgia gassers. Five of the cars/teams I posted were deleted for "off topic build style". I hope you have enjoyed learning about these cars and hopefully I can resume once I get a better understanding for the deletions. Rob Frazier

Still trying to figure out how to reach a moderator to understand deletions and how cars that have been raced in nostalgia events and series can be off topic for this thread.

Anybody got any pics, stories, or input about any of the cars and teams told about between page 18 and here, especially the ones for which I had no pics??? Thanks!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!!!!!

 

My Dart 2006 at Famosa CHRR. N/SS AFX class

 

2012 Oddy Austin