Man those headers on the blown Chevy are fantastic. Really all off this is. Put into book form this would be a must have for any respectable hot rodder.
The man was a genius at a time when there was very little history to draw from, he was creating it. I remember one time when Ralph had the Tom Cobb blown flathead model A at the LA roadster show, I think it was 2010. He was using the thing like it was a golf cart going up and down the rows at the swap meet there. I saw him pulled over and looking at the engine. It had flooded over and killed. I took the tops off the (4) carbs and found one to have a cracked float. We found one in the swap and I put it back together for him and off he went... I can't really explain how completely underqualified I felt working on Tom's roadster.....
The randomness of the film photos is crazy. We now are used to randomness because with digital, we can post photos in any order that we like.
I think it was the 2009 Hot Rod Revolution when I got to drive it… The thing made torque like a runaway train… But it was over quick. Ran out of breath at 4,500 RPM, like a sprinter with a knife in his lung. Still, what happened before the redline was pure violence. It pulled like it was trying to tear itself in half. That car rewired my brain, made me rethink everything I thought I knew about early hot rods and just how serious they could be… I’d bet my ass it was a low-13-second car… Might’ve even dipped into the twelves with the right conditions… That’s not just fast for an early car - that’s rude.
Not a fan of sbc's, but any engine with a front mounted blower is cool! So much detail to study on that one... Fantastic stuff Ryan!
Yup, I got to drive it at Don Prudhommes place once too. just around the block, but If I didn't know better I would have sworn it had about a 400 hp sbc in it.....
Long time reader, first time poster. “Fossil Of Fury” is a genius level line. Had to register just to tell you.
Great stuff Ryan. Thanks for posting it for us to enjoy. Mark, fantastic account that you experienced with this man and his hot rod. Again , Thank You.
Wonder what 1955 flathead rodders would say about sbc. Wait, as young teen hung at garage watching, guy with 1949 Ford radical flathead.tearing it apart to sell. Ask why, he had raced 55 chev, when shifted to second chev went right by. Sold everything got caddie studenaker. Let’s see: buy & build a flat head 10k maybe 200hp; buy 365 crate sbc 4K maybe 5. & parts for sbc everywhere. They look good & love the history - but
Wrote that bit a while back for another publication, trying to capture a person in words. Editor kicked it back and called it too abstract, maybe too hostile. I shelved it and forgot. Then last night, staring at this small block, the phrase hit me again and in an entirely different context… But thanks.
The holy trinity of internal combustion, as far as I’m concerned and in no particular order: – The Ford Flathead – The Chevy Small Block – The Porsche Flat-6 Three warhorses of performance, each built to evolve, to be flogged, torn apart, hot-rodded, and reimagined across decades and decades without losing their soul.
I’ll hazard a guess, I think it was stability and wear properties. Years ago before there were billet rotors blower builders tried hard anodizing, but I had never heard of Cobbs heat treating. I wonder if racers knew about opening up the clearances in the ‘50’s?
Well I would imagine since Tom took the 71 series blowers to their limit.The heat treating was for strength and longevity. I have two 4-71 cases from Tom that have so many cracks in them one more full hard pass in the Pierson Coupe they probably would have blown to bits. Tom blew up a lot of engines
He obviously had ideas and liked experimenting and this engine is loaded with interesting stuff. Some of the details leave me with burning questions though. #1 - looks like a counterbore for the screw at the stock heat riser location but it also looks like it has threads and an O-ring. What’s happening here. ??? #2 - What does this hose do? It’s just air space in the bellhousing. Unless there’s internal lines to the water or oil passages that we can’t see, for side to side balance or air bleed. ??? #3 - We’ve seen valve spring oilers before but these nicely done tubes look like they are lined up with the rocker pivots. Other than endurance racers, don’t they usually restrict the oil to the top end rather than increase it. ???
Back in 2004, I only knew Tom Cobbs as the guy who popped off to Vic Edelbrock and, in doing so, helped spark the first organized drag race. That was his legacy as far as I understood it. Wally Parks nudged me to interview him, so I tried. Tom was kind, respectful… but totally disinterested in being interviewed. He had no time for mythmaking. A couple years after he passed, I sat down with Alex Xydias and asked about Tom. Here’s some quotes and some notes from that: “Tom was a mystery to us all. He was really quiet, really reserved, and very hard to get to know.” “We worked incredibly hard together for five or six weeks when we thrashed to get my coupe ready for Bonneville in ’53. During that time, I’m not sure he said more than a couple of words.” – Smartest person he knew – Always looked lost in thought – Worked slowly but somehow got things done fast – Had surgeon’s hands – Deeply creative, just didn’t show it in typical ways ***So yeah, all those little details on that small block? Who the hell knows what was going through his head. Tom was operating on a different frequency entirely—quiet, methodical, but wired for invention…. You get the sense he wasn’t afraid to try things no one else had even thought of yet. Failure is a learning experience that know-it-alls forfeit. EDIT: Holy shit. I found the feature where I used those notes… And there’s more pics of the SBC: https://www.jalopyjournal.com/?p=2727
The Jalopy Journal
