FBecigneul
Member
Oh,
Too much powder and too much neck tension.
Too much powder and too much neck tension.
We Haven't Had A Good Car Thread In A While...........My '67 Chevelle
- Thread starter jackie schmidt
- Start date
dmort
Active member
David Apple
Member
That's the half shaft that goes to the wheel. Jag IRS suspension.
A pal had a '87-ish Jag XJS. Beautiful car...white with camel leather. The original engine went four up and he did the sensible thing and bought a top of the line conversion kit and put a bone stock 350 Chevy and a Turbo 350 trans in it. That thing would go through those half shaft/axles like a meth addict on pay day.
He named it 'Spaghetti Betty' in honor of those toothpicks.
He named it 'Spaghetti Betty' in honor of those toothpicks.
David Apple
Member
It's in my head from some where that the center section of a Jag (housing, ring and pinion) was 9 inch Ford. I would imagine if that were true that that much of it was tough enough? My friend Nike built a 63 Vette back in 63 and 64 that the owner wanted to retain the independ rear and they made the center from a Dana 60 and made all the rest of the parts by hand. It was tough enough to handle a hemi the made 750hp, back in the day that was a lot of power. If you have power and hook up you need good drive train. If the tires or the power are missing drive train need not be much.
dmort
Active member
A Mopar Hemi in an almost new Corvette? That's blasphemy! Hey....different strokes for different folks, aka, there's an a.. hole for every seat.
The Vette big block arrived in mid 65 (396) and the 427 the following year with h.p. up to 450. Standing start (street or racetrack) caused some serious issues with the I.R.S. drivetrain. Drag racers preferred the earlier straight axle Vette for traction. These cars ran NHRA Sports or Modified Sports Classes.
This is more info than anyone wants or cares to know but sometimes I can't stop myself.
Mort
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I haven't done much looking for this car on line. My friend worked for Ollie Olsen in West Palm Beach FL and they built the car for a rich guy from Tampa as I recall. When it was first built it had a 429 Ford which to my way of thinking is even worse than a Hemi. Ollie told the owner that with the Ford and the after market parts at the time they could not make it competitive. So after 1 year they went to the Hemi. My friend is Nick Zapetis and he said that the car was on the cover of every magazine about drag cars and hot rods that were in print in the 2 years they raced the car. There was a funny car by the same name years latter but this was the first car called the Mongoose. Ollie and my friend won the Motor Trend race car of the year award with this car and with Ollie's car the Willameaner. Ollie raced a Henry J for years and it was never as fast as he wanted to go so when he built the Willis he put a Hemi in it and it was definitely meaner than the Henry J. Nick told me that they were the very first to have an onboard fire extinguisher the had lines pointing at the engine and a line protecting the driver. Nick was an inspector for the NHRA at the national meets for years, I can't even drag him to the races anymore. He tells me he wants to see a driver drive the car not a computer.
chriscovell
New member
Nailhead
My uncle had a 32 with a nailhead. Had to lengthen the frame to make it fit.Wow, Mike, you are showing your age
Those first generation Hemi's have to be the coolest street rod engine ever, except for maybe a Buick Nail Head.
I have never admitted to being much of anything except an old Hot Rodder, my wife asked me why in the world I wanted that gosh awful monster I just had installed in the Chevelle, and the best answer I can give her is 'because".
I love modern Hot Rodding. We can all remember when all you had a choice of was reworked Factory stuff, or extremely expensive aftermarket parts. The very first set of Air Flow Reasearch Heads I ever owned was in 1977 back in my Boat Racing days. They were the old 'snow flake' Chevy aluminum castings, with the exaust side welded up, raised, and D-Ported, then angle milled 1/4 inch. In todays dollars, what I had to give for those heads would have cost $20,000.
Now, it's a matter of making a choice for the application you want. It's amazing the selection of heads, blocks, cranks, cams, induction systems, etc, that is no more than a phone call away. 496 cubic inches used to be the practical limit, now it's middle of the road. I stopped at 540 inches simply because I did not want to go to a tall block, too much hassle getting everything in the car.
We used to make street horsepower with 13 to 1 compression, big flat tappet cams, and hogged out stock heads. No idle, no vaccuum, ill tempererd, and you had to rev the darn thing untill the belts came off. Now, you can build a massive cubic inch engine, get heads that flow big numbers with maximum port velocity, Hyd Roller Cams that are computer designed to be perfectly compatible with the other parts, and you have a rather "mild" engine that will shred the tires, scare the cr-p out of you, but idle smooth, have great vacuum, run cool, and make lots of power down where you can use it.
These are great times for Hot Rodders.
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hang over
Nick told that when they took the car to Detroit to Ramchargers to get the motor. The guys that built the motor wanted to install it. Nick said not to far into the installation one of the wrench twisters broke off a coarse bolt in a hole that had fine threads. Nick found a piece of tail pipe with a cherry bomb muffler on the end and chased the mech. around the shop till Ollie and Pete tackled him. They drug him out to the truck and headed for a strip club. Pete called the shop and told them to have the motor in and running by morning, he didn't care what it cost. Nick said if my head wasn't throbbing I would have found the tailpipe and finish the job, but I was in no condition to do any thing but moan. Latter in the day they arrived at a track and started to set the car up, he said it was worth it cause it was fast.
Nick told that when they took the car to Detroit to Ramchargers to get the motor. The guys that built the motor wanted to install it. Nick said not to far into the installation one of the wrench twisters broke off a coarse bolt in a hole that had fine threads. Nick found a piece of tail pipe with a cherry bomb muffler on the end and chased the mech. around the shop till Ollie and Pete tackled him. They drug him out to the truck and headed for a strip club. Pete called the shop and told them to have the motor in and running by morning, he didn't care what it cost. Nick said if my head wasn't throbbing I would have found the tailpipe and finish the job, but I was in no condition to do any thing but moan. Latter in the day they arrived at a track and started to set the car up, he said it was worth it cause it was fast.
Lee Martin
Active member
Nailheads can be a tough fit with the starter on the left side. Tends to get really close to the steering column. I put one in my '33 3-window Ford:
It's a 0.060" over 401 with compression bumped to 12:1 (and a really big cam). Runs on race fuel but is pretty stout. Nailheads may not rev like other engines and they don't produce the big HP figures....but they develop gobs of torque in the mid-range. My old 401 was 445 ft/lbs @ 2,800 rpm stock.
-Lee
www.singleactions.com
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jackie schmidt
New member
Lee, I'm sure you remember "Mr Nail Head" TV Tommy Ivo.
http://www.tommyivo.com/_PagesDragRacing/2-Front Engine Dragsters.html
I got to see the 4 engine monster run in a Match race back in the early '60's. It literally smoked all four tires half way down the track.
Your car brings back a lot of memories.
http://www.tommyivo.com/_PagesDragRacing/2-Front Engine Dragsters.html
I got to see the 4 engine monster run in a Match race back in the early '60's. It literally smoked all four tires half way down the track.
Your car brings back a lot of memories.