The name says it all - belongs to Joe Panek, still alive and well and in business. I just saw him at the GNRS show in January. He made the 8620 billet cam blanks that we needed as cores to have custom .500+ lift profiles made for our FlatCad Blown Cadillac engine. Here is a link to his website: http://roto-faze.com/
Here is another photo of the Mooneyham-Johnson 554 coupe. The photo shows the 554 coupe, on the right, racing my '32 coupe at Santa Ana drags in 1956. In this photo both of our cars were powered with Chrysler engines. The flag starter, between the cars, was C.J. Hart, who ran the facility. C.J. was a pioneer with the sport and had a very long association with drag racing. Note the execellent width of the drag strip. As most know Santa Ana was considered the first commercial drag racing operation. They opened in 1950 and ran until 1959 when the airport expanded and took away the strip. The timing stand is on the left about half-way down the strip. Don Tuttle was the announcer and a good one. Don and Leslie Long published a complilation of results for the Santa Ana drags a number of years ago. Don is gone now but Leslie may still have copies for sale. The records are interesting and show so many racers names before they became well known. Note the spectator's cars on the right side of the strip. They were parked up againist a row of telephone poles. I recall at least one instance of a racecar jumping the telephone poles. The left side was basically the Pit Area. Racecars returned down that side and the speeds could be obtained at the Timing Stand. The drag strip was nice and wide and then narrowed after the finish line Elapsed Times were recorded at this meet and were perhaps the first that I had received. Don www.montgomeryhotrodbooks.com . Sharp eyed viewers will note that my car is in the center of the photo. That is most likely because my wife, Claire, took the photo.
Here is a link to the Tuttle and Long compilation that Don mentioned. I can't find a way to buy the "book" but this is a review of it...Don is right, lots of famous names mentioned here (including Don Montgomery, winner of "heavy coupe" in 1951). This is a review of it: https://www.hotrodhotline.com/conte...-airport-santa-ana-leslie-long-and-don-tuttle Don Tuttle also narrated two videos from Santa Ana, Pomona, El Mirage, Bonneville, etc. I have DVD copies but can't find out if anyone sells them any more. If you can find them, they are classic, great shots of Santa Ana in the early to mid-50s, lots of famous cars and drag racers!
Hey Rick, I posted that cover back on page 4. Yours is in much better shape than mine, so we'll give you a pass this time.
Thanks for the photo of 554 in the real early days before it was chopped and with the flamed paint job. It is interesting that it has the flames with a chopped top in this photo which Don said was taken in 1955.
I'm interested in the drivelines of the early fuel coupes. Were most of the fuel coupes using Ford transmission and stock ford tapered rear axles? Closed drivelines? Did the fuel coupes use 2nd and 3rd only? What ratio rear ends were common. Did the Buick transmission work well for you Don?
Thats a damn good questions that I would also like to know about.. I'd like to add to that...... a question about suspensions too, I've seen that some were buggy sprung and read somewhere that the 15oz coupe has solidly mounted suspension, how was this done? was this the norm or the exception? what type of suspension components were used.... I've read about "squrilly handeling" and seen footage of some twitchy runs from both the 15oz and 554 coupes, what was this down to? Am I right in thinking that the 554 was sprung and the 15oz solid? I cant seem to find a good shot of the 15oz coupes suspension set up to work out how its mounted....anyone have any pic's they could share please? I did read about one of the fuel coupes running '34 axle bells, halibrand quickchange, cook spool and cook drive shafts, not sure if it was open or closed drive or what ratio either..sorry not much help really Just can't get enough of these fuel coupes or learning about how they were bulit, would love to hear more from those that piloted/owned these animals. Jay
The 554 started, as most did with buggy springs on both ends. During their development/evolution the rear ends became solid mounted to the frame. Interestingly, the Ronnie Scrima built chassis for the Mondello-Matsubara Fiat started with coil overs on the rear. Sush could not make it go straight. After a few months he removed the coil overs and replaced them with solid struts, and it became one of the best handling Fuel altereds.
When drag racing started in Southern California (1949-Goleta and 1950-Santa Ana) the "hot cars" were either dry lakes racecars, quickly assembled drag machines or modified street racecars. Almost all of them were Ford based. The 'hot" coupes and sedans, running fuel, were separated from the gas burners in about 1953 +/_ because the guys running gas were typically more like street rods and found it impossible to compete with the "fuelers". The majority of Fuel Coupe/Sedan class cars in the early 1950s were Fords with the standard Ford rear end, transmissions and V-8 engines. It did not take long for the bigger V-8 engines to appear in those Fords. Even then the Ford rear ends and transmissions were used. In general the guys spent their money and time on the engines and just used the running gear they had. Naturally quick change rear ends were used. Many of the Lakes cars had them for their Lakes competition. The old Ford banjo rear end was amazing. It must have been designed with a 10:1 safety factor. By the mid-1950s some of the Fuel coupes were putting perhaps as much as 400-500 HP through the rear end that was designed to use with an 85 HP engine. A normal practice was to fit the rear hubs tightly, use 1/4" tool steel axle keys and tighten the heck out of the axle nut. Probably the real reason for the Ford rear end working satisfactorily was that the available "slicks" (tires) were narrow and fairly easy to spin. My own experience was that when newer, better tires, like Bruces slicks became available, the result was more problems with the drive train. Most of the early cars used the Ford, or Chevy, closed drivelines. In general, they were sprung as the stock car was. I believe that the solid mounted rear axles, as seen in the Fuel Altereds, were a development coming from the improvements in dragster technology. The early Fuel coupes used two transmission gears - second and high. They would typically have rear end gears from 3.78,4.11 or 4.44 depending on their speed potential. Sometimes a car setup with high rear end gears to run at the Lakes would come to the drags and run First and Second gear, or perhaps all three gears. Both the GMC and Chrysler engines in my '32 coupe used the 1937-1938 big Buick transmission. I adapted it to the Ford driveshaft, so it was closed drive also. It was a strong trans and basically identical internally to the Cad/La Salle trans. Those transmissions were what I considered the best available for me at that time. Consider that most of the guys could not spend a lot of money then so they used what they could come up with - junk yard or ?. You could not dial 1-800 and have all your racecar items delivered via UPS. However, it was great, educational and fun Don www.montgomeryhotrodbooks.com
Thanks for the great information Don. Its amazing how well the early Ford V8 parts held up in the early days of drag racing.
Don, Can you recall what year direct drive was beginning to be used. I assume the tire boiling pictures are direct drive. And how much percentage did it take to have enough horsepower to run direct drive. It is really nice to ask this question to someone who was "there".
Frank, I snapped this shot of the Burkhart, Bramer & Burns fuel roadster at Pomona in June of '59. On this day they had swapped their blown De Soto for Frank Cannons top fuel Chrysler. The roadster blew everyone away when it ran in the 9's pulling high gear only. To my knowledge this was the first high gear altered. Don't know what percentage they were running, but frank Cannon was never afraid to tip the can!
Thanks Dean. That is a beautiful roadster. I am really into this era of drag racing. I have had a wonderful time researching the "Chester Drag Strip" thread here on the HAMB. I was only 16 when it closed in 1960 but it was one of the best tracks in the country in the '50s.
Dean, I can't quit looking at that roadster. Thanks for sharing it. I was born in the late fifties so I didn't get to experience the early days of drag racing.
I hesitated to post the roadster on this coupe thread. Didn't want to hi jack the thread, but Frank asked about high gear only cars, and this was one of, if not the first, high gear altereds. There is an album of pics from this same day at Pomona on my profile page.
I have enjoyed this thread more than a lot in recent history. Thanks to all for the input. I really like the 33-34 coupes from this era. I'm a big fan. Check out my link on Facebook. Lots of great stuff there to peruse.
Same with the Hawkins Webster 15oz coupe, they went to a solid mounted rear (chromed as well) after the fuel dragsters did, and tires got better, as Don noted above, when M&Hs replaced recapped slicks, traction was so much better that rear end breakage became common. We felt that the movement of the rear end with springs contributed to breakage (remember we were NOT engineers!), and besides we lost all the weight from the spring, wishbones, and shocks, which were heavier than the mounts required for a solid rear end. (Still, the 15oz coupe was too heavy and couldn't even qualify for the fuel altered meets, that's why Les and Lyle parked it and built a Fiat to replace it).
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