Technical Keeping "Heritage" Going - God's Work

Someday.

 

I'm a father to 3 young men. They all have spent some time in my shop working with me off and on over the years. My goal was always to teach them skill sets that they can have for life no matter what trade they choose for work just like my father did for me. Nathan has a history since he is the first born in our family. Cool little article Brian Lohnes (current NHRA Announcer) wrote on my son, this all took place a day before he went into Kindergarten.
https://bangshift.com/general-news/...flow-bench-what-have-you-done-with-your-life/

 

"Everything old, is new again"
And this is magnificent proof, that a young person, can accomplish amazing results, when motivated and given the opportunity to use the tools to breath new life into something old!

 

Wow this is some top tier “holy shit” stuff!

 

I'll keep posting some other cool projects if it interests you guys. This next one I'll share was for Chad Decatur who owns the Danny Ongias "Honda of Wilmington" Top Fuel car from 1965. I was tasked with restoring not one injector but three that were on the car during its era. Also helped with the engine side of things with Gary Cooper.

The first injector is the Hilborn Bugcatcher. Had to make some weld repairs to the casting, make new shaft, new fuel lines, throttle blades, find and go through a high capacity barrel valve, locate the proper spool for the barrel valve, and my friend TJ Zessin down at Atomic Machine & Design in Lincoln, NE helped me recreate the wedge spacer that went under the hat and on top of the blower. The reason behind the wedge spacer I found to be an interesting bit of history. It basically leveled out the injector parallel to the ground from all of the engine dump built into the chassis, the end result was actually gaining a better view down track. The Bugcatcher is a pretty wide injector and it would block the view of the driver. I always assumed it was some sort of airflow gain but nope, the driver needs to see! Luckily there were many photographs to study during the process. It sure helps when trying to use the same looking components as much as possible.







Corey Conyers at the wheel below

Justin Arias helping out at a Nitro Revival event


Then there is the Short 4 Port version

If you notice in this picture two of the fuel line wrap around the front of the injector and the other two around the back. Normally on a 4 nozzle designed injector the lines are just on one side. These guys tried all sorts of stuff out that was unique so we tried to recapture what we felt we could tastefully do. I remachined the entire 4 port casting, located the correct heim joints from the mid 60's, had old fittings stripped and replated, rebuilt the fuel lines, all new components built in house otherwise.




Last one is the Herbert Hat Injector. Only a few pictures I have seen of it are in black and white. We believe it was on the car at first. I have been told Chet Herbert only made around 50 of his injectors or so. Pictured below is one of my prized possessions that I let go to Chad for his car. Doug Herbert even tried to buy this from me. Tough call to make but I felt it needed to go with this car.




A picture of the car in the Lions Museum

 

Outstanding work and life lessons for your son(s). Best wishes for the future!!

 

Nick, you are more than a Machinist, you are an artist. Your work is more than just beautiful, it’s stunning. Please keep posting and showing us what you are working on. Very cool on working with your sons.

 

Have your son take a look at this site. This page alone covers highlights, but there is so much more.
https://www.marioandretti.com/career-highlights

I remember reading a R&T article where he took out an old race car after his retirement. He made a few laps and when he came in, he asked about the setup and guessed correctly which they had used, decades after his last run in the car.

 

You got it! Well here is another one then. There is another gentleman restoring the Markley Bros Belly Tanker and I was asked to restore the Tall 4 Port for that restoration. This one was alot less evasive to do. I've been fortunate to speak with Charlie Markley a number of times, actually plan to call him tonight to catch up. He explained the engine build one time on what it took to get the record at the time. It was a 259 Plymouth with 270 Dodge Hemi heads. They fabricated their own manifold, I believe a 8-71 driven 1:1, boxed rods, and a valvetrain that was steady well north of 8000 RPM with around .500 lift. In the black and white picture below you can see the welding along the plates of the manifold. Charlie is such an awesome guy, just a badass living legend!

 

It looks like a 6/71 in the pic.

 

You are correct.

 

Nick
We will absolutely absorb everything you are doing with your injector programs.
Now, about those SBC's of yours!

 

Nick, always impressed with your work! I find your projects always interesting. I am a stack injector guy but do have a 2 port Hilborn and a Crower 8 port injector (not sure that is what it is called). Keep posting your projects, always interesting to look at!

 

Very nice Nick. I'm one for sure that would enjoy any updates your willing to share.

 

Here is one I fixed a few days ago for Dick down at Scarab Motorsports in Kansas City area. This is a really rare Hilborn Injector specifically made for the Scarab cars. They all ran small block Chevy engines. I believe this one was made in the late 1950's. I asked Gene Adams if he ever worked on any of these since he worked for Stu from 1960-1975. He said he never did and that Stu personally saw the project through. This wasn't running right and setup wrong by another well known shop. I found that it had the wrong spool/rotor inside the barrel valve which was setup for a 4 cylinder and not a V8. Had 6A nozzles on one bank and 7A's on the other. The throttle blades on these very early Injectors were steel that at sometime had been replaced but were just too small for the bore (had 3X the clearance it's supposed to have). This would explain alot of the issues they were battling. Didn't really take too many pictures as it was a rush job to get the car out the door and running properly. A few pictures towards the end.


Here is the difference in the grooves for the spool. Not much getting through the one on the left. It's a #57 (4 cylinder) and what would have been correct for the time frame was a #23 to the right.

They also had some spacers under the barrel valve to raise it some. I made an aluminum plate so it looks proper and raised it a little more for less bend in the fuel lines.

Since the shafts actually felt pretty good in the bores I opted to open up the slot for the blades in the shafts and make some aluminum blades from sheet stock. Now they are back to a proper clearance and even dug into my special hardware hoard to put the correct throttle blade screws in it. Also luckily had a nice matching set of 7A nozzles that were the right shape for the late 50's.




Here is what a Scarab looks like if you are not familiar with the car. I've thoroughly enjoyed the history lessons I've gotten from Dick about the cars. He will be here bright and early Monday morning.

 

Thank you Nick for sharing your incredible impressive work. Please continue to post what you are doing. This is definitely one of the BEST threads on the HAMB.

 

Stunning workmanship Nick.

 

Hope everyone enjoyed Easter!
Here's another cool one. I stumbled across an ad stating this one was a carburetor. Knowing it was an Offy Injector I decided to get it at a fair price but it needed some major TLC. Some before and after pictures in que.





So this is a Hilborn Travers casting. Anytime you see Travers cast on a Hilborn Injector its really old. Here is a bit of history worth reading up on this portion.
https://www.museumofamericanspeed.org/stuhilborn.html
Don Enriquez was able to look up the history on this one for me and it was built for a 105 Offy in 1956. I have learned over the years to Google the name of who it was sold to and see if it was somebody significant in the world of motorsports. The history side of things has been very enjoyable for me. I get to breathe life back into this stuff and do my part to keep it all alive.

Tony Battenhausen was inducted into a few Hall of Fames. He was killed racing in 1961, his son went on to have a great career as well. There are some links below about Tony, this is a common journey I take on some of these restorations.
https://imsmuseum.org/fame_inductee/tony-bettenhausen/
https://indymotorspeedway.com/memorial_1961.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Bettenhausen

I found a picture of him in this Midget, is this the injector to that car? It was from a very close timeframe.
And here are some pictures of after I completed it.







I still own this one and trying to find the right home for it. I think it belongs back on one of his cars that likely resides in a museum or private collection somewhere. Maybe someone will see this and reach out to me?

 

Fantastic restoration Nick, I agree , It should be back with the race car it was on. I hope someone gets in touch with you on this piece of history.

 

First, I'd like to say what You're doing is Incredible!
Thought I'd share what I saw last year at Watkins Glen vintage, one of the most beautiful car's i think I have Ever seen..

 

Impressive as usual Nick , hope to talk with you soon about a camshaft for our dragster . Doug .

 

The gentleman I just fixed the injector for built that car and that is his EFI version of the manifold. He wants me to take over and start building all of those injectors now.

 

Wait, That's EFI ?

 

One I did for James Hardman who restored the Jungle Jim Camaro. I got this injector from the Tom Hannah auction a few years back. Built him this polished Tall 4 Port for this car. The casting had some really neat patina to it.

 

Yes sir, The fuel rails and injectors are underneath it. Look at where the distributor normally is, that is a Holley/MSD Cam Sync and the TPS is under the distribution block in the center. He bought the casting inventory of that model from Hilborn before the Holley buyout. I know where the pattern is for this one.

 

Damn...!
Outstanding..
Is that car and Original, Or a creation of Your clients? The caliber of the build was Ridiculous, Won best of show..

 

I believe that one was a build of his. FIA Certified ones are all Mechanical Injection, EFI is a different deal from what he was explaining to me. We had a 2 hour long conversation this morning about various things while picking up his injector from me. Here is a link to his website, he does amazing work, takes an army of talented people to produce a beautiful car like that.
https://www.scarabmotors.com/

 

Nick, we're fortunate to have a guy like you around to keep the torch lit.

 

and a few independent soldiers like yourself who can do the unique, specialized tasks needed.

 

I'm floored. The workmanship, the history you're hip deep into, the cars themselves, and amid legends that span lifetimes. Simply wonderful. And Scarabs? In my opinion they rank in at least the top 5 most beautiful racers in history. Hell yes we wanna see what you're doing. Keeper of the flame. Kudos...