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1st car
Jan 17, 2020 23:11:32 GMT -5
Post by Taildragger on Jan 17, 2020 23:11:32 GMT -5
Ivory yellow 225ci slant six. Those were a work horse. They had a long stroke, so even the forged-crank ones (the later slants had cast cranks) can't be wound much past 7K-RPM on a regular or sustained basis without risking a thrown rod. But they had a lot of torque and lived a long life under daily-driver conditions just so long as you didn't run 'em outta oil. The early, aluminum block 170s could get surprisingly peppy with the addition of the factory-optional, long-runner, "Hyper-Pack" intake/4-bbl combo. Proper porting and slightly larger valves also help. The Australians used to run them with multiple SU HS6 carbs and hotter cams. They even had a Mopar hemi straight 6 down there that was never sold in the USA that they'd run with triple SUs or triple Weber DCOE sidedrafts.
"Hyper-Pack":
Hemi 6:
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1st car
Jan 17, 2020 23:59:34 GMT -5
Post by LTB on Jan 17, 2020 23:59:34 GMT -5
Ivory yellow 225ci slant six. Those were a work horse. They had a long stroke, so even the forged-crank ones can't be wound much past 7K-RPM on a regular or sustained basis without risking a thrown rod. But they had a lot of torque and lived a long life under daily-driver conditions just so long as you didn't run 'em outta oil. The early, aluminum block 170s could get surprisingly peppy with the addition of the factory-optional, long-runner, "Hyper-Pack" intake/4-bbl combo. Proper porting and slightly larger valves also help. The Australians used to run them with multiple SU HS6 carbs and hotter cams. They even had a Mopar hemi straight 6 down there that was never sold in the USA that they'd run with triple SUs or triple Weber DCOE sidedrafts.
"Hyper-Pack":
Hemi 6:
Pretty cool! That would have been cool to upgrade that little 1 barrel carb. One issue with the slant six 225 was the intake manifold wasn't true and cracked. When we got an new replacement from Dodge we found out why the stock one cracked. The front intake channel was warped upward a little and had to be forced downward with a pry bar about 1/8" to be able to get the bolt to go into the block.
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Jan 18, 2020 0:56:12 GMT -5
Post by Taildragger on Jan 18, 2020 0:56:12 GMT -5
Also, those manifolds have strange little, triangular washers/spacers that must be used and must be facing the correct direction when mounting the manifolds. If you don't use those special ones and/or face them correctly, bad things are likely to happen.
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Jan 18, 2020 7:39:19 GMT -5
Post by K4 on Jan 18, 2020 7:39:19 GMT -5
And the distributor was on the wrong side. I hated adjusting points on them.
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Vman
Wholenote
Posts: 186
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1st car
Jan 18, 2020 11:45:22 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by Vman on Jan 18, 2020 11:45:22 GMT -5
When I read the thread title (considering the demograph), I figured every other post would be a 60's Ford Falcon. Popular in western Pa. Back then. I had 1 runner and another for parts although not much to go wrong though. My wife's 1st was a 64 Falcon. Her dad installed a toggle switch to engage the starter. Lol
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1st car
Jan 18, 2020 12:12:47 GMT -5
Post by Taildragger on Jan 18, 2020 12:12:47 GMT -5
My wife's 1st was a 64 Falcon. My old man had a metallic blue one of those while I was in highschool: nice little car. It had the 260, not the 289 in it, but still wasn't a complete dog. Got out of its own way and handled well
He'd let me borrow it for dates in exchange for washing, paste waxing and vacuuming it out.
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Jan 18, 2020 18:58:01 GMT -5
Post by thumbpicker on Jan 18, 2020 18:58:01 GMT -5
55 Chevy station wagon. New motor in it for 50 bucks. Decent tires it got there.
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Jan 18, 2020 19:15:09 GMT -5
Post by henrycat on Jan 18, 2020 19:15:09 GMT -5
A 1966 VW Beetle that I bought in 1969.I had just graduated with a BComm and started articling as a CPA student with what is now Deloitte. It required a lot of travelling throughout Nova Scotia. The VW was basic transportation for sure, but very reliable and easy to work on. I kept 200 pounds of bricks in the front trunk in the winter. Along with four studded snow tires, I could go just about anywhere.I have many fond memories of that VW and the trips I made in it.
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Cassie Play
Halfnote
Everythings Malfunctioning Imperfectly.
Posts: 89
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1st car
Jan 18, 2020 22:29:53 GMT -5
Post by Cassie Play on Jan 18, 2020 22:29:53 GMT -5
Year old 73 Chevy Nova 4 door. Got T-Boned before my first payment. Drove it for 6 years.
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Jan 18, 2020 23:37:46 GMT -5
Post by guildx700 on Jan 18, 2020 23:37:46 GMT -5
If you're not a gear head, just skip all this. Seriously.
Anyhow I was 15 years old in 1975 & just got a settlement from insurance from an accident that a drunk nearly killed me in the year before.
The car? Don't laugh...Read on.
I got a 1972 Pontiac Catalina 2 door, an unusual bare bones factory stripper, only 3,000 1 owner miles on it in 1975. I bought it with one thing in mind, make it a killer sleeper. Why you may ask??
Well I had just missed out on buying a very rare factory racer 1963 M/T Catalina 421 Super Duty "Swiss cheese". My dream car. Sadly they were going for pennies on the dollar back then, now, uber BIG bucks.
Anyhow, I decided instead to do my own more up to date version of the M/T Catalina. The bare bones 1972 was exactly what I needed. ZERO options, no power anything, no radio, no A/C, you name it it did not have it. Pretty light weight, I gutted even more from it to really cut the weight down drastically.
What it did have was an unusual combination on the drivetrain, 12 bolt posi rear, 455 motor, 4 bbl, dual exhaust. My original plan was to fully build a serious 455 with the stock block.
But as fate would have it a pro racer I knew up in Random Lake Wisc, which was a nice drive from Milwaukee where I lived suddenly had for sale a full race Pontiac motor. Pro built, the best of everything available at that time.
A seasoned 1970 400 4 bolt Pontiac block was the base, on top was a rare custom dual quad medium rise intake with 2 Holly 850 double pumper carbs modded for max flow bolted to a set of Diamond Elkins Pro ported 1970 Pontiac RA-IV heads which were fitted with triple valve springs, huge studs & stud girdles, the best retainers and keepers, all held to the block with the best available head studs, nuts and parallel flat ground washers. Details, details.
Inside were silly high 13.75:1 compression True Forge pistons, Carrillo forged rods, a very expensive custom Moldex billet forged crank held in with custom machined crank caps & studs. The best MSD ignition system setup. The plugs had to be custom made, side gapped as the domes on the pistons were so high. The list went on, it had Crane's most radical custom order roller cam fitted with a rev kit, a custom 10 quart deep sump oil system on the bottom. I ended up having to have Hooker make a set of custom large tube headers for me as RA-IV heads were never installed in that body style. They bolted to 3" dual exhaust with straight flow through "mufflers". It required race gas, then easily available on the local stoplight drag road Hwy 100 or my local track Great Lakes Dragaway. Fuel system was 2 of Holley's biggest electric fuel pumps. An L88 hood scoop had to be fitted to the car's hood as the intake was too high to fit the stock hood. So much for sleeper look, but that provided cold, fresh air for the engine. I left the hood in primer to make it look like a hack job.
Drive train was made bullet proof with a custom driveshaft, the turbo 400 was sent out & fully modded including a reverse shift pattern & lower first gear, a custom high stall converter was added, the 12 bolt posi rear was reinforced and fitted with 3.55 gears and custom axles. Special offset rims were made to fit in the biggest possible rear "street tires" with no body mods. The suspension was set up for max weight transfer with custom designed front and rear shocks, control arms were boxed, no detail overlooked.
The burning question...how did it run?
It was SCARY FAST. That motor sounded more like a Chevy big block gone crazy, it would pull hard well past 7,500! Crazy for a Poncho.
Never lost a race with it, only one that was close was a draw from a local engine builder, he had what appeared to be a ratty 1969 Chevy station wagon, built to be the ultimate sleeper. This thing had the best you could build with a Chevy big block back then, and he could not take me. His disbelief after 2 more draws too close to call was quelled when I ran down the list of my car's parts. Although totally impressed with such attention to detail and quality of parts used he was still agog that the king Chevy could not beat a lowly Pontiac based set up.
I told him it's obvious, you know the answer...go on a diet!!! HE laughed, shook my hand and handed me the $3500 bet money I won from him.
I heard later he was working on a Monte Carlo sleeper. Never got to race that. Too bad.
Then I moved out from my parents house, got married, bought a house & had to sell the motor and later the car with the original motor back in it.
I regret it to this day.
Also....I needed a daily driver back then, so I got a really clean 1970 Oldsmobile Toronado GT with the rare 400 HP W34 455 V8 in it. FWD. What a sled.
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Jan 19, 2020 0:07:40 GMT -5
Post by Taildragger on Jan 19, 2020 0:07:40 GMT -5
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Jan 19, 2020 0:31:36 GMT -5
Post by guildx700 on Jan 19, 2020 0:31:36 GMT -5
Cool stuff! The "factory" racing was just really getting serious back then and just as suddenly it stopped due to many reasons. It did restart, but it was never quite the same. IMO the 426 hemi was the most serious factory motor ever produced back in the day. Many rails and dragsters used that type motor, those heads just flowed silly good. Street they were overkill, but boy, did they have potential. Pontiac had the ultra rare, never "factory installed" RA-V heads/motor...tunnel ports that were HUGE... sadly if not for the silly poor design of the push rod intrusion into the intake ports they could've bested the 426 hemi heads IMO. www.hagerty.com/articles-videos/articles/2019/04/29/pontiac-ram-air-v-that-never-wasThe old Pontiac 421 SD Catalina's were amazing for their time in the early 1960's.
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1st car
Jan 19, 2020 2:24:07 GMT -5
Post by LTB on Jan 19, 2020 2:24:07 GMT -5
When I read the thread title (considering the demograph), I figured every other post would be a 60's Ford Falcon. Popular in western Pa. Back then. I had 1 runner and another for parts although not much to go wrong though. My wife's 1st was a 64 Falcon. Her dad installed a toggle switch to engage the starter. Lol Dad had a 62 Falcon Station Wagon that he bought used and drove for 15 years. Not a pretty car but a good driver.
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1st car
Jan 19, 2020 8:17:07 GMT -5
Post by Laker on Jan 19, 2020 8:17:07 GMT -5
But as fate would have it a pro racer I knew up in Random Lake Wisc, which was a nice drive from Milwaukee where I lived suddenly had for sale a full race Pontiac motor. Pro built, the best of everything available at that time. Back in my days of hanging at Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove, WI there was a guy that ran Pontiacs. I think his name was Donnie Strang; possibly the person who did your engine? There was quite a group from town that raced there with cars with names like the '33 Willys coupe owned by a friend called Gang Green, the Filthy Forty, Blue Blood, and a car some friends purchased called the Flying Dutchman. I was at "the Grove" when a jet powered car went off the end of the track at 240 mph. When we left I drove my buddy's '59 Chevy convertible while he stood on the rear deck with a movie camera as he tried to film the car smoking and lying in a ditch at the intersection of the entrance road and county road KR. The track officials ran in front of him waving their arms trying to block his filming. A bit off topic but your post made me thing of it. www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/great-lakes-drag-way-union-grove-wi-pics.659467/page-9
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twangmeister
Wholenote
Posts: 349
Formerly Known As: Twangmeister
Age: 72 and fading fast.....
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1st car
Jan 19, 2020 14:01:17 GMT -5
Post by twangmeister on Jan 19, 2020 14:01:17 GMT -5
1970 VW Beetle. It dictated the size of my bass rig--no Dual Showman cabinets, but up to two 2X15 Bassman cabinets or two single Showman cabinets. Sometimes I could fit a couple of Sound City Bass 150s upright on the front seat. Couldn't fit my dream amps, either a Fender 400PSor an Acoustic 371.
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Jan 19, 2020 14:17:39 GMT -5
Post by Taildragger on Jan 19, 2020 14:17:39 GMT -5
guildx700, My understanding is that all the business with the focus on jacking up the front end/moving the rear axle forward to achieve weight transfer (Mopar "High & Mighty, Stone, Woods & Cook Willys etc.) started to keep the rear tires from breaking loose before the advent of "wrinkle wall" slicks.
"'Wrinklewall' slicks are now specifically designed for the special requirements of drag racing, being constructed in such a way as to allow the sidewall to be twisted by the torque applied at launch, softening the initial start and thus reducing the chances of breaking traction. As speed builds, the centrifugal force generated by the tire's rotation 'unwraps' the sidewall, returning the energy to the car's acceleration. Additionally, it causes the tires to expand radially, increasing their diameter and effectively creating a taller gear ratio, allowing a higher top speed with the same transmission gearing."
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Jan 19, 2020 16:40:37 GMT -5
Post by guildx700 on Jan 19, 2020 16:40:37 GMT -5
But as fate would have it a pro racer I knew up in Random Lake Wisc, which was a nice drive from Milwaukee where I lived suddenly had for sale a full race Pontiac motor. Pro built, the best of everything available at that time. Back in my days of hanging at Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove, WI there was a guy that ran Pontiacs. I think his name was Donnie Strang; possibly the person who did your engine? There was quite a group from town that raced there with cars with names like the '33 Willys coupe owned by a friend called Gang Green, the Filthy Forty, Blue Blood, and a car some friends purchased called the Flying Dutchman. I was at "the Grove" when a jet powered car went off the end of the track at 240 mph. When we left I drove my buddy's '59 Chevy convertible while he stood on the rear deck with a movie camera as he tried to film the car smoking and lying in a ditch at the intersection of the entrance road and county road KR. The track officials ran in front of him waving their arms trying to block his filming. A bit off topic but your post made me thing of it. www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/great-lakes-drag-way-union-grove-wi-pics.659467/page-9 I remember early on seeing Arnie the Farmer Beswick at Great Lakes, his use of Pontiac's inspired me.
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