No Jim, I don't think Joe was writing his own rules at all. Don't lay this at his door, he was very helpful and tried to inform me about the way the rules are being interpreted by the NHRA officials out here these days. He took the time to look over the car with an open mind and give me the best advice he had. We'll be following most of it out of hand, it makes good sense. We also had at least one item we were unable to do right (our old belts) in time and had hoped to beg through for this one night. We fully accept that it didn't fly. He was also trying to inform me of our options in other existing cl***es, something I didn't pick up on right off and misconstrued as things we would have to do. I believe I owe both him and Butch an apology for my misunderstanding of that part. As I mentioned, I've been "out of the game" for rather awhile. Joe was kind enough to try to bring me up to date as well, something that was very considerate as there were several folks waiting patiently for his inspections at the time. My feeling that NHRA's evolving, and seemingly regional interpretations of their own rules is my primary annoyance, not the good folk trying to explain it to me. Please don't confuse that. We felt we'd read the book in reasonable fashion and built our car in good faith, and expected mostly minor mistakes at best. The magnitude of the cage thing and the welding is quite frustrating in that light. We honestly felt we'd done our homework on it and were within their rules as printed. The HAMBsters have been invited here to help show "the way it was" and this has attracted a few of us "old farts". As two of those, and the first to attempt to be teched out here it was bound to be (at the very least) a "learning experience" for all of us. It'll likely take a bit of back and forth to get this disparate a thing resolved, and I hope it will indeed be worked out. I believe it'd be beneficial to all of us to do so. Because in spite of the wierdness to this old mind of the automated engine control systems, a tree that goes down unevenly and the very concept of racing "too fast" it was a most enjoyable evening. Perhaps we can even eventually put together a cl*** that'll race with a flagman & a spotter (or at least a random green at 3+ seconds) and really do it "the way it was" for'em. 'Til that time we'll make the best of it we might.
Well Old6, You truly are gracious in your ***essment of the situation. I'm afraid I would have been really bummed but maybe if we can get all the tracks to be on the same page we can run these cars all over without fear of being turned down. I really love your comment on using a flagman, now that would really be good. Also no qualifing, just pair up and race. If you puke you lose and if you red light you lose. A flagman can put his flag on a ****on and if you jump before it comes off it's a red light. I also agree with running to fast but if we don't do something to hold down speeds we will go over the limits of the ch***is. I am going to really stir the pot because we are about at the limits of the horsepower of the flatheads on gas so if we get to fast they will have to have a cl*** by themselves and that takes away from it. Winning isn't everything we need to enjoy the moment. Roy
Let's see... NHRA has been writing rulebooks for what, 40-50 years? You'd think they could say what they mean by now. I know they're just trying to keep us safe, but I think they've forgotten that some people want to build slow cars that don't look like a daily driver. I will tell you that I am still concerned that the overhead valve cars are going to be running too fast to be safe with the HA/GR driver protection the way it is written now. And even though the tires are supposed to be the great equalizer, if you overpower them down track, you can hit the guardrail pretty hard. I feel like I've gone off on a tangent here. I ought to hit the delete key, but it was too much work typing it, so if you would just pardon me for sending this message, I'd appreciate it.
No Pardon needed Jim. As one who is planning on what has the potential of being one of if not the slowest of the bunch, with my minuscule 218 Dodge flathead 6, I'm not worried to much about "overpowering" the tires. That said, we all know the potential exists for someone letting a car get out of shape and making a mess of it. The very act of drag racing with any car necessitates some skill and risk be involved, and as an old tool maker that I used to work with was prone to say, "you can make it fool proof, but you will never make it damn fool proof". The point is that we need to try and get the tech rule people to understand that we can still build a safe car with a torch and a stick welder, in our garages, and that these cars do not need the same methods of construction as a AA Fuel dragster to survive and compete safely. Otherwise, the only people who will be running these cars will be those who can afford "pro built" ch***is, and all of the certification stuff and "big buck" **** that has driven most of us away from the drags. This cl*** isn't rocket science, it's about old technology, home brewed rails, with old technology engines, running speeds and times that many of the new production performance sedans can equal or better. There are many aircraft flying today that are 50 or more years old, with steel tube fuselages and load bearing parts that were torch welded and are still being inspected annually and not having structural failures or falling out of the sky. When you look at the amount of steel structures that have been built with old "buzz box" stick welders and are still performing after many years of service, why is it that the NHRA will only accept MIG or TIG welding as the allowed methods? Just my take on some of the points, and I may not be an engineer, buy I do realize that when you consider all of the parameters, some of their requirements are the equivalent of killing a fly with a cruise missile.
Work update; We've been seeing to some of the things we were "gigged" for on our tech attempt last time out. We have all the nylon style tank mounting straps replaced with 1/2" metal banding ones now, not quite as strong but they won't melt anywhere near as soon. We cobbled up a serious battery hold-down (with 3/8" bolts as recommended) that could possibly survive armeggedon. And our new belts finally came in, with proper certs & all. Next we'll address the gas tank vent. Other upgrades include permenant tie-down loops on the frame that'll be a whole lot easier on the straps (pictures now in the album) and hold'er in place better. A new, longer steering arm that now reaches all the way to both lock positions on the front end. This necessitated recentering the tie rod and the steering wheel as well. Replacing the Moon gas pedal with a much narrower one from an old Plymouth that's now far enough away from the brake pedal to avoid hitting both at once. Diddling all those mechanical linkages so they run completely free, with no binds left at all. Developed a cheap trailer handling mechanism that really takes the work out of loading and unloading the car (I'll try to get some pictures of that soon). As to the "big debate"; We've "discussed" several possible designs for a second hoop for the roll bar. They all **** pond rocks but at least we've arranged'em into a "least offensive" ranking. If all else fails we can mock one up and submit the design for approval before we start welding stuff on (and then have to weld more stuff on the stuff). If it just has to be,......... then we'll want a design approved before we go near any metal. Our team's consensus is that we're willing to grudgingly go a certain distance with it (whining all the way of course ) but that we want to be met part way, with both side's arguments reflecting REALISTIC concerns for the speeds & e.t.s the cl*** is running. We still believe that the six inch tread negates a lot of it. For instance; we'd far prefer to see open rears mandated (to address the very real broken axle possibilities of lockers and spools on a full width rear) rather than "Disney World"ing the cl*** with foam rubber. Hell, my (stock '62 Valiant wagon) tow car tops out higher than our HA/GR will (same slanted engine, taller gears). Anyway, I'll add more pictures as the work continues ..............
Howdy, Well, how's about an update? We pulled the car out of its "winter" storage and took stock of where we are. Soooo ............. We did a bit of work the last couple days getting'er ready for Dragfest this weekend. Put in a fresh clutch plate and surfaced the flywheel & pressure plate while it was apart. Also reworked the throwout arm pivot & pedal drag link for a bit more travel. Went through the gearbox then too, it WAS out after all. Modified the upper part of the ****tershield to dis***emble easier. Reworked the master cylinder and brake links for more travel and a bit more leverage. Moved the wishbone ends up a couple inches on their frame mounts for a bit more ground clearance. Reset the floats on the carbs and remade part of the fuel line. Dusted'er off some and put a spot of wax on. Now to go to Famoso and find the bugs we missed ............
Back from a *****in' weekend at Bakersfield. We'd wanted to get 14's the first time out and after a couple shake-down runs I turned in a pair of'em; a 14.563 at 90.21 & a 14.675 at 88.83. An acceptable first effort for a bone stock engine with some carbs, and 3.23's turning 30" tall hides. Still had a big chunk of third left at the end. Next up is a better set of gears. Added some pictures to the album.
Howdy, We got our new exhaust flanges yesterday, so today we made up our new pipes. They're definitely different. Fresh pictures in the build album of course. Getting ready for the Antique Nat's on Sunday. Hope to have some more running pictures from there.
****, you can click on any of the underlined words in my signature or back in the opening post. When underlined, they're links to the picture albums they describe. Posting links rather than pictures saves "bandwidth" and thus loading time on the thread here, it's a polite consideration for people using dial-up. The shots of the stacks are the last four in the "Barn Job #18" album.
I just thought you might like to know. Have your car ready guys.. We will be racing ANRA at Bakersfield in a couple of weeks..Talked to the Bowsers(Owners)of the Patch. The responce was. "Wish you had 20 of them"(HA/GRs).. We will be working on that..YIpeeeeeeeee.
Thanks, we did have a P-51 sort of obliquely in mind while we hashed'em out. Of course we stole the basic idea from you, just a slightly different mounting. Obviously we shopped at the same header store you did.
Unfortunately we can't claim originality. I noticed today that someone beat me to the idea. And better looking as well ........
All ya need is some nose art on that machine! I appreciate your consideration to others but the m***es need to see those hedders
You guys are making me rethink the way I want to make my exhaust....... May have started a trend of "West Coast Hambster Stacks".
OK, I'll run on a bit. We had an absolute ball. Tech was all over the chart. There were many open wheel cars with no roll bar what-so-ever and open face helmets, and much more of that sort of stuff. Yet we were required to have full suit & shoes with arm restraints & full face bucket, and were even quizzed about a collar! Much of that seemed to be the result of our car looking like it should be running single digit times. Once they understood how slow we run they seemed more at ease. Still wanted all the fire stuff but were far less manic over it. It was almost like they were waiting for us. Still in all we got through it with just some safety wire replacements for a couple cotter pins I'd forgotten and the quickie addition of a spring at the gas pedal. The three on the carbs weren't enough so "then there were four". We were a bit late getting there so that and the time to fix the little things kept us to one t&t run for the morning. Unfortunately it was pretty bad; 16.471 @ 70.26. I missed second and had to back off at 70 with 2" of hop on the left front wheel (guess I'd over weighted it), but the carbs were rich as hell and ****ping out pretty badly by then anyway. During lunch I pulled some of the weights, popped the tops on the carbs and slid the needles down a bit. That cleaned up the carbon some and was helping the **** some as well but I guess whatever was already built up in'em wasn't going away. First round of racing we were ***igned to bracket 2 and they wanted to log our dial-in. The car behind us was 14.4 so we went with that. When we hit the apron & staged the car felt a bit better so I loaded the brake and took a shot at the light, pulling a .281. No big thrill there, but she came out really strong. Didn't last though, the top end **** was worse now. Took second early and when she ****ped again grabbed third. By then the guy next to me (gorgeous open roadster, no roll bar at all) had gone by like an overdue UPS delivery (14.699 @ 95.33) and I settled for my 15.466 @ 83.24 & the comfort of our trailer. Must have picked up some bottom end with the lean-out though as the clutch was slipping a bit in second and third (I may have it a bit tight too). I'm pretty sure I finally know what the carb thing is and I should have it squared away by the 21st. If I can get the top end up without giving up the better bottom end we're hoping to maybe squeeze out a tall 13 at Bakersfield. There was a ton of tin there http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=270984 and even a long time favorite of mine; the Midnight Oil car. Damn, I do like that car. There were several of the Trompers we know from their meetings at our local Carrows and some of the guys from the board here, so we had friends to shoot the breeze with. The Barn Job was popular in spite of my times and we handed out all the HA/GR info sheets we'd brought along. Got several more folks interested, may be another build or two could come of it. Had to leave earlier than we wanted as I needed to get to the float barn today too. All in all it was a great day. We didn't run like we wanted but we came away with what we think are some answers and we had a good time doin' it.
Wish I could of made it but I got the car all apart and adding 2 more bars to the cage. Look for you on the 21st, Rocky
Got some work done getting ready for Bakersfield again. *Fussed with the stacks we had on at Fontana and Tom donated some caps for'em. Noisy as hell and Man, you should see'em at night! *Replaced the temporary safety wires with cotter pins. *Added a permanent pedal spring to the throttle linkage. *Added some more adjustment to the clutch linkage (and adjusted it ). *Replaced the copper fuel rail & line with steel and tucked'em in a bit better. *Rebuilt and "diddled" the carbs (and closed off the choke circuits). *Devised an "on-board" float adjustment tool (from a piece of coat hanger wire) and made up a check gauge. *Cobbled up a "top-off" tube & bulb gizmo (for the SU's piston oil) from a baby's "snot ****er". Sure takes the grief outta that chore. *Rebuilt and "diddled" the distributor. Dumped the vac advance and converted it's mechanism to a screw-set, then lengthened and resprung the mechanical advance mechanism. *Cobbled a "crank (pulley) turner" out of an old piece of v-belt, a 5/8" bar and a couple hose clamps (just a large ugly strap wrench) for timing adjustments. The healthier bottom end's still there and I got rid of most of the top-end ****ping, what's left is much higher up and may well be the valves floating a bit. Perhaps it's time to broach the possibility of thinking about maybe getting around to entertaining the notion of giving some consideration to something other than a bone stock engine? Anyway, next up is doing a proper balance on the wheels, then hauling'er up to the Patch and having a bit of fun.
3:36 AM.........I THOUGHT I HAD IT BAD! Looking forward to the 21st, "O" and don't forget the DR Pepper
I don't know, "Insomniac Racing" may convey the wrong safety concepts to the techs, especially for a couple geezers. Wouldn't want'em thinking we're going to be nodding out before the traps now, would we? Ah well, it does come with the age thing .... hell, at least it's quiet time on the computer. We're going to drag our second hoop mock-up along for design approval if & when they decide to get sticky about it. Also will have some more rules hand-outs for the crowd. Also want to chat with you about an idea I've had regarding the cl***. .......... and I never go anywhere without my Dr Pepper, been addicted since before it went national.
Hell.......if ya can't stay awake between the tree and the traps, you do have a problem. That must be one boring ride.
Howdy gentlemen, Butch's ANRA Springnats were a blast, we had a great time. And it was hot, so I'm going to use every cheap heat reference I can think of. But it wasn't rained out. We got there before the gates opened for once but Rocky, Lee & Co. had gotten there the night before and set up camp. Fortunately there was still some space next door so we set up all together, combining our porta-shades into a small flea market set-up. They'd already tech'ed so we wheeled the Barn Job over to the lines for our turn and as Butch had warned'em about us it wasn't too bad. The tech we got has been invloved since the first time we had the car out there so he was already used to our often novel responses to the rules. Here's the set-up: We'd brought along our "second hoop" cage design mock-up for approval. It was cobbled up from 3/4" conduit and covered with slip-on insulation foam to bring it out to 1 3/4" diameter. It just clipped in place to make sure it was in the correct position for reference. Now, on with the saga: After we tech'ed we asked the inspector to critique it. We clipped it on for him to see and he called a couple other techs over for their critiques as well. Unfortunately they hadn't been party to the initial conversation and were in the process of letting us know that simply clipping one on wasn't going to get it, it needed to be bolted, or better still welded in place. A squeeze of the "padding" brought disapproval of it's density and effectiveness, more shaken heads and upon noticing the seam & lifting same, the observation of the 3/4" conduit under it. "No", "No way","No way in hell" and "Are you serious?" were a**** the politer responses at this point. The rest were a tad more intense. Finally our first tech realized the situation and laughing, explained to the others the nature of the "inspection". Their relief (and their minor abashment) was palpable. They joined in laughing at the joke and then gave us some good advice on the design. We certainly did have'em going for a bit though (no matter how unintentionally). Of course we'll be telling this one for awhile. On to the day: Our wish for the day was to squeeze in a hot (for us) high13 if possible with the car set up as it is. We decided that as Russ is relatively new to the strip I'd heat'er up 'til we got it and he'd toast'er after that. On the first Open Wheel T&T call I cooked off a 14.282 @ 92.59, only a bit warmer than our previous best of 14.563 @ 90.21 but progress none-the-less. The second call I fried a 14.095 @ 93.14 and we were really looking forward to blistering our hoped for 13. Unfortunately they didn't get in a third call for Open Wheel before lunch and that left us with a heated decision to make. We were so close and still running hot that we decided to go for it during the heat of eliminations. Sadly, I made a dumb**** mistake, turning the newly installed advance screw on the distributor the wrong way and effectively burnt the race, also frying any chance of our 13. We'd dialed in 13.9 and the lukewarm 14.432 @ 93.54 that I fizzled fell to the other guy's smoking 12.182 (on his 11.95 dial) as it deserved to. So with charred dreams, and smoked to our trailer, we settled for the ashes of a near miss and retired to swelter in the pits. Russ never even got to don his fire suit and warm the hides. Did I mention that it was warm? We hung around and lent a hand cooling down Lee's car during his subsequent runs and he made it to next to last round (due solely to our help of course ). We had a ball. Then Rocky came up with E/G honors and we all went ape (what're your points now, Rocky?). I wish we could've stayed for the festivities but I had to get back down the hill as it was late and I have long Sundays obligated to the float. I hear you had a good time afterward, sorry we had to go. We'll make some changes we'd held off and see y'all again in August. And I'll bring along a better chair. Did I say it was hot? It was HOT. It was REAL HOT! It was DAMN HOT!!! It was sooooo hot that ............................ (With apologies to Robin Williams for that cr*** plagerism.) ...........the legs of the light weight sun-shades left clear imprints in the asphalt.
Hey ****.......what are you trying to do, make us get a cam ground for the Flathead Dodge, just so we can keep up? 14.095, damn, I may just have to let you go and race Lee. Sounds like the leaning tower of power just keeps getting better. I guess the cleaned out carbs ran pretty good. Now all you have to do is remember which way to turn the screw for advance.
The Jalopy Journal
