Quote:
Originally Posted by oldskool
As mentioned, there were a lot of Pontiac dealers that fielded drag cars.
That Stephen Pontiac car reminded me of a couple of pics I have.
One is a chrome bumper '68 GTO Stocker. The other is what I think was a poor attempt at a Pro Stock car. Anybody know how quick it was & how much it lacked being competitive ?
When I 1st saw it, I thought the "Pro" was for the Pro bracket, at a local bracket race. But, I think I read that it was actually an attempt at the Pro Stock class. That was obviously in the very early days of Pro Stock. Never knew of a dealership sponsoring a bracket car.
"...Following a 1973 NHRA rule change to allow records to be set at any national meet, at the 1973 NHRA Winternationals, "Dyno Don" Nicholson set the first official Pro Stock e.t. record with a 9.33, while Bill Jenkins turned in a record 148.76 mph (239.41 km/h) speed; later at the same event, Nicholson made a 9.01 second/150.50 mph (242.21 km/h) pass, breaking both his and Jenkins' records..."
Anybody know how the Stephen Stockers did ?
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The 68 and 69 cars we’re very competitive at least regionally the pro stock car suffered from a lack of good connecting rods as the company that made them for Pontiac for the Ram
Air 5 program
Went belly up. Many feel The ram air 5 would have dominated SS which is what it was designed to do had it made it into cars and showrooms, it was connecting rod shortage that stopped that from happening. The blocks were even stamped with codes for production cars, there was NO aftermarket support for the RAV cars and pretty much what they raced pro stock with came directly out of the factory engineering dept. the Intake had a developmental part number.
I am friends with the original driver Bill eckstrom. And I own the engine that was in that 70 pro stocker. It was dyno’d and without the 2 inch spacers it made 634 hp at 6500 rpm where we cut it off, these heads made HP much higher than that RPM. It also made good torque through a very wide RPM range, But due to its obvious rarity I didn’t want to push it. The car ran 10.30s The headers are very heavy built like a brick $&it house as was the ram air pan which I also have. The car likely suffered from weight placement issues as well as lack of good rods .competing against aluminum engine variants of other brands. There’s a good article on this in rodder and super stock in 73 where they reference aluminum blocks, I have some good video of the car being run and half track it was still side by side w the top qualifying, hemi car , and it was the ONLY Pontiac still in the pro stock field in 71 trying to compete and making a go of it.
The 69 RAIV bird ran 11.93 which was right on the record as far as I can tell. The 69 car was also driven by Tom Mc Innis at times .
68 car I don’t have any numbers on but it was a ram air II 4 spd. Bill Eckstromi was an amazing 4spd driver and could cut a great light but you had to have the HP and support to compete in pro stock or it just didn’t matter .
We all know how brutally powerful the hemi cars were and are still today. Especially against an all IRON (even the heads) pontiac w only 400 cubes
to work with... had there been a 455 variant with aluminum heads and great rods may have been a very different story .
Much of the RAV parts including complete engines were crushed (racks and racks of them) by Pontiac because they weren’t going to be put into production cars due to the connecting rod shortage. Some 80-200 made it out and either to dealers, racers or over parts counters .
Most (not all) of the pictures you’ll see on line of these cars came directly from Bill eckstrom, Tom Mc innis, tim bishop. I obtained them During research I did on these cars.
I’ve spoken with most of the drivers mechanics and freinds of them associated with these cars and I’d
Like to thank
all of them for help they’ve given. Special thanks to Howard block who helped me get important parts and pieces back together in one place . Many of the photos were on my web site which is down right now but may be back up
Soon. I also raced the 69 car myself for 15 years mostly in brackets, Pontiac events as well as NETO.
I am especially looking for good pictures of the trunk area of the 69 car.