Projects Northwest Vintage Dragster Group Build.

I have a gmc 261 six with all of the old Wayne goodies and a 6=8 intake and headers, split exhaust. I also have a lot of fab experience, this could work.

 

Yeah I think you could pull it off

Better start a build thread and get some leftovers out of the rafters mocked up.

 

We got in a little work on the dragster this week, our buddy Leonard Card that built the trans came in and went threw it from the creeper side and thinks he managed to put in the wrong seperator plate gasket. Hopefully that is taken care of.

One of the major issues we had is it kept pushing fuel pass the needle and seat. We changed the needles, lowered the float level, we even put a fuel pressure regulator on it to no avail. So we decided in the end to go back to plan A which was to mount a Holley float bowl up high and gravity feed the carbs from it. This actually worked out really well. We used a secondary bowl from a 4 barrel carb which did not have an accelerator pump to block off and 1/8 inch pipe plug happens to work perfectly in the crossover tube hole.

I got out some aluminum and drilled and tap the holes for the number 12 screws for the bowl and then drilled and tapped three 1/4 inch pipe plug holes in the plate.

Fittings installed

Mounted it up high and forward so ALL that wicked acceleration can help flow


The plumbing is still a little rough but it is a good point to try it out and see if it will work before we get too fancy. We found us a piece of pavement just out of town that we can use for test and tune on the next shop night.

Also I was pretty concerned with the front tires kicking a rock into one of the carb scoops, we came up with a few plans for solving the issue but while waltzing around Home Depot the other day I ran accross these for 3 bucks a pair.... plumbers must all have Harleys....

They couldn't have fit better and the edge banding will prevent ununravelled wires entering the carbs.

 

Are you joining Street Outlaws and doing a few "Hits" on the streets LOL.

 

I figure if that is as far outside of the lines I color I'm doing pretty good.

 

WELL DONE

 

We got everything buttoned up on Sunday and we were going to go way out of town in order to run the car but there was a big fire across town so we pretty well knew where all the police were. Fired her up and run her down the street in front of the shop cool to see, Got good video. Still stuck in first gear.

 

LOL that was great you bunch of old Hoodlums you.

 

I love it!

 

Man that sounds good, looks like a lot of fun.

 

This is awesome and looks like y'all had a blast building it! I'm curious as to which Harley carbs you're running and how did you adapt them to this application?

 

Now THAT's my idea of a Sunday Drive.

 

Gave up on the tranny and bought another, running out of opportunity to run this this year so we gotta quit messing around. There are 3 more races at Walla Walla this year and one down in Boise i would like to hit with some friends.

 

Sometimes you have to take a hammer to the problem. Glad to hear you're moving forward.

The rest of the NW group will be at Riverdale Raceway (Toutle, WA) this Sat. Sept. 9th.

 

While I was in there I decided to go ahead and pull the third member out of the rear end, I thought we had checked it as a 3.50 to 1 ratio turns out it is a 3.10 to 1 and so I will order some new gears as well as a spool.

Sorry we are going to miss that Walt, one of these days we'll get her act together on this. You guys have a blast.

 

Rottenleonard, on a rear as wide as yours and as light as it is a spool may want to make the car wheel hop.

 

Well I guess at this point we are going to find out and hope for the best. Parts are on their way. Why would a spool be more problematic then a locker?

 

with a solid mounted rear there will be no danger of wheel hop

 

Not wheel hop as a 55 Chevy as an example, but wheel hop from side to side as viewed from the back. With a locked (spool) differental and wide rear the left wheel will want to lift the right rear wheel when you throw the cobbs to it. Been there and done that 55 years ago. This is personal expeariance as well of observing many others. Keep us posted.

 

The major issue with using a spool in this style of car is the wide track. It is hard enough to turn a narrow track dragster while fighting the spool and the further out the wheels are the tougher it will be. Any rollout (tire circumference) variation is also more critical with a wide track.

Roo

 

Well, currently we have 7 of these cars running and all of them have spools. ET's run from the 13's to the 10's. Only one (12 second car) has experienced the side-to-side hop as Xmas tree described. And it usually only happened on one of the less prepped tracks. He went to a softer tire and it seems to have solved the problem. I think the issue may be how hard the tires initially hit and a softer converter launching at a lower RPM might be helpful.

A spool is simple and a lot less expensive (unless you already have a locker laying around). I wouldn't be afraid to build another one of these dragsters with a spool.

And remember, the challenge and fun of these cars is to put the driver back in charge. How to leave the line is part of that. Also, keep in perspective that these are 12 second cars - not 7-8 second slingshots.

 

Well we did not have any tires worth a shit 55 yrs ago and I am talking 12 second cars. If running a glide that may be the differance as we were all running a clutch car and I,m sure the glide damptens things some.

 

i`m running a spool with 56" track width and with a small block 12 psi and have run 10.00 with a spool and no wheel hop. going back to 6 cylinders cause I blew the small block at the anra summer nationals should have remembered why I don`t want to go fast

 

Leonard, I don't recall the axles being used but things can get ugly when an axle breaks on a rearend using a spool. Might not be a problem with the size tires being used and the lower hp/automatic combo.

 

here here

 

Now that's what I wanted to hear! Are you running any more ANRA events this year? I plan to be down for the Oct. race but will be helping run my old altered that my buddy now owns. Injected 292 on alky. Will be in the Open Wheel Class.

Always smart to avoid problems by using good parts like axles.

To give Leonard some perspective, so far we've only had one broken axle. It was on a S-10 rear end with the axle retention kit and spool. Probably had lots of miles on the stock axles. Driver felt something and backed out of the run but the car still drove OK. Actually drove it back to the pits without a problem. At least 2 other cars have been running and hammering on S-10 rear ends with axle retention kits and spools for a few years now without problems.

I think the stock 9" Ford axles are OK in these cars, but an upgrade when the budget allows probably wouldn't hurt.

 

Walt, planning on it. running open wheel. the only possible problem is the hr reunion is the following weekend and I`ve been asked to do the clutch on the funny car again. don`t know how I`m going to work that out

 

sorry , not trying to hijack this thread. just would like to say if you haven`t run an anra event you`re missing out. the promoter is all about the racer. Haven`t seen that for a long time

 

Secondary non-hijack ......
Yep, Butch's ANRA meets're several cuts better'n the "new"stalgia crap out here.