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Here is a little info about the car
This car is my first drag car. I bought it in '00 I was 19. I originally paid $10,500 for the complete car. It was a carburated big block Chevy that ran 9.90 at 125 mph, which I thought was fast at that time. It had a stock 2 speed glide with brake and a '57 Olds rear with 4.56 gears. I raced that combination for the rest of '00 which was only a couple months, then I blew the inside of the torque converter up so the tranny had to be rebuilt. That winter Dad and I rebuilt the engine and decided to make the car look more nostalgic. When we tore the engine down we found out why it only ran high 9's. 2 cam lobes were completely gone and the pistons were undersized for the bore. While we had the engine out we also stripped the chassis and repainted it.
It was June of '01 and thousands of $$$ later when we finally got the car back together. The engine is now a 438 BBC with '67 Corvette closed chambered heads, Manley severe duty valves, Clay Smith cam, Crower sportsman rods, forged GM crank, Arias pistons, Hilborn mechanical injection and home built zoomies with Jet Hot coating. I rebuilt the transmission, the first one I ever built by myself and I stuck it between my legs with 700+ hp on the end of it. It was a real learning curve getting that Hilborn to work right. It was very touchy and would foul the plugs within 30 seconds if it wasn't right. After a million calls, that did absolutely no good, and about 20 plugs I finally figured out how to keep it running at any throttle without fouling the plugs. The injection is set so well that I wouldn't be afraid to drive that engine on the street. I only change my plugs about twice a year now.
We also installed a trick cooling system that works very well on gas. When we switched the car over to alcohol everyone said to toss the cooling system. The neat thing about the cooling system is that I can drive the car to the starting line then back to the pits and it never overheats. I just warm the engine up for 5 mins at the beginning of the race day and use the water pump if the temp goes over 150 and it cools it right down. The tranny actually gets hotter than the engine after 5 runs. The car now has run a best of 8.56 @ 152 and a 1.17 60' time.
Minor problems last year included stripped out rear end gears which also caused trans output shaft to break off. That made some weird noises at 130 mph! I thought the rear end was going to come into the car with me. Piston rings gave out blowing oil over me and the car at the finish line, not bad for 300 runs on current combination. Other than that it was a trouble free year. I never missed a points race and did not have to buy back one round in the summer session of points.