The problem with making some of the drag cars in 1:18 like a Falcon, Chevelle, or Chevy II, is that there are likely not 10-12 household (car guy's homes) household names to do & sell. There's a list of just '65 Plymouth and Dodges to do replica's of, but not so many on some body styles - and each body style is a ton of money ($125-150,000+) for tooling. Then the cars have to be made at additional cost. One has to have at least 10-12 or more cars to replicate using the same mold/tooling. And that's why some body styles do not get made...
We have several others we may do, like Strickler, Color-Me-Gone, Ramchargers, and a few more, but we can only afford to do so many at a time. They cost us big bucks so we need to get these we are making out the door first - before making any others. So Faubel, Mr Norm's, and two Landy cars right now.
Re: some of the discussion of hood flexing; that's why I'm doing mine in pre preg carbon rather than fiberglass. No one will know except those who have a chance to lift the hood, which will weigh less than 6 lbs, but actually be stronger than a steel hood. Glad to see some activity on this thread again!
storm king you are missing the point. the hood is flexing because the trapped air inside the engine compartment wants to get out. the trapped air causes lift. now you have come up with a plan to hold all the air in? make sure you show the tech inspector your competition license and you aviators license. if you have a stash of old super stock magazines around look at the 66 issues and see how many articles they have on safety and aerodynamics. if you don't rethink your hood issues at least get the pass on video. it would be a great study on what not to do.
Could try several louvers or even large holes to try to let air escape, but air going under the front can't stay underneath a car @140> And my experience using inner fenders was not much help. It's a speed/air entering thing, and high pressure at the base of the windshield doesn't help air escape with the hood raised in the rear or backward hood scoops etc either. We always had to run with a semblance of a hood in place but the injector always uncovered. Maybe figure a way to let air out behind the rear window (?) I know it's a band aid kind of thing, but I always wondered how effective a big air dam is on the front of a car that's nose high, and how much speed and et it cost vs frontal area, and if a car could even be more stable with one at all. Have someone to take lots of good photo's and write back. I really miss these things; Tom S.
and now you throw in a altered wheel base into it and its a accident waiting to happen. by 66 the faster cars were not running hoods or had oversize holes in them or were stretching front ends. ford put the flip tops in a wind tunnel. the result was big air dams on the front. one of the flip top drivers removed the dam and crashed big time. i may be wrong here but i think i read it flew up into a tree at the ss nats 66. you also need to take into account a awb car using a stock chassis is way different than using a tube frame with your old body on it. there are more options available on the tube frame to combat the air. guess thats why the awb thing only lasted a little more than a year.
This was taking late in 67 note the lack of side and rear windows,also the holes in the decklid and you can see day light shining though onto the ground no trunk floor at this point.Weight reduction yes but also to reduce lift I feel.
cool pic. who knows what their thinking was. could have been for weight and to reduce trapped air. unless you talk to the original owner its all speculation. to make my point look at shirl greers car after the trunk was cut off. do you think he did it to reduce lift? i don't. i think it was a way to reduce weight and stay competitive for another week with a out dated car. by late 67 most of the drag world had already passed the transition cars and was onto all out flip tops. that put the awb cars two generations of funny cars back. so to stand a chance of making any money anything that didn't move the car forward was cut off. these type of cars are my favorite because they had the most personality.
#1306; I never actually saw this employed, but I can tell you with certainty those louvers and holes were made to let air escape from under the car for stability in hopes of going faster if it wouldn't start flying. I wonder if there were openings in the floorboard also. I bet there had to be a hurricane wind that went through that car at speed. The windows were probably removed for weight and try to reduce the low pressure area behind the rear window. If the windshield was still in place, that high pressure area was still there though. Wonder how much faster these cars got with the roof removed? Ever see a fiberglass funny car body catapulted sky high following a high speed wheelstand? That wind has to go somewhere, or the pressure allowed to build underneath with speed will make the heaviest cars fly. Everything was cool with gas and carbs or injectors, but nitro and then blowers changed an old school game. Racer-X, I'm wondering how much even removing the hood helps at 190mph. I used to think 140 was super fast, but 190 is a bunch of speed for a short closed in car car. Tom S.
tom i can tell you with absolute certainty removing the hood made my car stay on the ground. this is from my personal experience not from a friends uncles friends cousin. also i have the video and pictures to prove it. like i said on a earlier post its a very short list of drivers who have gone over 150 mph let alone 190 mph in a awb car with the original chassis. I'm sure i have more seat time in more cars than most out there. I'm not saying this to brag I'm saying this to separate myth from fact. i would put more stock in one persons opinion if they had personal experience on a subject compared to a thousand opinions that had no personal experience at all. I've been there done that pass after pass after pass.
I recently went to a show with my son and talked to some guys with a new age Camaro that was twin turbo'd nitrous etc., (no idea what class) and it blew my mind when they said it was a 7 second car(!) I know this, and I sure would like to see these cars run. Tom S.
Are you guys using iron motors, or Milodons or JoePisano(1. 2.?) ? I may have asked already, but what do these cars weigh today? Tom S.
Great vintage photos from the Detroit area, drag and show from the 1960's-1970's. Great color pictures. Nicholson '61, early Mopars, some AWB cars too. Joel http://www.joestevensphotos.com/NHR...SGdCcw/1018922736_WYEiq#!i=1018922736&k=WYEiq
joel you were right there when the awb cars ran. did you ever see any high speed crashes or hear any talk from the drivers about handling problems.
tom s i ran a kb-6 block double cross bolts one inch lifters standard deck height. all the others that i know of are running iron 426 blocks. the candies and hughs runs a destroked hemi i believe 390 some cubes. my car weight was 2830 with me in it ready to run with all fluids including seven and a half gallons of nitro. i dont know about anyone elses weight.
I was doing a google search for another topic and accidentilly ran across these photos of F/Xer's sans the hood, both Fords in this case on another website. Just too many years gone by. Tom S. in Tn.
Brian, When looking at it from the perspective of time there were crashes to be sure, but not many more with the AWB-F/C cars than in all the other forms of drag racing. There were plenty of dragsters, gassers and altereds that crashed hard too. In the time that I saw these cars run, from earlier in '63 with S/S-F/X to '72 I actually never saw an AWB car crash ... lots of squirrely runs though. Most of the squirrely runs were by the blown flip-top cars. For the most part the AWB cars ran pretty good. The runs were mostly very close and exciting. The only crashes I saw were two regular S/S cars in the late sixties. I saw plenty of local racing and most all of the big S/S-F/X-F/C meets from '64 through '72. The only one I missed was the '66 S/S Nationals where Chrisman and the Batcar Mustang crashed. The Batcar wasn't a stretch yet at that point either. Both of them just ran off the end of the track, not because they were out of shape. I do recall not too long ago ... a certain blown, nitro, AWB Dodge getting sideways and catching fire at a nostalgia meet in Ohio though! (wink-wink and a nod) Joel
thanks for your input here on the handling issues. i figured if anyone should know you should. you were there. yah that dodge did have a way of putting on a show just sometimes not what i had in mind. i just ran it like i wasnt saving anything for monday.
The Jalopy Journal
