Yea Butch, Car Craft certainly did get that piece of their story wrong, I thought about pointing it out below the cut 'n paste. The hydro availability issue was commonly misunderstood at the time, but the issue with bellhousing mounts was not widely known at all. Thanks for posting the details. Cheers! ... Steve AND PS: For WGuy RE: Not 'wacky at all Verne! Three cars are 'doable,' MOPowAR to us .. we can afFord it !
Here's a site some of you guys might have missed ... Sure to bring back memories for (at least) ... the guys! From ---> http://www.atomicpinup.com/Aquasco_Speedway.html
When I saw this photo, I immediately remembered seeing the car run at Delmar and thinking how odd it was that the driver wore a stetson, while racing!
aw quit yer bitching naw they aint that hard to work on you jsut gotta have paitence now an delbrock thats a PITA to work on
Thanks for sharing that front suspension trick Henry ... it did eventually become a pretty common mod for the 'thinking man's' Junior stocker! Here's a very-small modification I 'stumbled' into, that I never really did 'expand' on. During the first rebuild (mostly to 'plate hone' the cylinders) of my '56 Pontiac's 227/317 I was getting ready to install new (.10 under) bearing inserts -- I think they were Federal Mongul. I realized that they, like many I had installed over the years, were only 'grooved' on one half of the 2-piece insert. Well, the 'groove' equals slightly less surface-contact area ... equals less friction -- right? So I got another identical set and installed both 'grooved' halfs -- 'tossed' the ungrooved half. The car picked up about .15 - .20 after that rebuild. I'm not really sure if it picked up any ET at all due to that bearing-insert issue specifically, but the notion of taking that engine-friction reducing feature to the extreme has always fascinated me. As you guys know, it was standard practice to machine the crank .010 under, so why not take an additional .010 (or .030!) from the (for example) the 'mid' third of each (rod and main) journal. OK ... I realize that would be a real 'no no' for 'street' and 'round 'd round' cars, but for 12-14 second drag cars, the crank could very well 'hold up.' If it did, that 30% reduction in crankshaft surface-contact area (friction) could potentially mean a huge (2-3 tenths?) gain. Alas, as far as I know, that (or a variation of) crank 'modification' could have very-well been 'standard practice' for some of the really tech-savvy guys, like 'Archie,' 'Little George,' and the 'others' in the Jenkins 'group,' and of course, Duffy's infamous take-no-prisoners 'posse.' ... Watta you guys think?
I've heard other old timers doing this also...I just wouldn't want to risk the undercut crank on a large cubic inch/heavy weight car..but then again as long as Its comming out mid season for a teardown/mandatory mag check of the crank, well maybe?
please dont stop now!!! i was useing this thread to build my 56 sedan delivery j.r. stocker clone the post and pictures are really helpful! i would like to contribute but i dont know much other than the fact that i was about 13 y.o. and when eyeryone else was watching top fuel or funny cars iwas in the pits checking out the stockers! (mostly 55-57s) you were just starting to get some tech going !!!
Your right,i could use lots more tech myself.as i was like 4 yrs old when my car was on the track! The more the better far as i am concerned.Come on guys dig thru those cobwebs in yer head and GIVE IT UP!
Yes, Junior Stock was dying as I became interested. The last 3 posters are all 56' Sedan Delivery guys! I wish I had pics to contribute. KEEP THIS THREAD ALIVE! Butch/56sedandelivery.
Are you guys using fenderwell headers on yours? should i use stahl's or hookers? i still have 1(that i know of so far) ball joint spacer for the front uppers.do they still make these mine are oxydized pretty heavy,but probly still usable.also only specific wheels work too.should i stay with these spacers or go with heavier springs?
can anybody explain the difference between modified production and junior stock i.e. weight, engine mods etc etc??
I haven't posted in this thread but know of a Gentleman around Fairfield Illinois restoring Marv Ripes old recording holding 57 Chevy. I have a photo somewhere and will post it when I find it. The car was a slate blue with a white bowtie on the door. Anybody here know about the car or who is restoring it?
The ball joint spacers come up on ebay once and a while, I see them on 57 cars for sale. I built a set for my 69 Camaro years ago. Stiffer springs will not give the lift you want, we used the softest? spring we could find. Another thing I did was to move the rear spring pin ahead 1" to put more weight over the rear overhang, good day. I agree we should keep this going, even if only to say hello and bump this to the top, Henry.
I'd love to hear more of the tips, tricks, and 'rule bending' used by the hard running 283 and 327 Chevy guys. We've already talked about vaccum leaks on 170/283 cars... what else did they do? What was a typical jr stock cam spec for a 220/283 or 250/327 back in those days?
332 total duration leaves a LOT of wiggle room on 0.050" specs. How radical were the cams in those days? I'm guessing they ran tight Lobe Sperations and agressive lobe designs. Did a 1960s jr stocker 220/283 idle anywhere close to a production car? NHRA only regulated total duration and lift, correct?
Great question novadude! And an excellent reply from 'Ole Tech.' Most of us used RATE-OF-LIFT cams ... Lunati, General Kinetics, etc. The concept was pure genius and the right cam was a significant horsepower gain. And when measured, the total LIFT and DURATION checked out 'spot on,' but the RATE of lift (not to be confused with duration) was much faster. This was driven by a more 'generous' curve on the side or 'ramp' of the lobe.
That car is generally known as 'Big' John Barkley's ride. 'Glide whiz' Marv Ripes took over the reins after John went to 'Nam.' Not to worry, the word it is John is still 'withus' and makin big buck$ @ Peterson Publications!
Fifteen years ago, I helped one of my employees start a crank grinding business. He is one of those people who wants to do every job correctly and produce a high quality result. During his early years, he shared things that he had learned, one of which was to never turn a crank more than .030. He said that practice came from broken cranks caused by the machinist not putting a proper radius on the fillet. If the edge of the grinding stone was not radiused, it would leave a sharp corner and resulting stress risers. Think about this, the "small journal" Chevy cranks were .100 smaller than the 1968 and later cranks and held up well. Additionally, NASCAR engines have been using "Honda" rod journals for years and we can all agree that they get stressed WAY more than a drag car. Another "trick" is to take advantage of the .013 variance in stroke allowed by the NHRA rulebook and stroke the crank .010, plus correct the indexing to guarantee that the throws are 90 degrees apart.
for x-gasser asper may 1968 car craft mag.page 25...m/pwas designed primarilyas amidway point between stockers and gas coupes,it created a stomping ground for those competitors who didnt want a totally untouched engine, but then again didnt want to go the fiberglass-equipped anglia or willys route. the m/p premise was designed for those streetable machines which had been slightly warmed over. no expensive injecctors,no tube front ends,no big overheads shoehorned into place ....justcarbs gas, stock wheelbase andbody components then lets get it on! the whole idea was brought about for racers on a budget.
im running hooker adjustables on my 56,my car is on the west coast, most west coast racers i remember ran hooker, jardines,or belengers while it seemed to methat east coast cars ran stahls, iwould like to have stahls just so i could have that cool lettering/decal of the guy playing a set of headers like a flute! remember it?
Good point on the small journals. Super Stock racers have been using way undersize bearings for a while. NHRA has recently tried to reign it all in to something reasonable. Actually ,the spec on the stock stroke is + or - .015. So typically you would want to offset grind + .013 to be safe. MY
As far as I know, NHRA never had a duration spec; only a lift spec in those early '60s days. Besides all the other sneaky body and chassis tricks, I think the cam selection probably made the most significant change to the performance of the cars. But even back then, I think a lot of racers got "taken" by advertised duration specs because the cam manufacturers did not adapt to a universal way of measuring duration. Some did it from .001 lift; others did it at .003, .005, or .006". Obviously, the lower the lift that the duration was derived from, meant more duration that could be advertised. The real difference was in the contour of the side of the lobe and it's resulting rate of rise. The best cams were tough on valvetrain components due to that rate of rise. Don't forget, Junior Stockers were small blocks that had to sing a high "C" to win. Winning stockers of the time were known to shift at 10-11Krpm. That's as high as winning Pro-Stockers from today!
I don't think they turned that high of an RPM. In the 70s I was shifting at 7200 with a 220hp 283. Then someone came out with a Cam that would turn 8000 in the late 70s. From my memory banks the 220hp 283 cam (431) had a spec of .399 lift and 300 duration as listed by NHRA in the late 70s and early 80s.
The Jalopy Journal
