(I sold this car on October 7th, 1998; it is now in the Federal Way / Seattle, Washington area)
To fast for the "Fast and the Furious"......
It's amazing how the kids these days think that a Honda or a Toyota or some other piece of crap rice grinder is going to run with American muscle. Sure, you can get a grinder in the low 12's or high 11's for 5 grand or so, big deal, I threw a 396 in my Chevy a few years back that I had less than $1,000 in (.650 lift cam, TRW forged pistons, and I ported some Oval port Open chamber heads myself for it) and it ran a best of 10.05.
I did enjoy the first Fast and the Furious movie because it reminded me of the old days out on the streets; they made the import cars out to be much more exciting and faster than they actually are in real life, though.
It's fun to watch "PINKS" on the speed channel because every once in awhile they put one of those front wheel drive crappers against American rear wheel drive. Amazingly those FWD guys are all cocky until they start getting beat (one guy wanted to be spotted 25 car lengths)
It seems like they always break something before it's all over. Go figure
I really wish now that our street racer crowd had gotten some footage of our cars back when we were out running the streets.
Heck, we had an 8 second car, I think 4 cars capable of running 9's, I would estimate there were over 30 cars out there capable of 10's, and this was back around 1995. There was plenty of wheelstanding, stab and steer driving, 1/8 mile long burnout, cop evading action for everyone.
This was my '57 Chevy 210 Hardtop (only
22,000 of this body style made) that I bought in 1979, it was
mostly stock then, but I took care of that! I did all the
work myself including building the motor, the only things I
didn't do are the paint, which a friend did for me, and the
Transmission. It has a full NHRA certified tube chassis with
struts that I bent up (it was not built from a kit). I run a
Hipster Powerglide 2 speed trans in it and a 4.33 geared 9"
Ford rear end that I narrowed with Mark Williams spool and axles.
It's motivation came from a 572 cubic inch big block,
which you can read more about at the bottom of the page. My
best times for the car are:
5.72 seconds at 122 MPH eighth
mile; 8.98 at 150 MPH quarter mile. (1.29 - 60 foot)
For any of you not familiar with drag racing that's zero to 60
MPH in 1.68 seconds! The 572 uses a Chevy "Pro
Stock" bowtie block bored to 4.562;Dart 320 aluminum heads
(unported); Callies 4340 "non-twist" 4.375 stroke
crank; Carrillo + .250 long rods; BRC 13.0 to 1 Pistons; Jesel
Belt drive; .748 lift Lunati Roller; Holley Pro-Dominator tunnel
ram with 2 - 1050 Dominators; Complete MSD crank trigger ignition
with Timing Computer; N.O.S "Fogger" Nitrous system
currently set on 250 HP; and a Barry Grant BG-400 pump and
system; and numerous parts designed and machined by me (including
the fuel pressure regulator mounts, lower pulley, overflow tank
mounts, tunnel ram carb linkage
,
front strut suspension, and more). On
my home page the background
picture was at the Kansas City Street car shootout in '95 just
warming the tires up for another pass. I normally just put it in
1st and bring it up to 7000 RPM, click it into 2nd and let out
the line lock and hammer it, it usually will go to the 60 foot
mark smoking the tires, seems the people in the bleachers enjoy
that alot (I go through 1 set of slicks a summer though). I enjoy racing it, but I don't have the
money to run it much more than a few times a summer (racing an 8
second car isn't cheap), so I enjoy the street scene with it
mostly, and even did a short 100 mile leg of the Hot Rod
magazine's Powertour with it in eight second trim, the only
changes being switching from slicks to D.O.T. tires, and pulled
down 8 mpg on the trip. I got a small picture in September 1996
Hot Rod magazine for that . Just click on the pictures or
the underlined text below to move around in my site
572 with 1050 Dominators, 4 corner reverse flow cooling with remote mount water pump.
Just the basic Topeka, Kansas 8 second/ 8 mpg street motor before EFI became commonplace
(And the EFI is a little more affordable now if you're creative enough)
Last Updated: Saturday, November 01, 2008
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