In short I want to learn more about sixties dragcars. I know some of you guys have plenty of race-experience to answer this: When the sixties super stockers are discussed, -its offcourse allways the engines which is the issue. Cammer vs. Max Vedge vs 409 vs Super Duty etc... This is about the rest of the car: Which stock-ish cars were best suited for the drags chassiswise in the streetlegal classes back then. I ask because in stock form some of these cars had coilsprings, some had leafsprings, and I would expect some stuff to work better than other. If the mill is identical; -which sixties cars works best for dragracing and why. Thanks
I'm no expert, but it seems that lighter weight was a big factor. The '63-'65 full sized Mopars kicked ass big time. They were light weight, uni-body with parallel leaf spung rears and coil sprung fronts, plus giant hemi and wedge motors. (front suspensions on the Mopars were actually torsion bar, Doh! I knew that) Of course there was the mid-sized '64 Ford Fairlane Thunderbolt. Again, light weight, uni-body with parallel leafs and coils and a big old cammer stuffed into them. The "compact" '64 & '65 Falcons and Comets had a lot of success. Also unibody, parallel leafs and coils, plus cammers stuffed into them. One of the big, heavy cars that was also very successful was the '63 Z11 Impala. Full sized, full framed, coil springs all around and the Z11 427 W block motor (my favorite). Unfortunately, Chevy ended it's factory drag racing program after '63. Imagine how a Z11 powered '64 Chevelle might have done.
Might not be what you're looking for, but the 66-67 Nova's were one of the "hot setup"s in the late 60's. Da Grump ran one, so that aughta tell you something about them. I think they had better weight transfer than most of the other cars. They did have some issues with front end geometry, but there were articles in SS&DI that told how to fix them. Mopars were big too. Lots of factory support. You could buy the right springs, pinion snubbers, etc. to make them work on the strip without a lot of experimenting. Mopar also put on racer clinics at the time to help the doorslammer guys. Larry T
Station wagons were popular. One reason was because they allowed more creativity with weight placement to achieve optimum launches.
Seems to me, that even back then, Mopar always had their shit togther as far as rear suspension. Super stock springs, pinion snubbers & all of the rest were available in the old direct connection catalog, which was a decendant of the 60's factory racing (or not..see woodward ave) program
The early MOPARs did have parallel leaf springs in the rear, but had torsion bar front ends, the cheapest version of all body styles worked the best, Savoy, 440 sedans etc. The T-Bolt Fords did not have "cammers", referring to the SOHC Shotgun motor. Instead they had the faithful 427 side oilers. GTO's, full size Ponchos with all aluminum front ends & 421 C.I. The 409s were certainly popular, Jenkins Performance supplied some of those engines as well for many 61-64 full size Chevys. Weak link there was the split driveshaft. Grumps 350 H.P. duece was killer. AMC even did the Pro Stock thing with Wally Booth, Dick Maskins power, Gapp & Roush 4 door Maverick..............used to be some variety back then. I'm a die hard Chevy guy but it would be hard to beat a nice Hemi powered Dodge Dart!
I started a post a few months back about Super Stock cars and no one replied. Here's some eye candy for ya anyways.
mopar ss/fx cars that had the rearend shoved up under the back seat did pretty good.... hemi power never hurt.
Didn't the T-bolts just have leaves in the back? This was a Fairlane that I had awhile ago. It was a '60's drag car from Georgia. Straight axle and fiberglass front end. It was fun. Shouldn't have gotten rid of it. Anybody have one cheap????????
Just Off The Top Of My Head......you Might Try Gassermadness.com Another Thing To Check Out Book Wise....the Larry Davis Super Stock Book As Well As The Gasser Book .....the Bob Mc Clure Picture Book Has A Lot Of Cool Shots...might Also Check The Nostalgia Super Stock Sites....hope It Helps.......brandon
Sailor - Go to: Yahoo/Groups/Recreation & Sports/Auto Racing/Drag Racing/60s StockersSuperstockers (group #192).
If I remember correctly, the Ford Thunderbolts had a very primative traction bar: like, a pieces of box tubing welded to the housing, running forward to a cross member. Eliminated axle wrap! The Mopars, as stated, really had their stuff together. The Torqueflite trans was the toughest ever made--with the push bottons, it was awesome--elininated foot-brake launches. They also had (and still have) spring clamps. These are simple pieces of flat bar stock, about an inch wide and 1/8-inch thick, that bolt to the leaf springs forward of the rear end housing. One bar on top of the spring, another under the spring, bolted together to clamp the springs. Placed at each point where two or more leaves came together, all the way to the front spring eye (so there were two or three clamps). Then the thin factory clips are removed from the rear portion of the spring, between the axle housing and the spring shackle. The result is a virtually solid "bar" from the axle housing forward, and the back half of the springs is relaxed to let the spring still be a spring. This greatly, greatly reduces axle/spring wrap. The factory cars (all of them--not just Mopars), typically had no seam sealer, no sound deadener, radio/heater delete, etc. A bunch of cars even came with the battery relocated to the trunk. The Pontiacs used a Ford heavy truck hood scoop: they bought them from Ford, gave them a Pontiac part number, and then supplied them to the racers. From Ford, they were designed to face reward on their big dump trucks. On Ponchos, they faced forward. The early Mopars also used Dodge A-100 van bucket seats, on sheet aluminuim risers (with three big lightening holes drilled in them). These seats weigh next to nothing. I think the Ford T-bolts did the same with Econoline van seats. Chevys had a three-link rear suspension, with a single arm on top of the housing. Chevy racers added a second arm (factory piece) with their own brackets running forward and making it a more conventional (by today's standards) 4-point suspension with coil over springs. At some point, the Mopars also started getting rid of the window lift mechanisms in the doors, and just used a seat belt to raise and lower the window. A seat belt was attached to the bottom of the window, and when the belt was pulled down to the bottom of the door, the window raised. The female half of the seat belt latch was bolted to the bottom of the door, to hold the seat belt/window in the up position. -Brad
Oops sorry I talk about X frames all the time (I own 3 X cars) whenever I hear full frame I assume....
I forgot to add this website it was in my favourites... cool group of guys re living the glory days! http://www.nostalgiasuperstock.com/
I dig the X frames too. I own a '63 Impala and '59 Biscayne. I've owned the '63 for over 20 years. It has the look of a Z11, all white, Ford/Pontiac hood scoop, nose cranked up a bit, 15"x3" slots w/ 7.75 black walls up front and white 15" steelies w/ black wall cheater slicks in back. It's actually just a stocker, lotsa bark, not much bite.
Motorbooks has a bunch of books out about 60's drag racing..Superstock, Gassers, acouple others-all very good, all worthy of a shelf in your library...well, at least, I think so. Tons of info/pics
Here is a pic of the Thunderbolt I did the body/paint on during the restoration. http://angelonearth.net/thunderbolt.htm It's one of the originals owned by Phil Bonner - serial # PB5 if I remember correctly. They had 'glass fenders, hood, doors, trunklid, & bumpers; plexi windows (all but the windshield), & Jeep seats. The US flag was originally a rebel, but candy-ass Phill was afraid it would stir shit up during current day (this was mid eighties best I recall). Wish I could remember more about it for you folks (but I'm sure all the specs & details are out there). ~ Paul aka "Tha Driver" If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?
I thought their would be more old guys answering this post, but anyway, In 1967 I ran a 1957 210 Chevy with a 409 bored to 425 with everything that was hot in it, 4 speed, olds rear end, rear leaf spring, ladder bar, and front coil spring lifted with a zillion spring blocks. The interior had a bench seat, roll cage and nothing else, the front end was acid dipped to make it as light as possible, it had stock bumpers and lights. I street raced it and raced C/G at the track. The chassi was primitive by todays standards, but it worked. I made lots of H/P and Torque, BUT what we needed Most was Tire Technology. If you look at all of the old pictures you will see Smoke, and more smoke. I could melt tires!! If we had todays tires back then we could have really Kicked A$$. It would have been realy cool to have had Good tires just to see Who was the best. The only cars that scared me were the fiberglass cars. They were able to put more weight on the rear and had somewhat of an advantage. But they still smoked the tires and if you were good with your clutch, you could still win.
Here's a pic of my 63' dodge polara. The car is 99% stock and still runs 10.92 @118mph. These old superstock dodges are amazingly fast for their size.
Very cool that this thread turned into such a great read. Since my question was so vague I feared it would sink like a stone, but I learned a lot here. I get the feeling that mid sixties mopars (Coronets, Savoy, Fury etc) and the 64 Fairlane Thunderbolt was the best racecars if the engine is kept out of the discussion. But to keep the 426 hemi out of the mopars sucess is kinda hard. So to refrase it all: If you were going to put together a streetable sixties dragcar; which car would you go for and why? Im not talking about looks and coolness, -but what works and why.
For what it's worth Sailor, my street/strip car depends entirely on power to weight ratio. It weighs 2250 lbs with me in it (it's a Morris Minor) and makes about 500 hp with a 406 small block Chevy. This equates to 10.30s at the track and I can still use it as my work commuter. Rear suspension is trailer leaf springs (clamped in the front half) and a pinion snubber, period. This set-up gives me 1.40 60' times. If I were to do this again with a more mainstream car, it'd have to be an early Tempest, or a first generation Nova or Falcon. As a low-income guy, I can't afford big horsepower or tricky suspension, so I depend on light weight to get the job done. It works for me.....Good luck on your quest.........
Little too young to have done the 60's drags, but when I was 8(1968) my brother made the mistake of taking me with him to the local speed shop. After that I 'd blackmail him every chance I got to go back. They'd let me sweep or take out garbage or park me in a corner with stacks of old drag mags. (Years later I found that they kept all the "good" magazines stashed in the restroom...) Shop car was a Super Stock Hemi Belvedere and I still have a reciept from Bill Jenkins, $900 and change for a super stock hemi engine! Lots of cars came through there but one that stuck in my mind was a hemi dart with a mural of a guy with a blowgun on the trunk and the name "Poison Dart". Well a couple weeks ago watching the US Nationals on TV and here's Pro Stock bikes. Well I knew Joe Desantis was a local racer back then but I just made the connection. As he rolls to the line for 1st round on his unsponsored #16 qualified bike -vs- the#1 Harley I see the lettering on the bike "poison dart", that was HIS hemi dart. Now at the age where most are collecting social security he's goin 180mph on 2 wheels (cool) plus #1 harley goes red against him (even cooler). By the time I graduated to full-on gopher the hemi belvedere had been replaced with a Hurst built Super Stock AMX and we had to race the thunderbolt fairlanes in SS/C. Cool thread, Thanks!
Not all the Mopars were running the Hemi. The 413 and 426 Max Wedge engines were killers. So, if I were going to put together a car, it'd be an early Mopar, with a 440 (tons of power, can be built at a great price). After that, the rest just falls together. -Brad
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