Progress report...

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Anything goin on with this lil 6?

From another post, today... but, to answer your question:

"We have had an uphill battle with this install as we have not only had to build the ENGINE, but the car as well.

By that, I mean, the car we put it into was a grandma's 1964 Valiant 4-door that was sitting out in a vacant lot, and hadn't been driven for FIFTEEEN YEARS, so everything on the car was worn out, deteriorated over time, or just wrong for our purposes, so we had to replace EVERYTHING with the kind of parts that were appropriate for our application (drag racing.) That included replacing the engine, front suspension with tubular upper control arms and disc brakes, installing a B-body 8,75" rear end, Cal-Trac bars, a "bastard" torque converter, 4 new shocks, a new 7290 u-joint drive shaft, a new aluminum radiator, electric fan and water pump, a complete fuel system with a fuel cell and 3/8" line and an electric fuel pump, removal of the complete interior with the addition of two "racing bucket" seats, and a roll bar... the windshield, an intercooler, and a fiberglass, pin-on, hood.

Plus, there was a lot of body work (some, dealing with rust) that needed to be done before the car could be painted....

So, just building an engine (a monumental task in itself, for two old guys whose combined age amounts to over 145...) was not the bulk of our work schedule. Then, I ended up having a toe amputated; that slowed me down, and the fact that the car is at Freddie's garage, which is a 70-mile round trip from MY house, didn't help...


So, there are many reasons why this "exercise" has been a slow one...

But the car is now ready for paint, and the engine is "finished," By that, I mean, the cam is broken-in and the engine is ready to run at the strip.

Now, comes the proof of the pudding... LOL!

We still have to add the fuel pump and line and do some wiring, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel... we just hope it's not the headlight on a locomotive..."

Hope that sheds a little light on why it's taking so *^%@%$ long...
 
I understand completely!
Mine had a 440 6 pack setup and I to had to revamp the entire car. My drivetrain is almost complete but still need to finish the sheetmetal work. That won't take too long since this is my profession and I have all the tools. Being unable to find employment for over a year is what is killing me... Thank the wife we had a nice stash to help get us by. Hopefully I will be able to get mine rolling again and reassembled so I can drive it with the new setup. Paint can come later.

Glad to see you guys made it through those rough times and was able to proceed with y'alls project. Good luck at the track. Can't wait to see some video... I have a good friend who is in his 70's that is pondering a turbo /6 in a 68 Valiant... He too is watching! LoL! He has some really nice Mopars including a 62 Maxwedge car, 63 Max clone, 69 tube chassis Superbee and a Yellow 72 Blown 440 Barracuda..

Again,
Good luck!!
 
I understand completely!
Glad to see you guys made it through those rough times and was able to proceed with y'alls project. Good luck at the track. Can't wait to see some video... I have a good friend who is in his 70's that is pondering a turbo /6 in a 68 Valiant... He too is watching! LoL! He has some really nice Mopars including a 62 Maxwedge car, 63 Max clone, 69 tube chassis Superbee and a Yellow 72 Blown 440 Barracuda..

Again,
Good luck!!

Thanks for the encouragment and interest! We're not out of the woods, yet. Right now, we're embroiled in trying to fit a short-runner 4-bbl (Clifford) intake manifold to the engine, while maintaining the use of our headers.

Someone with a lot of turbo experience advised us (in no uncertain terms) to replace that long-runner Australian Hurricane 4bbl intake manifold with a short one so we've been trying to do that, but there are interference issues...

One thing after another...:eek:ops:
 
Hay Bill, outta all yer flimsy excuses, you left out the biggest one. Cause a couple of old farts are buildin it. lol Seriously man, I wish I was closer. I'd love to come check it out. It's gonna be cool as all hell.
 
Hay Bill, outta all yer flimsy excuses, you left out the biggest one. Cause a couple of old farts are buildin it. lol Seriously man, I wish I was closer. I'd love to come check it out. It's gonna be cool as all hell.


Do you even READ this stuff???


What, exactly, did you think I meant when I wrote, just three of posts back, "So, just building an engine (a monumental task in itself, for two old guys whose combined age amounts to over 145...)

Is that too esoteric for you???:glasses7:
 
I'd love to come check it out. It's gonna be cool as all hell.

Maybe it will; maybe it will blow up in our face(s.):eek:ops:

I wish I had your confidence...

We took delivery of out VFN fiberglass hood, today. 13 pounds...

We haven't weighed a stock one, but I'm sure it's heavier than that.

Need a stock rear bumper. Anybody got one? ('64 Valiant.)

Otherwise, I'm gonna MAKE a 200-pound one out of some 4"-diameter, pipe, filled with lead shot... on some 12" extensions... LOL![-X

What is HP without BITE???:blob:
 
Do you even READ this stuff???


What, exactly, did you think I meant when I wrote, just three of posts back, "So, just building an engine (a monumental task in itself, for two old guys whose combined age amounts to over 145...)

Is that too esoteric for you???:glasses7:

Yeah I'm young and stupid remember?
 
Maybe it will; maybe it will blow up in our face(s.):eek:ops:

I wish I had your confidence...

We took delivery of out VFN fiberglass hood, today. 13 pounds...

We haven't weighed a stock one, but I'm sure it's heavier than that.

Need a stock rear bumper. Anybody got one? ('64 Valiant.)

Otherwise, I'm gonna MAKE a 200-pound one out of some 4"-diameter, pipe, filled with lead shot... on some 12" extensions... LOL![-X

What is HP without BITE???:blob:

It'll be too far behind the rear tires. More than likely it'll help stand the car on end at launch. Any extra weight really needs to be right over the rear axle.
 
It'll be too far behind the rear tires. More than likely it'll help stand the car on end at launch. Any extra weight really needs to be right over the rear axle.

I'll wait 'til it stands on the back tires (100-percent of the weight on the drive wheels!)

THEN, I'll consider moving some of it forward...
 

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That car that's launching is just about perfect. In fact, it might be pulling the tires a bit much. Once you pass a certain point, 100% of the weight is NOT on the rear tires.....at least not efficiently. Once the weight transfer reaches the point to where there is more on the REAR side of the rear tires, you're sunk. The goal is to keep all the weight forward of the center of the rear axle. The further up the front tires go, the worse off you are. In other words, you want to remain in the center of the CONTACT PATCH. Once you are off center of that, efficiency is lost.
 
That car that's launching is just about perfect. In fact, it might be pulling the tires a bit much. Once you pass a certain point, 100% of the weight is NOT on the rear tires.....at least not efficiently. Once the weight transfer reaches the point to where there is more on the REAR side of the rear tires, you're sunk. The goal is to keep all the weight forward of the center of the rear axle. The further up the front tires go, the worse off you are. In other words, you want to remain in the center of the CONTACT PATCH. Once you are off center of that, efficiency is lost.

Here are a couple of my close friends who,until recently, raced NHRA Stock and Super Stock Eliminators. They BOTH contend that the higher the wheelie, the quicker their cars run... That would seem to go at odds with the "contact-patch" theory, I would think.

I'm not in a position to argue with them...

The fact is, when you add weight BEHIIND the rear axle, it "leverages" (cantilevers) weight OFF the front wheels and adds it to the rear wheels, so you can get a greater amount of weight increase of the rear wheels than you added, if you "steal" some of that weight off the front. If you add it OVER the rear wheels, all you get is the weight you added... Sort of like a see-saw, with the rear axle acting as the pivot...

Just sayin...
 

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In my eyes wheelies kill E.T. ! You don't see ProStock with the wheels in the air! Wheelies are for the crowd! You can talk to any of the True Ten Five guys and they will tell you the same. 6 inches in the air is all I ever let my cars get. More pinion angle kept the front down.
 
In my eyes wheelies kill E.T. ! You don't see ProStock with the wheels in the air! Wheelies are for the crowd! You can talk to any of the True Ten Five guys and they will tell you the same. 6 inches in the air is all I ever let my cars get. More pinion angle kept the front down.


The two guys I quoted, both keep meticulous notes on their cars' performances. Both of them say the same thing; the higher the front end goes, the better the e.t.

I'm not making this up.... I couldn't.

I understand what you're saying about the Pro Stockers, but those cars have a totally different set of parameters than these Stock and Super Stock cars. For one thing, the tires are completely different, and hook like nothing a Stocker or Super Stocker ever had access to. Maybe the Stock and S/S cars NEED to get 100-percent of their weight on those tires and keep it there for a few seconds, just to get the hook necessary for the good 60-foot times they strive for.

I don't know; all I know is what they tell me.:!:

I dunno; you make a really god argument; but that scenario doesn't work for there "class" cars... They seem to NEED that altitude...
 
I hear ya!
But from my experiences I have always chose to keep the front down. My Falcon ran 8.70's with low 1.20 sixty foot off the trans-brake at 5500. NO WHEELIE BARS! First time out I nearly drug the rear bumper with low 1.30 sixties. Added positive pinion angle on the adjustable ladder bars and dropped the front considerably. Idunno, I am no expert but it worked for me. The Kaase headed 514 came on REAL strong on the big end and got a little hairy at times and I even ran 32x14 Goodyears at first. Was really hard to get them to stick so I went with Hoosiers. BIG difference! Less time on the burnout (Goodyears needed a Top Fuel burnout to get sticky).. I really needed a Anti-rollbar for the horrible sag in the right rear. I had a crap load of preload on the right coilover too. Still would lift 6-8 inches after playing with the pinion angle. Here she is launching,
 

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I hear ya!
But from my experiences I have always chose to keep the front down. My Falcon ran 8.70's with low 1.20 sixty foot off the trans-brake at 5500. NO WHEELIE BARS! First time out I nearly drug the rear bumper with low 1.30 sixties. Added positive pinion angle on the adjustable ladder bars and dropped the front considerably. Idunno, I am no expert but it worked for me. The Kaase headed 514 came on REAL strong on the big end and got a little hairy at times and I even ran 32x14 Goodyears at first. Was really hard to get them to stick so I went with Hoosiers. BIG difference! Less time on the burnout (Goodyears needed a Top Fuel burnout to get sticky).. I really needed a Anti-rollbar for the horrible sag in the right rear. I had a crap load of preload on the right coilover too. Still would lift 6-8 inches after playing with the pinion angle. Here she is launching,


That is a really neat car, even if it is the wrong brand... 1.20s muct feel pretty good! :)

But it's got some serious rubber on the ground (as opposed to my friend's Stocker Camaro, with its 9"ers, so what works for him, obviously wasn't a necessary "Modus Operandi" for you.... and, he has no transbrake (not allowed by the rules, in Stock Eliminator,) so that's another difference.

I think we have apples and oranges, here...

Looks like a fun ride! Do you still have it?
 
That is a really neat car, even if it is the wrong brand... 1.20s muct feel pretty good! :)

Hey, at least its NOT a Camaro!!! Although people pissed me off when they called it a Nova!

But it's got some serious rubber on the ground (as opposed to my friend's Stocker Camaro, with its 9"ers, so what works for him, obviously wasn't a necessary "Modus Operandi" for you.... and, he has no transbrake (not allowed by the rules, in Stock Eliminator,) so that's another difference.

I don't run Bracket racing. Too Bogus for me! We run heads up here. Throttle stops are a joke. 7 second Dragsters running 10 second door cars, Geeez..

I think we have apples and oranges, here..

More like grapes to grapefruit.

Looks like a fun ride!

Yeah, it was a Blast but expensive. 945 crank hp on the Dyno. The faster you go the more money it eats. Was out at Houston Raceway Park and the crank broke in three pieces and put me in the wall. After that mayhem and salvaging what I could it still cost me $16 grand to get it back on the track. Ran it 2 times after the rebuild then parked it for a year.

Do you still have it?

Nope! I traded it for the Cuda I have now. The Ol' fart (hehehe) changed all the pills in it and is so afraid of it he has his nephew pilot it! I had the redline pill at 7200rpm he changed it to 6500. I shifted at 7000 and he changed the pill for the shifter to 6300....

My Cuda will have just a 27.5x9.5 inch tire on it once it hits the street. O'yeah, 4 speed too!
 
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