This forum seems to the place ask questions about drag racing history. There was once a cl*** for 4 cylinder dragsters called "X/Dragster". An Internet search leads me to a lot of dead ends and misinformation. ( No, a turbocharged Japanese sports car isn't a "dragster"!) Has anyone here raced a four cylinder X/D? What style of engine did these dragsters have? Has anyone got a photo of an X/D? Regards from KangaRod in Australia.
I never did. But I saw some of them. Mostly Ford A-B type of engines. Dave Dozier had a 32 Plymouth in his, which gave me the idea to put one in my roadster. I saw one with a Ford tractor motor and Dudley Perkins had one with two Harley twins.
Searching those names might yield a lot. For instance: "This photo is Carl's Spitz's Volvo powered dragster and ran 4X cl*** in So. Cal. It was a B1600 engine bored .030" over with considerable rework inside. Running the SU carbs shown in the picture it ran 105 on gas. The SU's were replaced with two Ford 97's on a homemade manifold and this one change bumped up the time to 115 on gas. The car went 125mph on alcohol. This picture was taken at San Fernando around 1964." http://www.flatheadv8.freeserve.co.uk/vintage1.htm
There also used to be the blown 4 cylinder 1600 Ford Kit dragsters in England. I forget the fellows name who promoted them. And of course Mickey T ran a Poncho Tempest four successfully. I run a six but would welcome a four compe***or any day. Probably an Iron Duke four or its marine equivalent would be the easy way to go as it would bolt to PG trans. Ford Pinto engine (2000/2300) would also be excellent. don
In my roadster i have run a 2000 Pinto, a 2000 Lotus 907, A 1932 Plymouth with a Y block OHV head and a 1932 Plymouth flathead. I am currently working on a 1926 Dodge Bros. 4 with a 318 head for the roadster. Which proves you can run anything you please as long as you are willing to do a little work. Not many catalog parts available for most of my engines.
Used to be a 4 banger dragster run by a group that called themselves the Merrymen. They were running in the late '50's at Lions. It seems like it was a Ford A/B type but not sure. They were pretty in to it.
In Australia Sydney's Gordon Davidson ran a 32 Ford B Model flathead 4 in the 60's. Brett Gooden had a Consul 1500 in his South Australian X/D, Don Sawtell's car had a 1725 Hillman (driven by his son John and Chris Tormay). There was also a Vanguard powered car that ran in the late 60's in South Australia. I will dig out some pix and post them later. The English car that Don mentions was the Sidney Allard deal with a Scotty Fenn style ch***is that was available in kit form. The "house" car had a blown 1500 Ford (probably non crossflow at the time) and was relatively quick for its time Roo
In the mid to late 50's, a buddy and I ran a Crager 2 port B engined roadster in X/R, which was changed to X/OG in the early 60's. We ran at the old Colton drag strip, (Morrow Airport), and later at Fontana Drag City. Those were the good old days. Didn't last long enough. After the change to X/OG, they had us running our banger against hot 6's and flathead V8's. Does anyone remember the Chain Gang ? Pair of twin cylinder motorcycle engines in a dragster running in X/D ? If I remember correctly, they were Triumph twins.
Anyone ever run into a half Hiso engine at the drags ? Half of a Hispano Suiza water cooled V8 aircraft engine. I've only seen one run a couple times back in the mid 50's. Thing ran like a scalded cat.
That the one Roo. Thanks. That ch***is design was in the back of my head when I designed the SR dragster. I always liked the look of those Allard Dragsters. don
Thanks for the info on the Australian based four banger dragsters. There was also a Peugeot powered X/D in Australia that raced against a Hillman powered X/D in the 1969(?) Australian Nationals. Later, in Australia, the cl*** name was changed to "X/JD" and smaller dragsters were referred to as "Junior Dragsters" - not to be confused with the current kids' cl*** single cylinder "Junior Dragsters". Regards from KangaRod
X/D was almost all early Ford motors, it was for prewar 4 bangers. Kind of a hobby racer cl***. D/D was for six and four ( and straight 8) engines of modern makes. X was kind of a early Fords forever cl***, once fairly popular, but faded away quickly in the early 60's as guys wanted to go faster. "Tradition" wasn't a big factor for most people in those days.The nature of the drag racer is to go FASTER and quicker, not backwards! There is PLENTY of info in old magazines, some info on the web. If you really want information on ANYTHING in the 50's-60's, look at print, not the internet! ANOTHER reason why the demise of print ****s! TONS of info is being lost, it won't ever be scanned in it's entirety.
Sometime in the late '80s someone in SoCal put a 270 Offie in a rail & went 8's on Methanol & got a brief write-up in (I believe?) Hot Rod.
Am starting to gather parts. 1963 N H R A rule book called for pre 1960 4 cylinder. That would limit north American engines of 40/50 vintage. I will probably use a 60's Chevy II. will not be a true X/D but will be close. Ch***is will be roughly based on a Ch***is Research.
It's important to note, for those asking questions, that US and Australian cl*** designations were not the same. Also where there is commonality, the rules for the cl*** may be very different. Perfect example: X/D.
I seem to remember someone running a 'flat 4, H-configuration' aircraft engine (Lycoming?) in a dragster Edit: Already discussed here: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/air-cooled-light-plane-engine-in-a-hot-rod.351143/
"Lotus 907 engine", is that one of those "slant 4" engines that were also used in the Jensen-Healey sports car. A Roadster with a Lotus 4 cylinder engine - very different! Regards from KangaRod
The Ford tractor engine was probably from a Ford "N" series tractor (9N, 2N or 8N). The engine was a flathead four (119.7 cubic inch) based on half a 239 V8. The same engine was an option in a Ford pick up truck in the 1940s. Regarding the motorcycle engine dragster, currently in Australia, we have 4 cylinder dragster and altered cl***es where four cylinder Kawasaki engines are an option. Regards from KangaRod
The Ford tractor was a later OHV engine. I am talking about '58-'60 here. Any US made ohv 4 was pretty rare
McCulloch made a flat 4 target drone engine. Harley Davidson was under contract to make the same engine. I've seen them set up in go carts, and can see no reason why they wouldn't work in a super lite dragster frame. I've heard that with a little machine work they easily adapted to the old Harley trike transmissions. The drawbacks would be #1 they're an air cooled engine, and #2 the carburetor had 2 settings. dead idle and wide open.
Not the car I was thinking of. A Hisso was run in a slingshot type dragster in the early to mid 50's. I saw it run at the old Colton strip a couple of times. That's a fine example of a Hisso powered car though.
My brother ran an X\F dragster in the early 60's, was powered by a fuel injected 194 ci Pontiac out of a tempest. The motor was half of a 389, made them from 61 to 63, ran in the low 10's and 130 mph. Mickey Thompson also ran a blown Pontiac 194 around the same time.
in england they had a kit named dragon fly. and some had volks, and drone engines, light weight made them almost fast
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