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

Butch Lambert said:
Mort, I didn't know that Grady had written several books. The one that I meant to mention was Match Race Madness.
About Grady Bryant:

About Grady Bryant
After one year of college Grady found he could not control his restlessness and moved on to more exciting projects. He joined the army and after completing his aptitude testing for the military he was trained for assignments that suited his call for high adventure. When discharged he turned to driving race cars and was immediately picked up by Chevrolet to help develop several concepts of the muscle care era. After a successful ten years of driving, promotion, and handling motor sports teams Grady quit and returned to college and earned a law degree. He practiced criminal law until sickened by the legitimacy of the system and returned to what he knew best, driving race cars. Grady was immediately hired to drive for corporations such as Chrysler, Levi's, Matco Tools, and his last ride was with Adolph Coors Corp. Being a syndicated writer for several motor sports publications led him to write his first book about the early days of drag racing, "Match Race Madness." It relates to the early days of racing and is considered to have a cult following and is frequently quoted in motor sports editorials. Unbeknownst to himself he was continuously preparing to be an action adventure writer, encompassing his travels and adventures into fiction, which is manifested in all his books.
If I can find it I will loan it to you if you wish.
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I couldn't find it at the library here.
Sent you a PM

Thanks
Mort
 
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This is the most beautiful car GM ever made. When I sold the 63 split-window all I ever did was regret it, especially when they became popular and exspensive. What was I thinking? I got a deal on this but paid $ 5400 for it which is what it cost new. I went through this car from the radiator to the rear end,suspension brakes and so it goes. I farmed out the paint, upholstery and restoration on the dash gages.
I spent so much time on this car I thought my wife needed some ownership.....the rear plate reads PATS6T6

We put 52000 miles on this car. Saw alot of neat places and met some great people.

Mort

Those are real knock off rims from Western Wheel. They weren't offered by GM in 1967 because of Ralph Nader.
 
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Gorgeous car, Mort....the '63-'67's are hands down my favorites. :cool:

I saw a new 2020 Corvette the other day. It looked pretty....Ferrari-ish. -Al
 
This event is held yearly at the Caddo Mills Airport. The airport is about 10 miles from the house. It is a rolling start and then a run for top speed. Mostly dominated by exotic "foreign" cars. Limited by the length of the runway. You will need to run 210-220mph to win. I believe they are street legal cars with the faster cars producing 1900-2500 HP.

http://texasspeedsyndicate.com/texas-invitational/

Click on the youtube videos. I believe they are run in October.
 
Wrinkle wall low pressure tires

At some point, you are pretty consistent and competitive so what do you do to step up.

The tire companies were offering 12" low-pressure tires. The max tire width for my class was 12" if it didn't extend beyond the outside fender panels (NHRA rules). Local tracks relaxed those standards and a few others to increase participation. I wanted to be legal if I ever got a chance to go the Winter Nationals in So Cal. If you couldn't run 11 something there was no sense even showing up period.

During time trials the car ran 12.06, 12.03 and we knew we were on track, but the car was a little squirrelly for me.

First-round stage, tach at 6000rpm and dump the clutch. You could count 1-2 shift, it was that quick.

I had a habit of putting a little body motion into power shifting. On the 1-2 shift, I would pull the steering wheel down just a little with my left hand.

First round of eliminations....dump the clutch, shift and I'm headed towards the left side of the track. I had staged in the left lane so there was no danger to my opponent. Lucky that!

I get back to the pits and Bob is there to greet me.

"Hey Mort, this aint a circle track

It's a drag strip and it is really f***ing straight.

Do you think you can handle that??"


What are friends for?

Mort
 
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Shifting

If some you folks doubt the clutch 1-2 shift thing it's okay. The car had 6:14 rear end gears.
That set up would do well on 1/8 mile tracks which do well in the SE.

Mort
 
Ran at Earlville, Iowa last weekend. Working with the pinion angle and changing the instant center on the rear suspension kept the front end lower on the launch while driving it out further before it settled down. Nibbled away a few more .001's of a second.

The car responded with it's best yet, 11.102 @ 117.53 into a 8-10 mph headwind. The G/SA NHRA index is 12.00. In other words, the car was -.898 under the NHRA National Index for G/SA.

The work continues! :)

fLomdIZh.jpg
 
Al Nyhus said:
Ran at Earlville, Iowa last weekend. Working with the pinion angle and changing the instant center on the rear suspension kept the front end lower on the launch while driving it out further before it settled down. Nibbled away a few more .001's of a second.

The car responded with it's best yet, 11.102 @ 117.53 into a 8-10 mph headwind. The G/SA NHRA index is 12.00. In other words, the car was -.898 under the NHRA National Index for G/SA.

The work continues! :)

fLomdIZh.jpg
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"That's how my '70 Nova looked, only sky blue instead of white"......


IN MY DREAMS!!!

Nice shot
 
Al Nyhus said:
Ran at Earlville, Iowa last weekend. Working with the pinion angle and changing the instant center on the rear suspension kept the front end lower on the launch while driving it out further before it settled down. Nibbled away a few more .001's of a second.

The car responded with it's best yet, 11.102 @ 117.53 into a 8-10 mph headwind. The G/SA NHRA index is 12.00. In other words, the car was -.898 under the NHRA National Index for G/SA.

The work continues! :)

fLomdIZh.jpg
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Al, what would you attribute the continuing performance gains in the Stock classes too, giving the restrictions within the class structure. Engine refinements? Suspension? Less rolling resistance.

I know the performance gains are measured in small increments in these classes, but it's the little things that add up.
 
Buddy Ingersoll ran a 7.20 beating a whining Ricky Smith with his 4.4 V-6. I guess he isn't allowed to run it in Pro Stock anymore.
 
jackie schmidt said:
Al, what would you attribute the continuing performance gains in the Stock classes too, giving the restrictions within the class structure. Engine refinements? Suspension? Less rolling resistance.

I know the performance gains are measured in small increments in these classes, but it's the little things that add up.
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Honestly Jackie...it's a little bit of everything. One change on these things will generally require you to look further for the true gains.

A good example is the headers I use. They are a set of stainless Cal Elston built tri-y design with a merge collector. The primary tube off the head is profiled to exactly match the shape/size of the exhaust port...in essence, making the exhaust port 'think' it's longer and giving the exhaust gases more velocity. Because of that, there was less reversion (exhaust contaminating the fresh intake charge). Since the exhaust had become more efficient, the amount of overlap on the cam could be reduced. Then, changing the lobe separation on the cam helped some more. With that done, the carb didn't need to be so rich at high rpm...a major quirk of the QJet. After some work on the high speed air bleeds on the carb, there was some more gain. So, while the headers alone didn't make any more power or torque, the subsequent changes allowed the headers to work to their potential.

The final result was a gain of 11 h.p. and close to 20 lbs/ft of torque. On track, those changes were worth close to .12 to .14, a significant gain. But the headers alone really didn't show anything....but they showed there was more left on the table. ;)

The torque convertor is a similar deal. By going to a more efficient stator design, the rpm gap between where the convertor 'flashes' to and where the 1-2 shift needs to be before it lays back on the convertor (kind of re-flashes) has been reduced by 40 percent. Because of that, I can now get the car out of low gear 400 rpm lower. Most of the drag in an automatic trans is in low gear, so not dragging that spinning assy up an additional 400 rpm picked the car up .02-.03.

It's a lot like a BR case: You get the free bore length...to match where you want the base of the bullet to be...so you can have the amount of powder in the case...to reach the velocity node you want to be in.

Plans of the off season are a bit up in the air. I'd like to work with the ring package a bit more to see if there's some 'free' power to be found. There are rumors of some possible rule changes, so we'll have to see.

Good shootin'. :) -Al
 
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Al Nyhus said:
My pal Wayne Denklau driving Gene Bichlmeier's '55 Chevy SS/O 265 inch wagon at the U.S. Nationals at Indy two weeks ago. Don't let Wayne's "Aw shucks" demeanor fool 'ya...he and Gene are smart, smart racers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=13&v=lQKyvPr-78w
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Wow, a 265!

That brings back memories. The very first Hot Rod engine my oldest brother built back in the late '50's was a 265 pulled out of a wrecked 55 sedan. He put it in a 48 Chevy Fleetline.

Jahns Pistons, 30/30 cam, pinned rocker studs, AFB, lots of compression, heads ported by one of the local gurus, and.........no oil filter.

He had put a I-Beam front axel under it, it had a four speed going into a Cadillac Rear End with 5.14 gears. Of course he had a set of headers with cutouts made from oil canisters.

That little motor would rev like a die grinder.

Those were the days.
 
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