Smokey yunick hp/race stories

Searched the 8 pages with his name and didn't see this as a seperate thread and i know there are lots of stories. some say he was an innovater. some say he was cheatin'. to me and many others he was a god (no offense God).

One story i remember was how nascar couldn't figure out how he got so much mileage out of his car. So the officials had him pull the tank from his car and then proceeded to drive back to the pits w/ no tank! Turned out that even though his tank/line etc. were legal he had a huge long fuel line that let his car hold over an extra gallon of fuel! Genius! Not sure but i think it was the black/gold 66-67 chevelle. some other wierd stuff on that car but just can't remember.

 

Didnt he start the whole acid dipped body, then the scaled down more aerodynamic build?
I do know it was Smokey's fault they use the profile templates!

Now look at NASSCAR!

Doc.

 

If Smokey was still around, he would vote for Tech Month winner! Did you?

 

About 30 years ago, Hot Rod mag did an article that featured lots of Smokey's stories fisrt hand. It seemed like time and time again, he didn't cheat, but read to see what the rule book DIDN'T say. For instance, they said you couldn't set the engine back in the chassis, but the never said you couldn't move the body forward on the chassis! Nobody ever said the engine had to rotate the way it came from the factory, so he ground a cam to allow the engine to run "backwards" then engine's rotatonal torque held the car's left front down, so it cornered better. Lots of stories from that man and nearly all true. Too bad corparate America has squashed innovaters like that in today's racing...

 

i read a book on nascar "cheaters" ....had a lot of stories and info on him ....and some otherwise pretty crazy tricks that were used in nascar.....one included a trap door in the frame rail ....they would load the rail up with lead shot , weigh in , then , open the door and dump the shot going around the track...... brandon

 

forgot the one of smokey running duct work off of the bellhousing to the carb for boost....

 

I think this was on a 57 Chevy. Ran a duct from the bell to the cowl. plummed the cowl to the air cleaner housing. He filled the bell with foam and carved appropriate passages to turn the PP into a turbine. Genius.

 

My favorite is the confiscated fuel cell and the violation list for the day had accumulated to well over 24 !! Now remember that they had taken the fuel cell plumb out of the car !! Smokey looks at the inspector and says "" Hey smart ass, Add 1 more to your list as he starts the car and drives it all the way back to his shop with NO FUEL CELL !! And oh yeah read his experiment with nitrous oxide it's priceless >>>>.

 

Read his books, they are priceless!! After building a car that didn't meet their profile he borrowed the templates to get the next one right. His was the only car that matched, because he changed the templates to suit his build. He also offset the whole frame to the left, made differant lenght A arms to compensate, because the engine had to be in the center of the frame. Look at pics of the '66 Chevelle sitting beside a REAL one sometime. He's my hero!!

 

Ha! I love that one. Probably had 50ft. of fuel line in the car

 

Official site
http://www.smokeyyunick.com/

Smokey Ram intake manifold history
http://www.guinns-engineering.com/Ricks Smokey Ram Prototype.htm

Dave
http://www.roadsters.com/

 

The fuel line mentioned was eleven feet of two-inch tubing.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokey_Yunick

Dave
http://www.roadsters.com/

 

Another one is where he built a Chevelle to 7/8 scale. Takes it to the tech inspectors...doesn't match the templates of the time, which were minimal. Smokey says, "Your templates must be off. Hell, there's a stock Chevelle over there in the parking lot. Stick 'em on that & check 'em." Sure enough, the templates were off, and the car was passed through tech.


The completely "stock" Chevelle in the lot was also made to 7/8 scale by Smokey & parked in the lot prior to tech inspection.

Moral of the story...always use your own quarter when flippin' the coin to see who buys the drinks...

 

when i raced i tried to copy some of his tricks and bravado, cheating is the unfair advantage

the chevell was supposed to be 7/8 size

 

It has already been mentioned that he made a car (Chevelle) 7/8ths scale.

When pulled up on it he got the officials to measure it against Smokeys Chevelle road car.

As the diemsions were the same on both the race car and Smokeys road car the car was deemed as legal.

Only later was it discovered that he had made a 7/8ths scale road car as well.....

One of my all time engineering hero's.

P.

Damn! Must type faster!!!! ^^^^^^^^^^

 

You guys should buy the autobiography on CD. It is the best stories. They are for sale at smokeyyunick.com i think.

 

EVERYTHING Smokey wrote is worth reading, at least twice.

http://smokeyyunick.com/

 

big daddy has his engine dyno at his museum in ocala

 

Where was it? I was there last June, but I missed seeing that. Sure woulda been cool to see.

 

Another thing that comes to mind is the honing torque plate. Way back in the late 60s and early 70s we were building a lot of circle track engines. I used to work at this cats shop that was quite the inventor and he shared a lot of knowledge with people as long as he didn't compete directly against them. So he had quite a few long distance friends in the racing game. 2 that stick in my mind are Bobby Allison and Smokey Yunick. In this time frame we were always searching for more speed and more endurance from the engines. I still remember the original drawing Smokey had sent of the first cylinder honing torque plate that he had made. He simply took a cylinder head and milled the top off of it then bored holes through it so you could bolt the modified head to the block and hone the cylinder under the same stress as if the cylinder head was torqued onto the block. He also thought that the cylinders being honed should be honed from directly overhead as the weight of the honing head at a 45 degree angle would make the cylinders out of round. He also pumped 180 degree oil though the water jackets while honing as to simulate the running temp of the engine block as to the as running while be honed affect. The guy could out think anyone in the engine game >>>>.

 

it was in the engine room in the first set of buildings

 

I tought it was a Pontiac. Whatever it was, it was pure genius.

 

This thread got me reading about him, there is a good biography here, i was suprised.
grantwcooper.com/<WBR>smokey.html

 

On one of those links it states that Smokey flew not only Bombers but also for the American Volunteer Groupie (AVG) or the 'Flying Tigers'.
Has anyone got the story behind this? It seems odd as the AVG was, for starters NOT a part of the US Army Air Force, Marines or Navy. It was in fact a civilly owned 'private' air force. The US government frowned on it and tried to keep pilots away from it. They operated quite famously the p-40 series of aircraft and also a handful of heavy transports (C-47 Commandos).
I really want to know how he managed to fly for the AAF and the AVG? It sounds a little fanciful to me, kinda like in the SHIT movie 'Pearl Harbor' (Not the fantastic and accurate 'Tora, Tora, Tora') where the lead character flies a P-40 out of Wheeler and then latter flies on Doolittle's raid on Tokyo. That was Absolute bullshit. No pilot that flew during the attack was a part of Doolittle's raiders and very few made a transition from Bombers to Fighters.
Not to mention that there was no 'Exchange' placing US military pilots in the RAF before the US entered WWII, yeah there was the 'Eagle squadron' but they were Americans in the RAF. Granted that they were turned over to the AAF when the US entered the European theater.
I just want to see some facts as, like I said, its very fishy!
Doc.

 

Doc,best info I can find is Smokey flew for the 97th Bombardment Group ,Foggia Italy.He may have flown 50 missions,but no mention is made if they were all combat missions.At least in the 8th Air Force based in the UK,you were rotated out after 25 combat missions.Don't know if that was a rule for all bomber groups in Europe .He is also mentioned as a test pilot located in Florida.I think the 97th group home base was Florida,so maybe that's were he got started or ended his military flying.

 

That is one of my favorite stories as well.

 

Might not be a "Smokey" story, but after his death his daughter and son-in-law proceeded to clean out his Shop, and sold everything in it for whatever they could get. Not knowing what the value was on any of the parts, they listed an NOS '63 Pontiac Tempest 3 speed Transmission on ebay for $20, so I snagged it. Turned out to be a one-off beefed 4 speed for a 63 Tempest transaxle (brand new) that was worth a fortune. They also let a heavily modified 4 cylinder Pontiac Super Duty go for $75. Parts worth thousands want out the door for pennies...

 

Smokey DIDNT cheat, he just THOUGHT OUTSIDE of the box! As someone pointed out, he read the rules and used them to his advantage. If they DIDNT say he COULDNT, then he did what WORKED!

I remember a trick Smokey performed on a 57 Chevy. It seemed the car just wasnt running as strong as it should up toward the top (dont recall the RPMs) so Smokey put a clear plastic hood on with ribbons and ran it. Turned out as the RMPs rose, the air started flowing away from the carb intake back toward the radiator, so Smokey cut a relief hole in the firewall with a flap that could be opened by the driver out on the track.

Smokey was a genius!!!

 

He was genius at finding loopholes in the rules such as with the Yellow Banana, 1966 Galaxie. The windsheild and roofline conformed to the NASCAR Template but he had radically chopped the top and narrowed the roof so that the side windows tilted in. This reduced the frontal area considerably. I've read different things about this car, one being it only ran once before being banned but another story has it that the car ran until it was wrecked at which point NASCAR said they never wanted to see it again.

 

I've read several good ones on his early days with Hudson. The early NASCAR rules prohibited porting of engines. "Porting" was defined as grinding or sanding material out of the ports to smooth them out. Using his typical thought process, he took a Hudson block and painted the inside of the intake ports with many coats of laquer, which he then sanded smooth. Not "porting", but had the same effect.

Similarly, NASCAR prohibited grinding of the exhaust manifolds. Smokey took a bucket, a small pump, and filled the bucket with a water/sand mixture. He then piped it up so the sand slurry was circulated through the exhaust manifold and left it running for a few days. This was what- 30 years before "Extrude Honing" came along?