Is that the Beedy and Lutz dragster? I have seen that car run all over the mid west since the mid ninties, as well as the fallow up Beedy and Malloy dragster.
Another vote to continue to post. I muddied the discussion earlier and if that's why you are feeling less open, I am sorry. I really like your build and the details, even if it's way above my pay grade. I admire your tenacity and determination to complete this and run it.
It's not that hard to keep the last of us updated. Who cares if it's not thousands? I'd rather talk to 25 interested, like-minded folks than attempt to entertain the masses.
I'm getting old, and feel like I'm running out of time. I haven't even gotten my car home yet, it's buried under 20 years of stuff. On gun related forums, I'll log in and see I have responses like, "wow man, I have a model 94 Winchester exactly like your 1902 engraved Savage 1899". WTF. I come here and have a few likes, and several guys have offered so much help, I'm beyond words. I hope I can get my car on the track in a year, and it's a complete turn key as is. Looks like your car is pretty much done, it gives me hope, Thanks, Joe.
Just checked in - I appreciate the interest. I wasn't trying to grandstand or being mopey about it. I was just looking at other recent dragster threads, no real activity on classifieds for FEDs or dragster parts, and along with the HAMB drags seemingly being on indefinite hiatus, I honestly figured I just wasn't reading the room correctly and the folks who were into this stuff here 10-15 years ago had moved on. I just didn't want to pollute the board. I haven't scrolled through the threads, but I think I mentioned that when we pulled the 327 I had intended to use apart it was worn beyond belief. That is came out of a running bomber stock surprised the heck out of me. A good pal who raced nostalgia Jr. Fuel back in the early 90s and was helping me with the 327 called in some favors with his ex -racer friends and asked them to scour their shelves for parts to give me the good guy deal on stuff. So the engine that is coming together is WAY zootier than my original intentions for the car. It's now a 400 block with 4-bolt mains and .030 overbore for the ubiquitous 406 cu in combo. I will still have the small Schneider cam and the TrickFlow camel hump street rod heads, but now it has Howard's aluminum rods and higher compression Venolia pistons. With the TrickFlow heads, we're figuring about 12.6:1 compression. This has a forged crank like the 327, but the one in the small journal 327 was a stock GM deal. The rotating assembly is being balanced right now but hopefully it will get screwed together this weekend. I know it is more engine that I had planned on, and I'm sure we'll be up on HP than I would have made with the little engine - so I'm guessing it will no longer be the upper mid-9 second ET car I was planning on. A bit more of a steeper learning curve on the driving end, but good problems to have I suppose. Should still be pretty reliable since we're not really leaning on the engine all that much. Offhand I'd guess we'll be sniffing low 9's/high 8's. Here are some random photos from the engine stuff the last couple months. The aluminum rods, are cool, but a TON of work with machining for side clearance and working on the block to add clearance and such.
Also with the dragster being named "Rocinante" ( the name of Don Quixote's horse) in honor of master dragster body builder Tom Hanna, I designed and created an emblem that is a nod to his old logo. This will go on the cowl of the car so from 5 feet it looks like a Hanna emblem, but when you get up close you can see the difference.
Great news - glad you're getting it together! Hopefully you'll be running Alky with it - much easier to tune and with your compression, would be ideal. I don't know your cam or head specs, but I bet you'll be making about 650 HP or somewhere in that ballpark. Maybe more if the cam and heads are big enough. No matter what, you'll be having some good fun!
Thanks! Oh yeah, alky has always been part of the equation- for ease of tuning, running cooler and not having to put a radiator on the dragster and so forth. The heads are those TrickFlow camel hump heads - really more of a street rod head, and the cam is fairly mild. I had a friend named Gene Krueger (RIP) who rebuilt the old US Mule dragster (photo below) and I pretty much copied his specs other than I was building a 327 because the whole goal of this car has been more of a hot rod than a serious race car. I wanted to build something that looked like it could be a cacklefest car, but was legal to make passes. Gene's car ran 9.40s with a 355 Chevy but the same cam (cam card below) and similar heads, and running in that general ballpark was good enough for me. I will mostly run at Kingdon, Eagle Field, Riverdale and the like just for fun, with the occasional venture down to Bakersfield or up to Redding to see if I can just qualify for NEII or NEIII depending on what the performance is going to be. I've build so many things "wrong" from the way things are done now, that the car won't be consistent or particularly competitive, but it has been important for me to keep the aesthetics and behavior period, and hide the few concessions I've had to make.
I have the little brother to your camshaft in a 355 Chevy, that's going in the Dragster I am starting. My engine has 6" Scat rods, JE pistons, Dart Iron Eagle heads, along with a 2-1/16th Hilborn. It was a fresh build my Brother built for oval track, with only 100 laps. Look forward to seeing you at Riverdale, as it's and hour and a half for me. Always a great show, and lots of runs over 3 days.
That cam appears to be a hydraulic flat tappet cam - am I correct? You could probably use a lot more cam, but getting the car going down the track and having some "seat time" will be most important. You can always "go bigger" later on! I'd love to see you with a mechanical roller - with a lot more lift and a bit more duration. LOL
I wouldn't have looked the card over close enough to see it's hydraulic, good catch. Mine is a 299 F, for flat tappet.
That is correct! Again, I followed what my buddy Gene was doing. He laughed about running a hydraulic cam in it, but he went as fast and quick as he wanted to and didn't have to run the valves every few runs. If I were racing seriously, I'd totally go all zooty with the cam, but the deal with this is to look 1960s, have a blast running it for fun and not breaking any parts. It's a hot rod more than a race car. If I lose more brains than I already have, I know I can put a new cam in it and lean on the combo more. I have Crower roller rockers and girdle uptop on the heads, so it will take it. Then again, if I lose more brains, I'll probably swap out the stack injectors for a 6-71 and 4 hole Hilborn... Unfortunately Gene passed away and there aren't any really good videos of his car running, but this gives the general idea. This is exactly what I want to do with my car.
this one was a woody gilmore, I built it with a 383 stroker and aglide w/trans brake.... I ran 3 stromberg 97's... funny, I built the motor and tuned it... I now struggle to jet a 97 on my banger motor....lol the none chopped merc had a flathead jack motor,...
Well I for one have been following along and if you were looking into the hamb drags you would definitely be interested in the drag race I help put on its called the midway drags at mid America dragway in ark city Kansas june 7-8 2024 if you look it up on the Ol interweb you will find all kinds of info you are definitely invited to come and race your car I am planning on goin to rhe estranged car club drag race in toutle Washington in August I would love to make it back for eagle field but not sure I can make that happen this year your car will be way faster than mine but I promise the blown Flatcad in my car will definitely surprise you I dig your car and hope to see you at the track here is a pic of mine from last year
Fantastic car! Kansas sounds like fun! It won't be this year, but perhaps next! I love the thought of just running with folks who have period looking cars and just are out to have a blast, ETs be damned. That's my only goal. I think for myself I want to see what I can do as a driver to improve with each pass and see what the car can do, but if I'm lining up against a cool rail, I don't really care what happens at the finish line.
Our event is not about how fast you can go though we like that too but the long Smokey burnouts wheelstands and dry hops are what the crowd loves and that my friend is what it’s about for us we put a show and that’s how we do it the meltdown drags and for that matter the hamb drags didn’t get to be a huge success by having the fastest cars in the world it was a show and they successfully made that happen we only hope to get to that point
Going together for the final time... Should be done by the end of next week. Love the thread Dean. Can't wait to light this thing off and make some noise. ~RM
Thanks Robert- so looking forward to it! Thanks for rescuing the original "engine program" (i.e. slap a cam in and trick flow heads on it and see what happens.)
The latest status - just had louvers punched by Matt Seret yesterday so the body is officially done. I'm down to those seemingly endless half-hour jobs. I'll scuff and put another coat of black sealer on the body this weekend and then it will stay in that state until the mechanical stuff is all done. The latest puzzle to solve is figuring out cooler lines on the trans with the NHRA required, SFI stickered trans shield in place. You'd think they'd design them to keep the cooler outlets uncovered, but no. The best answer would be something like a Deadenbear case, but if could afford that, I'd rather spend the money on a clutch setup and run the car the way god intended. After that, it is wiring the mag switch and the starter circuit, bleeding the brakes, fluid in the trans, oil in the rear, checking the Hilborn setup with centering the butterflies and making sure they all close the same, then doing leakdown. Trimming the ignition wires to the correct length and checking the timing. I also need to figure out the best place to hide a 5lb fire bottle - in the tail or under the cowl. I'm going to hold off on buying new belts until just before we start running the car, hopefully doing shakedown runs in the spring. But the hope is to fire it up for the first time sometime next month to break the cam in.
Looking good. My car just had the fire bottle mounted to the frame by the fuel cell. I know that isn't hidden but it worked.
Thanks! Yeah, I'm going to great lengths to hide the "modern." It's a vital part of the whole deal. It's really an art project more than a race car. See if I can build it so it looks dead nuts period, but legal to run, and hiding the required updates, with the obvious concession being the roll cage.
Some how I missed this great thread. Really nice work! It's been an iterative process changing this, redoing that, but the end result is the car looks fantastic and should be a ton of fun. Keep the updates coming.
The Jalopy Journal
