Tom.. Thats what it looks like is going to happen..He and Lee doing the run offs..You and I can race that little Ol' lady in the hopped up wheelchair...
Well, be that way then. At the moment we're relegated to running Open Wheel (a bracket class) so the tree'll balance out the differences anyway. We want to snag a 13 with this set-up as it is before we make any more changes. I think we might be able to eventually squeeze a 12 out of the stock engine if we can get the carbs working right, the right gears and shorten the drive train. Then we want to back-track, thrash out that YH and see what we can do on one barrel. Should put us back at 15+ or so. Kin we hang with youse guys again then? Purdy pleeeeeease?
Well lets just say that with a whomping 198 cu in motor, We ain't gonna set the world on fire. But I am trying for a 980 lb car though. That way, When I put my FAT butt in it, it will be right up there with you guys...
Harsh....that's harsh. so how heavy is that the car, and just out of curiousity, how well does it tow on that single axle trailer? In regards to the headers, have been doing some reading on 'intake pulsing', which whilst being a different topic altogether showed refference to a slant in a test car, that originally had a set of short zoomies, car ran about 86mph(ish, from memory), it then fitted a set of headers that had 36" long 1 5/8", then dumping into 2 secondaries (about 2 1/4" bore) for the length of the vehicle......improved to 94mph. Just offering food for thought. Cheers, Drewfus
We don't know the car's weight yet. Yeah, I know that's hard to believe but it seems the fates've been against us in that endeavor. Both strips we've run at have had their scales down every time and the local dumps won't let us do it there. And the way we have to park the trailer here (for now) doesn't allow me to dismount it here (I have to do my work on it on the trailer) so I can't rig up a bathroom scale gag yet. At the moment we're guessing around 1200 lbs. but God alone knows how close that is. Add me and that adds up some. Yeah, tuned collectors are a great top end enhancer with a long history, we want to cobble some up once we get the rest of it under control. The longish Lynx manifold is already doing some of that on the intake side too. One of our present goals is to see just how quick & fast we can get a slant with honestly stock internals to go. Then one of our next goals is to see what we can do with a stocker with a factory one barrel and stock manifolds. They came with a Carter YH on the motor home, some industrial set-ups and perhaps some marine set-ups and we feel that carb may have more hidden potential than the uprights. That's what we actually designed our first run exhaust manifold & pipe for, so of course we've kept it. We plan on having a lot of fun with this car. Someday we'll likely put in a reasonably built engine and see about taking a shot at some HA/GR records, but not for a bit yet. As for the trailer, it tows great. We hung the axle just abaft the balance point of the loaded trailer and she tows straight & solid with about 200 lbs. on the ball. When we get the rear end moved forward (tailshaft & housing shortened some) we'll load'er up with the front wheels back that distance on the trailer, leaving the balance nearly the same for about 180 lbs. on the ball.
Drewfus, Regarding headers; I dyno a lot of engines and I've seen amazing results with collector extensions. On one 406 SB Chevy bracket engine I was able to pick up 96 lbs of TQ @ 4500 rpm by adding 18" of collector. (An 8" extension hurt the TQ.) The results was so drastic I had to do a back-back test to verify the results. On a 433cid Ford, FE street engine collector extensions increased TQ 51 lbs @ 3500 rpm. Peak HP typically increases about 1-1.5 percent. Not much, but everything helps. The primary length isn't as important as the diameter. A primary length of 36 inches will get most street/bracket engines in the ball park. If your going to error on primary diameter, too small is better than too big. One thing to keep in mind, with the standard tranny the rpm will drop a bunch on the 2-3 gear change. Typically, the rpm will drop from 5500 to about 3000-3200. Depending on the tranny gear ratio's the rpm may be different...but not much. That means we have to concentrate on midrange TQ. Tune the exhaust, that's where forgotten TQ is at. Hope I didn't put anyone to sleep with my rambling. Ron
Note: appoligies for ransacking the thread a bit, but keen to hear more... So what would you suggest? Ive been reading about intake lengths as well, and ballpark numbers for about 5500 rpm equates to approximately 18", with the 36" on the exhaust primary. Ron, can you start a thread on this topic with your perspective because I too would like to play with my relatively 'stock' engine, exploring benifits of simple 'bolt on' mods......making my own intake & race headers does't scare me... Again, appoligies, will get back to the program. Cheers, Drewfus
Agreed, we could use a "HA/GR Tech" Thread to swap our innovations and help the others who are just starting out in the wonderful world of home constructed drag cars.
We do need a thread that will give a place to share what we know and have experienced. I know with the intake it is all about harmonics. If you want to make the most HP at 4000 to 6000 rpm you need a runner from the intake valve to the base of the plenum of 13 inches. This should taper down from the plenum to the intake port approximately 25 percent. If you want to make HP in the 2500 to 4000 rpm you need to have runners about 34 inches a long runner. If you ever see pictures of the old Ramchargers Plymouth you will see that they were really into that. The old 413 Chrysler product Super Stock cars used this also by running the carbs on long runners clear out over the opposite valve cover. I know there are a lot of great minds out there and it is fun to experiment. That is all gone today in racing. Roy
The Chrysler intake was tuned to have a 10 percent torque increase at 2800 rpm. The heads of Chrysler felt this would give the best "feel" for the average car owner even though some horsepower was lost at high rpm. For those interested in designing their own intake system you may find the following book interesting: "Scientific Design of Exhaust and Intake Systems" Philip H. Smith & Doctor John C. Morrison. They spent 40 years, full time, designing and testing these systems. After reading this book several times (and other books as well) take a common sense approach and copy or buy an intake that works. Besides, you need a dyno to accurately test the different designs. Ron
OK, finally got some time to begin prep for Butch's August ANRA meet. Done so far ....... Added some advance marks to the nose pulley and timed'er properly (finally). Did a full re-engineer of the clutch linkage for more travel and better adjustability. Added a mirror so's we can back'er onto the trailer now, because> Modified the trailer to roll on & off from the front rather than the back. This'll give us a much shallower loading angle to deal with and is our response to an incident earlier this year. We came close to losing the car off the back (on the freeway) when the tie-downs came loose unnoticed. But for another racer pulling along side us and getting our attention we certainly would've. Yet to do ....... Do a full & proper rebuild on the carbs. Try out the mods we've dreamed up to finish off the top end lean-out problem. Have the nose art done. We've arranged with a talented friend to have him do up the nose art idea we settled on awhile back. Hope to have it done by the 23rd. Finish the second hoop on the roll bar. And if we get the top end working right; put in the 4.10 gears we got. Looking forward to Cool August Nights.
Rand Man this one's for you, No, I hadn't forgotten, and this is certainly embarassing. It occurred to me only this morning that I didn't need to find some flat land to set up a "bathroom scale" scale. I realized I could simply level the damn trailer and do it right here. Why haven't I thought of it before? Well now, that seems to be the embarassing bit. At any rate, my admittedly rough figures came up at 1300# (only a bit more than the 1200# we'd hoped) for the car and an average 200# for our drivers. Ready to launch it works out to 1500# with 42% on the fronts and 58% on the rears. Once we get the gearbox's tail shortened (and the wheelbase thus shortened) it'll be just about right on a 40/60 split, pretty much what we were looking for. Now if we can just shave off some weight (and maybe from the car as well ) ............... Also finally "doped" out a portion of our recalcitrant top end problem. Turned out to be a ftupib mistake of my own. For certain reasons I placed the #1 plug one position out from the factory dist. cap location. Well, the gear has 13 teeth so can't match the 60* move exactly. The available range in the factory adjustment slots will cover the difference, IF IT'S MOVED THE CORRECT DIRECTION. If it's stupidly moved the other way the rotor gets too far past the contact during advance and you lose spark at a given tach point NO MATTER WHAT ELSE YOU FIDDLE WITH. Hey, I made 62 last month. Do I get to claim "senior moments"? Oh well, I readjusted it & popped on a wide contact cap to cover my ass, and now at least I can get on with tucking in the 4.10s. The way things are going this week I only hope I can locate Famoso again before August is over .............
Hey Old6rodder you are a month older than former pres Bill Clinton. And I am 3 days older then he is Aug 19 for him and Aug 16 for me. When you shorten the back of your car, have you found a way to shorten the tail shaft? Do some of the old vans have short shafts? When you cross the quarter mile line does it feel like a big go cart?
#1. Wow, that's incredible. We're only slightly older than slick willie, yet so very much cooler. #2. Well, working alone and without the benefit of multitudes of staff & advisors I guess I'll just have to take my own blame. Clinton fans, don't get your chonies in a bunch. For me a good joke trumps even my own opinions, and I've had some great Reagan & Bush (& Bush) ones as well. Thanks Joe, best set-up line I've had so far this year. Yeah, the only shorty gearboxes I've found for the slant are some of the very different truck & van units. Quite heavy, bulky, their output splines aren't slip joint and they aren't all that much shorter due to their larger original size. Their slip joints are further down their (two-piece) driveline. I bought one but will only cobble it in if the car boxes prove too weak, something I don't expect to happen. Keeping a slip joint eases the layout design criticals considerably, so should it come to the truck box I'll likely look into using the splines in a (very limited) slip joint manner. I haven't as yet looked to see what that'd take. "We'll cross that bridge when .........." The early (ball & trunion) car output shafts have enough meat on'em right behind the aft box bearing to handle new splines for the later slip joint. Cut it off, spline it and treat it. The tail bushing appears to be a perfunctory element and thus deletable with the shortened output. After that it's just a matter of cutting off the tail housing end and adding a seal carrier (the seal acts on the slip collar) from the later tail. Just a bit of cast aluminum work. Yes, it is a fun ride. It's really something to be at 90+ with your toes between open front wheels. I'm quite looking forward to a C-note. I never had this sensation on a cart as the focus was on the corners and I used the visual reference of the inside front wheel in my lower peripheral most of the time. Here I'm focused on the track only and it's more like I'm racing with nothing but a suit & bucket on 'til I clear the traps and re-notice the front wheels. Russ seems to enjoy it some as well .............
OK, photo site updated. What with the advance stupidity addressed, a couple mods on the carbs dealing with windage and the new gears in we're nearly ready to go to Bakersfield. So I took some pictures of the bits & pieces and put'em in the album. You may notice the cowl missing. It's off at our friend's getting the nose art done. I'll add some pictures when we get it back, should be Monday or Tuesday.
Right now I'm stock piling parts.......we're going to be forced to get after it this winter to keep up with Thingy and Old6'
Not real teeth, just dentures. Actually we had considered the Flying Tigers when we were kicking around artwork ideas (I believe Arfons did something like that on a "Monster" once) but decided we wanted something that reflected on the "Barn Job" aspect of the name. I shan't spill the beans but I will say that what we settled on not only works in that way but also reflects very nicely the era our HA/GRs represent. I'm really bustin' at the seams to spit it out but I won't.
It's here, it's on and ...... IT ...... IS ...... BITCHIN'!!!!! Our nose art, of course. Our buddy Mike Stangler nailed what we wanted dead on, including Daisy Mae, although we were SERIOUSLY tempted to do Stupefyin' Jones (and I really liked Joe Btfsplk). Al Capp's 1934 comic innovation ran into '77 and not only covers, but was very much alive during the era our cars represent. Pictures are in the album, naturally.
Looks great. I envy anyone with artistic talent since I don't have any. I still think a rear engine car will eventually kick all our butts. Ron
Ditto ....... Ron, I'm not so sure about that. I recall Arfons' problems with ets. His speeds were great but he never really clocked well with those tires, the slingshots were better. Garlits solved it later of course, but not with street tires (not that we have anything resembling their hps, but the physics are likely similar). Here's hoping you're right though.
Great finishing touch.......now take her out and fly!! Perhaps we need a "Nose Art" thread. Anyone else out there with some?
Old6, I think Arfon's problem was trying to get all the weight (mass) moving quickly. The conventional diggers were much lighter and reacted much quicker. Arfon's cars were tanks. Ron
The Saga ............ Well, it was interesting. We headed up to Russ's Wednesday afternoon to allow time to add the second hoop on Thursday (I'll have some pictures up sometime this week). Turned out we had to bend it with a 4" rad. exhaust bender. We managed, didn't come out bad as I feared. Then I had to mount it with an unfamiliar mig that was set hot for .035" wire but fitted with .020", a "flash" bucket that didn't, and then a non-flash bucket with someone else's corrective lenses and lastly a gun style I've not used before. I must say, some of the ugliest beads I've laid in rather awhile. Functional, but "ugly stick" ugly. No need to redo'em but certainly not work you brag about. Anyway, back at Russ's Friday morning I painted it all up (helped a little) and popped'er on stands for a listen to the new gears. Sounded good, so back on the trailer and out to Bakersfield for t&t on Friday night. Got'er off loaded and tech'ed and took'er out for a spin just around sundown. At the strip end of the lanes I hit the lights switch. Big puff of smoke from the dash and she quits cold. Killed the lights and tried a restart, no problem. Lights again, dead again (at least without the smoke this time). Kill the lights, reflame'er, roll up to prestage and tell the tale to the starter. "No sweat, just get it fixed before next round." Cool. Line'er up and make the run, at 15.122 @ 90.15, crapping out at the top of each gear. Sure as hell wasn't the high 13 we'd been looking for. Felt like it was just down on punch as well. Back in the pits we chased down the short and corrected it. Fortunately no harm to the circuitry. Russ took a turn next and said it was crapping even lower now. Back in the pits we popped the dist cap and the "perfectly reliable" Pertronix I'd put in so we could concentrate on the carbs had shed its tape and spit two of the little magnets out. GDMFSOB! Pulled all six, JB Welded'em back in and called it 'til morning to let the epoxy set. Next morning we put it back together, no change. The electronics had been boogered. Looks like we're out of it. A bit later Russ related the tale to Butch and Butch mentioned a local (12 mi.) parts store that might carry '60s points & condensers for the farmers and such. We hopped in the truck and beat feet over. They not only had the parts, they even had an assortment package of ignition screws to go with. Many thanks and back to the strip. One nice thing about real points is the ability to throw'em in by eyeball and be bloody damn close to specs. Fired'er up about sundown again and put in a 15.367 @ 92.29 for first round qualifying. Russ took his turn but with the carb crap still there couldn't improve it, so we decided to dial in at a conservative 15.00. First elim rolled around just before midnight. We'd diddled the carbs a bit but it didn't sound much better. I warmed the hides this time and broke out by .374 with a 14.626 @ 92.39 to the other lane's .156 break-out. Toasted in the first round, the loser of a double break-out. All in all, we had a great time (emotional roller coaster not-withstanding), saw some old friends, made some new ones and in spite of the set-backs, are happy with how the car's doing under the circumstances. Looking forward to ANRA #4 with hopes of finally getting these carbs under control.
You know on my 348 powered 58 Chevy I ran Pertronix for 5 years and never had a problem but for racing I think that points and condenser are more user friendly. A solid state is not usually fixable when it goes south. A set of points can be filed or reset and if you carry a spare condenser you can usually get back in the game.Roy
The Jalopy Journal
