Projects Northwest Vintage Dragster Group Build.

Steering arm looks dainty.

 

Thanks Walt, we are really looking forward to Woodburn, that will be my birthday so you guys should let me win....

 

Yeah most of it is in this hex drive steering wheel disconnect, amazes me they would send out parts like that. From there to the pitman arm is tight, but then we need to rework all of the T stuff down at the axle it's just 90 year old T stuff as found, everything has wear.

We were sort of thinking that the steering was really fast and were considering shortening the pitman arm. But we are pretty green at this whole dragster thing often we don't know what we want until someone tells us...

 

Regarding steering - My setup is three turns lock to lock with a butterfly steering wheel. Works well, but I did tilt the wheel up more after first running the car. Check for good clearance between your legs and the steering wheel.

 

Yeah, leg clearance's critical. And particularly so should you have to whip it for any reason.

Looking at the vid again, I see slightly over one turn lock to lock. I guess the wide arm movement had me misguided. Looks to be pretty good as is, though you may opt for a smaller wheel eventually.

I use a 10" round wheel with 1.5 turns lock to lock, pretty close to what you have. On 8* caster it's two fingers easy at speed & burnouts (and comes in real handy for that mean hairpin turn onto the return road at Barona ).

Of course my locked rear makes'er a bit stiff to turn in the pits & lanes (and actually slid straight for a couple feet while turning for staging in some water at Fontana once ), but an open diff'd be easy.

A bit surprised at the slop in your hex hub. Mine's just fine. Perhaps an odd manufacturer?

 

The steering wheel will definatly need to shrink a couple of inches, what is on there was just something i burned out on the plasma bed so we could play with the steering that night. Im thinking about dragging out my aluminum foundry and cast up some like this.

Or this

Or this

 

I had these cast about 8 years ago.

 

Great minds think alike..

 

neat car! make sure that chain aint made in china!!!

 

The weekly get together was last night, brats and kraut was the feast.

Then we set about replacing that steering wheel quick disconnect. The new splined one is really nice, problem solved there.

Then some tabs were cut out and tacked on for the radiator. The radiator i picked up down at the Pomona Swap meet when we were down for TROG.



The rest of the night was spent woking on the helmet bars. I'm not so sure we don't need to rework the bar behind the helmet, if there were padding on it the hemet would be resting on it. You fellas with experiance please let me know what you think. The farthest forward hoop is at 20* layback.

 

Out here cage padding's mandatory. So in that having it against your bucket's a personal choice I'd say just ask the driver (s?). You also may want to consider the possibility of future rules changes regarding HANS requirements. NoHotRodsAllowed has been known to get silly over the years.

I manage to avoid padding aft, and have about 3" clearance aft, due to my seat having a designed in head rest that our techs presently accept that way. Though I did give'er a minor whack on this one run when my launch caught more traction than I expected. No harm or hurt, but it got my attention.

 

Walt sent an updated schedule for the www.nwvintagedragster.com
website. they have added a whole bunch of new dates, should be fun.

Also we added another members build to the website by Jim Weiblen, looks like a cool build check it out here http://www.rottenleonard.com/Dragster-Members-Cars-.html

You Spokane, Tri-cities, Walla Walla People need to step up. Lets get a bunch of these going at the Walla Walla Drag strip or Spokane Raceway Park. I'm thinking east WA vrs. west WA Championship next year....

 

Randy fixed us up with some awesome taco's tonight


Then they ruffed out the header.


Me and Wayne worked on the brake pedal, i thought we had it whooped until Randy hopped in, he's a few inches taller than me and doesn't need ski's to water ski, complete no-go for him so we will have to rework the pedal so he can drive it.


Parting shot

 

Make you a vintage looking scoop and hide a pro stock scoop inside it.

 

Better hope you are not the one to make any carb adjustments with the engine running YIKES

 

Yeah i don't know this arrangement will be long lived, I just want to get the car going. I am pretty intrigued by the SBC head conversion. Hoping to build a race motor next winter with the proper mods for that. The fellas wanted to try the harley carb thing, so why not.

 

Race car night tonight, my NHRA rule book is from 2004, anybody know if you use one of these new tiny gel cell battery's, does it still need to be in a box? Thinking about putting it up on the firewall on the right side and then running a rod up from the back of the car for the battery shutoff.

 

As far as I've seen, there's nothing in the rules about different types of batteries. So I think it will need to be enclosed.

 

I usually operate a remote battery shut off with a cable. Don't use a genuine Morse cable as they are too stiff. The best ones are the grey spiral wound ones that come from Control Cables ( http://www.controlcables.com/) and are readily available from Good Vibrations (http://www.goodvibesracing.com/). By using a cable you can mount the components anywhere and don't need a straight shot to the rear of the car.

Roo

 

Thanks Walt, probably wishful thinking, it can come with a slick little mount that would be easy, but making up a box wont be difficult.

 

Thanks Roo! Lots of cool stuff on that site. The cable makes sense, should help to keep the battery cables short. We are going to use a gear reduction starter and we are going to run an alternator so we shouldn't need a lot of battery.

 

I thought they only needed to be in a closed box if in the drivers compartment vented to the outside.
They say it has to be mounted with 3/8 hold down bolts.

 

Last night we formed up and tacked in the horizontal helmet bar

Then step rolled and riveted the back panel. I was hoping to rivet the back to the bottom but i don't think we could get the panels out in one piece so a row of screws will have to do.

Randy knocked out some side panels.

I had redone the back panels so the seatbelt mounts could be moved down lower as someone recommended and then we cut out some tabs to bolt the seatbelts to. There is also a tab tacked on the rear seat cross bar for the crotch strap.

Started rounding over the top of the back panels, still needs some plannishing and a relief cut in the center.

 

The way you're going with the alternator and starter, you're right that you won't need much of a battery. For a while I was just using a small garden tractor battery. Worked well, but only had a lifetime of a couple of years.

 

I figured we need an enclosed trailer to haul all of this stuff, so tru to my nature one more iron in the fire. I now have a Mirage Trailer franchise, the first semi load showed up with 3 more truck loads on their way. I will give Alliance members a price break on them too and this is how I get myself into this shit....

 

Builds looking great and so did the taco's. We use one of those little batteries(3lbs) 16 volts and it works great. It will last all night without charging it running the elec water pump and fan. Antigravity batteries X12-16

 

if I may I`d like to make a suggestion on your carb install. granted, she only has to perform at idle and wfo. you might install a plenum . balance tubes have proven to create what some might call a ventury effect at the intake runners causing turbulence on the intake charge. a plenum allows each set of cylinders to draw as needed and smoothing the atomized charge. you guys have proven you have the ability to make something nice

 

It looks like you folks are capable builders however I,m not sure what era dragster you are trying to replicate but you are doing over kill on a lot of your engineering , steering for example,use a Crossly ,you could use the long sterring shaft and mount it on the frame ahead of the bell housing . I know this system was used ( I for one)and looks odd however it will steer very good You may have to make the Pitman arm longer. Also I think an A axle would have been better. Looks like excellent workmanship and if you work on the 250 a little it will yank that little car around pretty good. Have ran a lot of 292 Chevys and love them. Please use a fluid balancer or TCI Rattler at the front.

 

I don't disagree at all. We are sort of just running towards a driving car first, then we will refine it as we go. That intake setup is something one of the guys had laying on their shelf. I would really like to try the sbc head conversion on a 250 just to say we did it. But that is more of an undertaking than the amount of winter we have left.

 

I don't know either just following our noses, not taking things too seriously. This is mostly about a great group of guys getting together and messing around in the shop.