Identification of Early Rear Engine Dragster

Who knows anything about this early rear engine dragster? What I want to know specifically is how the blower drive is set up. The car is obviously powered by a Mopar "RB" series engine (383, 413, etc.). If you look closely, it was opted to drive the blower from the rear. What I can't figure out is how it is setup to be driven from the flywheel/clutch end of the crank. Someone among you knows the answer to this mystery ..........

 

Where is this said ride? supposed to be a pic too?

 

The photo should be visible now. I had some problems with the formatting of the photo.

To answer your question, I have read somewhere that the car was out of California, ca. 1960. I don't know where it is now.

The issue is that I'm rarely stumped on anything mechanical. However, this photo is a puzzlement. How in the hell is that blower drive set up? I have some theories, but I want to know so I can stop thinking about it.

Somebody around here knows the answer.

 

Maybe he was running a V drive and the engine is in backwards??????

 

That was my and some others first thought. However, the engine is mounted conventionally. That blower is definitely driven from the back side.

There are some boat setups that drive the blower from the flywheel end of the crankshaft with the engine mounted front forward. This application is for jet drives where there is no room for a front driven blower. See photos below ........





Note drive pulley working in conjunction with the flywheel.

 

driven off the cam maybe?

 

crankshaft is hollow with another shaft running thru it, made from alien dna alloy...

 

My interp is that the black part that you think is a blower belt is a chain guard and there is a gear between the crank flange and flywheel. The real issue is how the engine-clutch-rearend is coupled together as there isnt a great deal of space between them- definatly a high gear setup.

 

^^^ Yeah ... I figured it probably had to be a chain drive. It would be cool to see the setup at the crank. The bell housing had to be slotted to allow the chain to pass through.

 

Hot Rod, Jan. 1961


Sorry about the quality. Scanner isn't the best.

 

Here are a few from the 50's in So Cal.
Normbc9

 

And there you have it!

 

Interesting to note that the chain is driving the left-side rotor instead of the right, a result of the crank running counter-clockwise as viewed from the rear. I never realized that you could switch the drive to either rotor to facilitate using the blower on either clockwise or counter-clockwise applications. Note to self for later.

 

Superb!!!!!!!!!