We Haven't Had A Good Car Thread In A While...........My '67 Chevelle

powderbrake said:
Lots of big block and drag pics in this thread. I had some smaller engine cars in the past. Here is my 1959 Berkeley, with an Excelscior 500 cc 3 cylinder, 3 dellarto carb, 2 cycle engine. Chain drive to the front wheels. 4 speed transmission, but no reverse. To get into reverse, you turned off the engine, threw the reverse switch, which switched polarity to the combo starter/generator on the end of the crankshaft, and started in reverse. It was easier to pick up the back end and slide it to the curb. The car weighed 700 pounds.

These pics are from around 1964, and my two year old daughter used to love it, yelling "faster, daddy, faster".
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I had a Berkley in about 1964 with the Excelcior engine. Some of us knew Dick Wright. Dick had a Berkley also.
It appears that you have a Dean Chenowth tube frame. Good quality buggy.
 
powderbrake said:
So here is a kit car which I built, again small engine, it has a Honda S2000 engine and 6 speed gearbox. The engine produces 240 hp , runs 9000 rpm, and the car weighs 1400 pounds. It is a replica of a 1967 Lotus Model 7. It made the cover of Kit Car magazine in September 2005

The frame is 1" square tube, powdercoated, the body shell is aluminum, the hood is fiberglass, fenders are aluminum. Front spindles are Fieros, streering is MGB, diff is a limited slip from a Subaru, as are the rear axles. QA1 shocks, SSR forged wheels, 12" dia Wilwood disks, with 2 piston Wilwood Dynalite calipers. Auto meter Pro Comp gages.

Th car is fast, and turns 12.6 @ 105 in the quarter on street tires. It will eat the vettes and the cobras in the twisties…. but those big V8's will catch it on the straights. It won quite a few trophies at Run & Gun between 2004 and 2007. I sold it last year to a guy who is seriously autocrossing it.
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I love your kit car mainly your choice of drive train. It is a great choice! The quality of work and the rest of the parts is just great also.
 
powderbrake said:
........ The last pic is my wife and I at the Tail of the Dragon.
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SWEET car, and a sweet piece of road. Awesome uphill on a 2-wheeler.

Until there's a wreck. (This ain't no "drive careful" preach like some of the others here, I'm just sayin' when that traffic stops on a hunnerd degree day it SUUUCKSSSS!!)

BTDT, coming down from Bowling Green
 
My First Car

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Summer 1958......the punk in the car is yours truely.
Mini skirts were along ways away.

Mort
 
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1 year later: rubbed out paint, removed bumper guards, install 6 inch front spring shackles, whitewall skins, stainless beauty rims, but failed to find matching cherry 16 inch Ford center caps.

Mort

Forgot hood alignment.

Skins are thin rubber mounted between tire and rim......cheap whitewalls.
 
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Hi Tech Brakes For Your Early Ford

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I'm not talking disc....most of the early fords had mechanical brakes. The common conversion used 40 Ford juice brakes. The parts were all available at the local junkyard. I heard
It was a simple conversion but have no personal experience.

Peterson's dad was an early hot rodder and helped him with this.

I thought it was cool then ...and still do.

Mort
 
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Juice Brakes

dmort said:
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I'm not talking disc....most of the early fords had mechanical brakes. The common conversion used 40 Ford juice brakes. The parts were all available at the local junkyard. I heard
It was a simple conversion but have no personal experience.

Peterson's dad was an early hot rodder and helped him with this.

I thought it was cool then ...and still do.

Mort
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This was a faily common conversion back in the day. The '36 Ford Tudor I bought in 1952 was so equipped along with a '48 Merc flathead and column shift tranny. Not great brakes by today's standards, but a vast improvement over the original mechanicals. Vic
 
Vic

Great to hear from an old time rodder. Wish you many happy miles.

Do you have any pics?

Mort
 
With a couple of weeks layoff, it's back to the pump. Not much secret as to where the work is focused. ;) -Al

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dmort said:
Vic

Great to hear from an old time rodder. Wish you many happy miles.

Do you have any pics?

Mort
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Thanks for the kind words! Sadly I don't think any pics of the '36 Ford have survived. We have a ton of old photos that have not been sorted or cataloged for many years. I'll see if I can find anything of interest. I'm sure there are some pics of the '61 Pontiac Ventura hardtop with Tri-Power, 4 speed and Bonneville interior with bucket seats that was a factory prototype for the '62 Gran Prix. Vic
 
In 1961 Eddie Hill had a 61 Ventura tripower that ran in Super Stock. Eddie lived in a trailer house in Wichita Falls, Texas and had a really nice shop behind it. He had an aluminum tube framed dual Pontiac engine dragster that he was workiong on as well as his jet powered dragster. I spent quite a few lunch hours at his shop at that time.
 
vlcakc said:
Thanks for the kind words! Sadly I don't think any pics of the '36 Ford have survived. We have a ton of old photos that have not been sorted or cataloged for many years. I'll see if I can find anything of interest. I'm sure there are some pics of the '61 Pontiac Ventura hardtop with Tri-Power, 4 speed and Bonneville interior with bucket seats that was a factory prototype for the '62 Gran Prix. Vic
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Vic
Would appreciate anything you can provide.

Thanks

Mort
 
Al Nyhus said:
With a couple of weeks layoff, it's back to the pump. Not much secret as to where the work is focused. ;) -Al

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j0D5drLl.jpg
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Secrets?....is this a test? If so I will give it a shot.

Pic A: The distributer is in back so it's not a Ford, B you broke down and bought a new engine stand, C you bought a gizmo that measures crank pully diameters.

Do I get 3 stars or what?

Nice photos Al

Mort
 
OK, my guess??? Ezell made you a tungsten-powder-filled harmonic balancer for dampening crank harmonics thru frequencies generated by the steep power curve. It'll hopefully flatten throttle response and get rid of that squirrely liftoff where she crabwalks toward the bleachers........
 
I just noticed something.... you're still running iron heads! Man I can't even remember how many of them old double-humper fuelies (we called 'em "fuelers" or just "202's") I've went thru over the years!
 
And the nicks on my fingers and knuckles from grinding on them by the hours "porting and polishing" and getting rid of mismatches...... and the awesome boogers I'd harkk up in the shower from breathing that dust.....I was probably over 40 before I experienced what coffee and a smoke tasted like without petroleum byproduct in it/on it
 
alinwa said:
And the nicks on my fingers and knuckles from grinding on them by the hours "porting and polishing" and getting rid of mismatches...... and the awesome boogers I'd harkk up in the shower from breathing that dust.....I was probably over 40 before I experienced what coffee and a smoke tasted like without petroleum byproduct in it/on it
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Good thing you didn't work at the shipyards running an oil bath turret lathe! The smokes got pretty soggy.

Didn't know you had engine building experience. Learn more about you everyday!

Mort
 
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alinwa said:
I just noticed something.... you're still running iron heads! Man I can't even remember how many of them old double-humper fuelies (we called 'em "fuelers" or just "202's") I've went thru over the years!
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I's not that I'm still running them..it's that I have to per NHRA rules for my engine.

They're 1.94/1.50's...not 2.02/1.60's.
 
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