I've had it

I just came in from the shop. I lost high gear after one run at the Nationals. I have fought clutches and trans from May until now and haven't been able to complete one day of racing. After pulling the transmission I noticed that some debris was hanging out of the clutch. It is a good thing the trans let go because about one more bonzia run the clutch would have exploded. The disk lost a rivet and let a paddle come lose and took out part of the clutch.
I have put about 1500 dollars in the clutch and transmission this summer and it is all gone. I can't afford this kind of carnage so I'm going to become an Outlaw. I'm putting a Powerglide in and it is going to stay in. It is the only way I can afford to play.Roy

 

Roy,

I agree 100 %

Ron

 

Welcome to the two pedal club....................Zilla.

 

WOOOOOO HOOOOO !!!!!!!!!!!!

win by attrition!!!!!!!!!

one less guy I have to try to beat!

Seriously though- what trans and clutch?

 

hey sorry to hear that what combo are you running in the 60's we ran a packard trans and a semi metallic cluthch behind a pumped up v/8 with no problems maybe there is a solution to your problem without the hi expense
Ken

 

348, I understand your frustration and your choice. There's plenty of room in this world for outlaws.

Others; an organic clutch disc might not work the best in this application. Please research racing clutches and manual trans before you build. There are bullet-proof combinations out there.

 

Our AHRA record holding '53 Ford used a bone stock '53 three speed with 5,000-6,000 rpm launches. We broke a lot of stuff, but never the trans or clutch. It was a fairly serious flathead pulling a heavy car body.

 

I am running a Saginaw 3 speed from Chevy pickup. This is the same trans 2B and Cowboy Bob run. The flywheel is a 153 tooth aluminum flywheel with a steel insert. The clutch is a 10 1/2 in. Zoom compe***ion clutch with a Ram 6 paddle metalic disk. A rivet let go on one of the paddles and let part of the lining come down and takeout part of the spring mechanizism of the clutch. This combination did not slip, the organic disk slipped. If I had it to do over I would go with a Ford toploader 3 speed. The lighter you make your car the easier it is on the clutch and trans mission. If I could put my engine in 2B's car it would easily be in the low 11's and 120mph. I am trying to move to much weight. By starting in second gear you are really taxing the driveline and with a car that weighs 1700 lbs. it is really double jeopardy. I am running into some problems with the powerglide as the starter doesn't engage the flexplate and I have got to space the trans back 9/16 in. so the torque converter will work. The guys in tulsa are running 2 GMC's with powerglides so I know they will help me sort this out.Roy

 

Bummer about the ****** going and also a bummer that another HA/GR car goes. To bad there couldn't be a common ground reached for one HA/GR cl***.

Seems to me there could be 20 cool cl***ic bug style dragsters growing a cl*** instead of two camps of 10 each doing their own similar, yet different thing. Oh well, hopefully both continue to grow.

 

Ever the optimist, I believe both WILL grow, and flourish in due time.

I also believe both are necessary.
Slush-pumpers bring in folks attracted to the car style but not interested in driving'em '50s style. There are plenty of candidates in this catagory.
Rowers cover the other side of the coin, those who want the full experience of the era. There are plenty of candidates for this aspect as well.

Not all that different from the street scene, eh wot?

Getting the most folks that we might into this particular corner of the hobby means having a place for each candidate's frame of mind. Hang in gentlemen, it'll work. Not in spite of, but because of the vatiety.


Still, I do hate to lose a rower to you damned slush-pumpers.

 

Roy,

We're putting the engine in the car tonight and hope to wring it out soon. If we have ******/clutch problems we're going outlaw also. We can't afford the problems you've encountered. If we go outlaw I'll also go to a single 4 barrel carb. Simplicity usually removes a lot of worry and frustration.

Ron

 

I can't afford any snafu's either in the ****** dept. I've had enough problems with torque and antiquated 3speeds already in a street setup. We're having problems enough scratching up the dinero to finish the Hossy Hudson engine, much less be bogged down continually with ****** shrapnel. I'm running out of "traditional" parts to keep the Hudson on the road with no serious shenanagans, much less the kind of whacking a HA/GR rail would produce.

I think there's room enough for both cl***es. Traditional and Outlaw. The fact the Tulsa crowd race more than once a year is a serious consideration in the fun dept, at least for me.

Perhaps most of us are engine fanatics anyway, looking to spotlight our favorite ancient iron out front more than anything else?

Hud

 

define common ground

 

Lost causes:

1) Auto ****** in HA/GR

2) Radial Tires

3) year break to allow the 300 Ford 6cyl

Might as well try to make the wind stop blowing in Oklahoma. Zilla.

 

It's that dirt under our feet.

As long as people have been racing they have been breaking stuff.

Some folks will break something every weekend, others will run a whole season with just minor adjustments.

Back in the early '60s we ran a strong flathead in a '53 ford g***er with a street clutch and a stock trans and never broke them. Ran a fairly stock, gutted '50 chevy coupe with a basically stock stovebolt six and put the internals of eight or ten ******s on the street in less than a year.

Finally figured out it had something to do with how I was driving the thing.

 

First off, Hooray I went to Gary's and he said bring the car so I went home and brought it to him. We looked and he thought and came up with a simple solution that my mind just didn't see at first. Now everything will work to put the powerglide in. We are running everything that the HA/GR cl*** is running except the slip and slide and a 4 barrel. I personally think I can put a 4 barrel on the trailer with my multiple carb setup. So I'm sticking with that.
On the subject of transmissions, most Packards, Cad- LaSalles, etc are made of unobtainum. When we were racing flatheads in the 50's a 39 Ford box was 15 to 20 bucks, a complete Ford rearend was the same. I had a dragster in 1957 that would meet all the rules except the roll bar wasn't high enough. I ran recap slicks and shelled a trany or rearend about everyother weekend. I got tired of it and bought a Super Stocker that also was the family car. 100 octane gas was 32 cents and it got 8 miles to the gallon but who cared back then. The Ford transmission was 16 years old then and parts were at every parts house. I just read an article that you can buy a Scot blown flathead of 284 cu. in. for $27,000. Now to me that is serious money. It is put together very well like billet main caps etc. But still way out of my league.
I think we can run autos and standards and still be a good group of cars. Some people can make a stick trans work but I didn't seem to have the right touch and I can't afford to keep shelling the things and trying to fix the problem. This was supposed to be a low budget venture and has doubled what I had really planned on putting in it. Without the help of Gary Sellin I would have a $20,000 car. So the auto stays and all the autos can run each other and the standards can run each other and 2b will probably still beat us all. Roy

 

Sounds like maybe you forgot the "pilot bearing"? Never heard of that much damage with a manual trans in a demolition derby car...........................WTF....................
That's ok, you must be intelligent to run a 4 speed, your reflexes much coordinate 16 individual rev limiters, a clutch pedal, a shifter, eyes on the tach, and track at the same time, and still look Cool.......................when its all over..................

I saw this on the discovery channel, they found the 4 speed gene.

Automatics do have a place.

 

Well said Roy. It will be interesting to see how many cars there will be in each cl*** next year.
I,m glad Ryan started the outlaw cl***,way to go Ryan.

 

auto or his brother Manuel, I enjoy watching all the HA/GR rods blast down the track. Two ladders that meet in the end for Mr. Eliminator is my suggestion.

 

This was my biggest concern from the beginning. Breaking lots of old, expensive parts. The low budget part of this really appealed to me but an endless string of busted stuff nullifies that. Guys are not going to be happy when they shell an engine or trans and shell their wallet at the same time.
The auto verses stick argument is over but I still think they should each run in their own cl***es and the two winners run off HA/GR "top eliminator" style.
Is there some way to handicap automatics to make the sticks and autos more equal? Like autos only get one NON-four barrell carb or something?
Ok I'll go stand in the corner now.

 

I'm gonna bang that Lasalle drum once again.

I see side shifts for sale regularly, at least one every two weeks. All different parts of the country. Most for $250 or less, depending on condition. I have yet to find a blown up one. Heck, there's one in the HAMB cl***ifieds right now.

I have two right now, a stock one, and a shortened one. Pictures of the shortened one are in my build posts. I paid $150 for the stocker, and $330 for the shortened one. Shipping from California to Colorado on the shortened one was about $70, but the seller covered it.

I was going to keep my stock one for spares, but if it'll keep one of you in the HA/GR cl***, I will sell it to you. Furthermore- If you blow it up, I will buy back the remains for what you paid me for it.

 

Handicapping is totally against what these cars are about. It's run whatcha brung racing.

It is hard to call it racing when someone loses for running too fast, as in the brackets and ET cl***es, and the idea of having a limit on what you build, other than modern parts, blowers and fuel injection etc. isn't what the cl*** is about either. Might as well bring out the NASCAR restrictor plates or put on minimum weight limits and nothing over 300 cu. in.

What we are trying to have here is true nostalgia racing, with cars built and using the same kind of parts and innovation as was used when it wasn't nostalgia, but real hotrodding.

 

Ok,Then I take back all I said about you.
You did put on one hell of a drag race,best ever.

 

from the beginning I've wondered where all this talk of low budget racing came from. There's nothing in the rules, and nothing in the "mission statement" at the beginning of the rules a couple years ago, that says the focus of this cl*** is low bux. From what I remember it was "have fun, run hard, show the folks". Yes, an inexpensive car can be built. I think some of the guys are even focusing on that, But there are usually reasons why cheap or free parts are cheap or free. Like it or not, in any kind of racing, parts that don't break are more money.
I gotta think that breaking stuff in these cars is just like the old days. Break a '39 Ford trans, get a Zephyr. Break the Zephyr, get a Buick, Break the Buick, get a Packard or Lasalle. Don't have the patience or the financial wherewithal to go through the growing pains? Back then it was either race, or don't. Sure, we have more options now, and I'm not saying the outlaw/auto isn't a viable one, back then, there weren't as many options.

 

stupid question.....i know they had autos in the fifties....is it because they were junk , that no one used them back then>???

 

Early stock slush-pumps weren't very useful in racing due to inefficient torque converters resulting in hp & torque loss on the low end. Only the expensively modified ones could handle any hp to speak of.
There were certainly good ones available for those with the money.

Eventually the cheaper stock ones became good enough for track use to some extent. The Torqueflite was about the best in the low buck bracket.

Also, I'd like to address the low buck question.
Though there's no "low Buck" rule in HA/GR, its entire point of existence is to represent in some form drag racing of the very early fifties (albiet with more available and safer equipment). At that time drag racing was locality oriented, low buck, back street racing practiced mostly by young folk on a shoestring. Hell, the first "official" strip didn't open 'til '53. As a representation of the era "low buck" builds are the purest form of the discipline.

Some of us want essentially a modern car that looks alot like the era.
Some of us want to enjoy (a few to re-enjoy) the era itself as closely as we now might.
The thing we have in common is a fondness for the cars of that period.
The thing we don't have in common is the style of racing we enjoy.
As I've said before, we're two sides of the same coin.

 

NO! Looks like you didn't read my next to last line. I guess didn't make myself clear. I know what bracket racing is and I know what "we are trying to have here". Handicap type ET starts are NOT WHAT I MEANT! I meant some rule that penalizes automatics like limiting them to a single 2 barrel carb or something to make the sticks and automatics more equal. Want to run an automatic you'll have to do it with a single 2 barrel carb, and NO TRANS BRAKES! Something like that.