Heres a photo from the first weekend of racing. The car is about twenty damn feet long and i nailed the tree on this run (.005) so they missed the very front of the car. I told them that i would buy this photo as long as they would buy a panoramic lense before the next race so they can get my entire car in one shot lol.





The new project is sitting infront of the shop as of now. I think i like it and might keep it. It is a 1963 Pontiac Tempest Lemans. It has a 4 cylinder engine (half of a pontiac 389) and is a factory high compression, high performance, 4 barrel intake and carb. The engine turns over and the body only has a few small spots of rust. I am not sure what im going to do in the long term with it, but for now im going to just try to get it running and driving. It has a manual transaxle (independent rear suspension) The driveline is a 3/4" diameter steel rope that is enclosed in a torque tube and bolts to the back of the crank. The rope shaft goes from the crank, back to the rear drive unit (which looks similar to the old quick change rear ends). Its a pretty cool car, and they sell fiberglass EVEYRTHING for them. The engine that is in the car weighs 557 pounds, and the car itsself weighs just over 3000 pounds.

At the swap meet today, a guy came up to me and asked "arent you the guy who races the chevy powered 55 dodge?" lol

 

Looks like you are getting a nice wrinkle on the tires. The Tempest sounds like something you would have to see in person to toatlly get a grip on how everything works. Definately unique. When my dad bought his house there was a 66 GTO and a 67 Lemans in the garage. For whatever reason, we sold both instead of making a race car or a street machine so we could make a 1979 Ford F100 race truck. THat was not the best choice ever.

Somehow at the swap meet we ended up in the first row about 50 yeards down from where you come up the stairs after crossing the staging lanes. Just to bad the only big thing that sold was the sand blast cabinet. To many people looking for 302's and FE engines.

When are they running Friday drags down there? Being at the track today got me really excited about racing again.

 

This next friday night they are having the Club Clash races. Its a street car / must be street legal dot tires, closed exhaust etc race. there are 2 classes of cars running, 10.50-13.99 and 14.0 and slower. Im hoping to have the dodge running in the 13.99 and faster class.

I have been thinking about trying to find a few sponsors later in the year, so after i get the car running good with the new heads i am planning on beefing up the rear suspension a little, throwing on a shot of nitrous for a run and trying to get a good photo of it pulling the front tires (which it should do atleast one with the nitrous) to hand out to potential sponsors with my propsals.

Feel free to come down friday! I should be towing the dodge down with my truck if all goes as planned.

 

I am curious as to how are you cooling the bbf in the truck? Stock or after market? Run into an issue cooling my 525hp bbf and could use some advice, thanks.

 

I am using a radiator out of a 1975 f150 with a 460. The water pump is a moroso mechanical and it is setup with electric belt drive so it always spins at constant speed. The engine still gets to hot for my liking when taking it for test drives but if the engine is about 180 before we run it gets to about 220 at the finish line. Looking to get this pump because it flows so much more coolant. It is expensive but worth it in my opinion.

Meziere Enterprises WP308R - Meziere 300 Series Electric Water Pumps - summitracing.com

Also looking into an aluminum radiator to lose some weight.

 

man that is an expensive water pump. I run an aluminum radiator in my race car, I was told it came out of an ltd or other big car. I'm am also running a moroso belt drive on a stock water pump and I never see over 160 degrees. Do you have a restrictor in the water neck. I have been told that if you do not have one the water dosent stay in the motor long enough to cool the properly.

 

ya it is a lot expensive. I have done a little reading after hearing that it would help pick up a few horse because of the additional cooling and it seems that it might. We ran without the restrictor for about 30 minutes and boiled over. Putt the restrictor back in and it still runs hot when street driven.

 

Just checked our tracks website and saw this:

Dick A. just emailed me some pics of the track...... The grinder is there and getting work done. Re-pave starts next week and we are looking at a new surface for the first race. We have also invested in a new amp for the speaker system, many thanks go to Vinni,Dick and Tim for the donation

There are a few pics posted and it looks like we will fresh asphalt for the first day on racing.

 

Just curious how many RPMs will that motor be turning when you go down the track at top speed? I know several friends that run these BBFs in mud drag an in sled pulling trucks. Never thought about the cooling issues. Will check an see if they have any cooling issues. At least the weather is getting more spring like with warmer temps. Im sick off winter. Hopefully its over. No more snow hopefully. Good Luck. Sorry about your setbacks. Im sure you will get everything worked out an run a fast quarter mile, Wish I was closer. Would love to see it run down the track.

 

Are you running any cooling system additives?

I have ran Royal Purple Purple Ice a few times, and it seemed to help a little bit. I will never run it again though because it seemed that every time i sprang for the 2 bottles of the additive, something would happen within the next few days that would require draining all the coolant out of the car..like putting a hole in the engine block, or ripping the bottom tank off of the radiator because i mounted it solid to the frame instead of using flexible rubber bushings in the mounts (i recommend using some sort of soft mounting for all radiators if you have any chassis flex)

Hopefully their re-paving turns out as nice as Bandimere did!! This track is unbelievable.

 

A new surface is always good, I'm lucky enough to be able to run at Tulsa Raceway Park which has a nice facility. Not the best but defiantly not the worst.

 

Hoping to shift between 6500 and 6800 and run about 6500 at the traps. Valve float should be around 7200 so their is a little room for trial and error. Didn;t have time today to work on getting it running, I have a dream job interview on Tuesday that I am trying to get ready for. How close are you too Julesberg? Probably run there a few times.

Just a 50/50 mix. Might order some water wetter to try out but usually the old fashioned weed sprayer filled with cold water will cool it done enough to make several consistent time trials. usually lose the first round so I don't worry about eliminations to much

 

Since i started drag racing i have become alot better at using a video camera and taking photos of friends winning rounds. Its like losing first round automatically makes someone the photographer for the rest of the night.

 

At Douglas, i used to kill every weekend in High School. graduated and moved into sportsman and made a few finals and even one once. They eliminated sportsman so now we race pro. the guys in pro have been around for about 15-20 racing in Douglas so every once in a while I might win one round but not real often.

 

Hows the truck coming along?

Work has been so busy i have only been able to get one head re-done and ready to go on. I still have to prep the other head and install new hardware before they are even ready to go on the car! Then comes the fun of swapping them. Looks like ill be staying late at the shop tomorrow to have it ready for friday night!