I was reading a thread on here last week about Ford Shotgun 429 powered FEDs. It got me thinking about a ch***is I picked up as a project back in 82 -83 and flipped before doing anything with it. I was living in the Detroit suburbs and bought it through my brother, who claimed the seller was Jay Howell. Don't know if Jay is a regular on here anymore. Perhaps he can back this up. My brother worked at Ramchargers at the time as a machinist/fabricator and was in contact with many racers in the area. I wasn't too interested in the history of the car back then, but was told that it may have been one of Kallitta's last FED cars before switching to the RED. Of particular note on this ch***is is the kick-out section on the left side upper frame rail. The story was that it was modified to allow clearance for oil filter access on a boss 9 or cammer. I'm not that familiar with the SOHC mills but I do know that the boss-9 has its filter in this location. Anyhow, I dug out some old photos that were taken the weekend I bought it and attached them here. Perhaps someone here can identify who the builder was and the approx year of construction based on the cage design. I also attached a HR cover shot of a Kalitta's shotgun powered FED. The roll cage design is not a match though. Ken
Some of them old cars had an Aluminum tail section that came up and inclosed the cage so you would never see that style of cage... I've seen one other cage like that one on another old Top Fuel car. Several guys ran Fords back then besides Connie. Tom Hoover and Pete Robinson ran Ford Top Fuel cars just to name a few.
The rear wheels were 16" magnesium Halibrands (wish I had kept those) with original Goodyear Bluestreaks mounted. It came with a fiberglas tail section but I don't know if it was original to the car. The rest of the bodywork was aluminum. The construction on the frame was top notch. Perfect welds, no gobs gaps or boogers. The blue paint was an epoxy or urethane and looked original to the ch***is. Brakes were Wilwood Ken
The ch***ie does not look like it came from any West Coast builders SPE - Woody - Long - Davis - Huzar - Britting - Fuller. And the only one that I know of that ran a front cage hoop all the way down to the bottom frame rail at the motot plate was Garlits, but only on his earlier cars. The Wilwoods is a change since they were not around in the 60's-70's
Allmost the story on my FED, your discribtion fits! http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=531757 ................................. Taildragger&fenderless
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