Dusty corners of the NHRA Classification Guide
 

What are some cars that are tucked away in the NHRA Classification Guide that no one seems to race any more, if they ever were? Some are holdovers from decades ago that are now too expensive or rare to build. Some are weakly powered economy cars or barges that were largely ignored. There are also a few unexpected foreign imports.

Here is one that I was surprised to find in the guide. Feel free to add more of your own.

http://i.imgur.com/bVzuSG8.png
1956 Cadillac El Dorado Barritz Convertible

365/305hp 2x4bbl - Manual: N-O-P/S, Auto: O-P-Q/SA
365/285hp 1x4bbl - Manual: O-P-Q/S, Auto: P-Q-R/SA

(Reference: Stock-SS Class Tool at classracerinfo.com)

Re: Dusty corners of the NHRA Classification Guide
 

Cool car! Even IF you could find one and even IF you could afford to buy it why would you cut it up?
There's lots of cool combos in the "dusty corners" of the guide. Most of them have moved on to collectible status though.

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” Tons a fun” :D
Got me interested to look for the blueprint specs....where are they by the way?:rolleyes:

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That Caddy is just waiting for a roll bar to be welded in ;-)

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Hey.... there's even a couple of Caddy Limosines in the guide too. I see the '57 Cadillac "Imperal Limosine" 4 door would have to weigh a paltry 5,695 (Yikes!) to run in Q/SA...:). I can just hear a crew cab dually groan when one one of those things gets loaded in the extra long trailer (heavy duty tri-axle I'm guessing)....L-O-L You'd need an axle concession at the least.

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that caddy convert is worth $30-50,000 to start and cut it up oops

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Love to see someone run that caddy as a stick car LOL!

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Here you go Mark!

https://classics.autotrader.com/clas...ille/100824728

This looks cool!
http://www.thecarburetorshop.com/Mul...s/image012.jpg

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I have a Buick fireball 8, air cleaner to pan, if they want to put the car in GT.

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We only ran across one Caddy drag car.

It was at the div 4 bracket finals race, which was held at the old Green Valley track, in either '77 or '78.

It was long & red. Besides being a drag car, what I thought was interesting was that it was a 2-door. I didn't remember seeing many 2-door Cads, before that.

It was powered by a 500 inch Caddy engine. I think it had two 4's on it. Not positive. I remember thinking that a 500 Cad engine should have lots of torque. IIRC, that Cad ran mid 11's.

From lookin at some online pics, it had to be a '69 model because of the tail lights. So, I suppose it was a '69 2-door Coupe DeVille. Didn't find any pics of a red one. But I'll post 3 pics of a black one. Wish we'd have taken a pic of the red drag Caddy back then.

Never saw an old Caddy running Stock or SS. Just looked up the '69 Caddy. It shows a 375hp 472 engine, but no specs are listed. I know the 472 had plenty of torque. In '73, I pulled my GTO to the tracks with a '68 model 472 powered 4-door Caddy, & tow bar. No power problems at all.

It did use quite a bit of gas. I drove it from North Louisiana to the NHRA Finals race in Amarillo, in '73. There was a gas shortage of some sort. Lots of stations were either out, or only operated a few hours per day. Thought I was gonna have to stop & wait for daylight, when the stations opened. But, I finally came to a big all-night truck stop that had plenty of gas. I won't charge ya'll for that little glimpse of history. :)

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There was a guy in Cincinnati Ohio that raced caddys at the old Beechmont dragstrip back in the 60's I think. I was not really involved in drag racing then, don't know if it was class car or brackets or whatever.

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The guy that ran S/ST out of Albuquerque with the Coupe Deville was named Courtney Hines..I think he bought the 500 Cad Company.

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Used to watch Cortney Hines a lot. Name on the car was simply “Flash”.
Pretty fast in the day.

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Here's the 1960 Ford Thunderbird Convertible

http://i.imgur.com/hQbo2wW.jpg

223/145: V
292/185: U
352/235: O-P-Q
352/300: J-K-L
430/350: G-H-I
352/360: F-G-H

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Attachment 56009

Ray Golonka

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What about Mr. Golanka? Haven’t seen him in a couple years but He’s the only one that comes to mind

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I'm surprised, seeing the 352/ 360 listed .That's a solid lifter engine.
The Holley listed ,shows all transmissions (It's way too small, BTW)
So, they made 3 speed stick squarebirds? That means you can use a 4 speed now.
Look out!

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Mark, I br
ekieve that if an engine list for all 1960 Ford models, not just Thunderbirds. Pretty sure the only engines listed there that were factory available in a 60 T Bird were the hydraulic lifter 4 barrel 352 and the 430. And yes, although not very common, the speed manual was available in the "Squarebirds", I saw one a few weeks ago, that had a 3 speed manual with a column shifter.

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These would be a cool Super Stockers... :cool:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/66/56...04d2a1298a.jpg

https://i0.wp.com/atxcarpics.com/wp-...Prostreet-.jpg

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The Guide (and I should mention again that I have referred to the very useful edition at Class Racer Info) provides three pages of full-size 1960 Ford combinations that are legal to use the 352/360. Likely not all were ever actually produced but you are allowed to put one together.

Factors range from the Series 6 Custom Sedan 2 Dr MT @ 10.12 (D/E/F) to the Country Squire 4 Dr Nine Seat Station Wagon AT @ 12.03 (H/I/J)

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This time I thought I would bring up a combo from a make that is only in the Guide for six years, the Opel 1969 Kadett 2dr-sedan.

http://i.imgur.com/c6zYif8.jpg

With the sole option 115/102 inline 4cyl 2bbl, and a 18.30 factor, the car fits the following classes (MT or AT):

Stock
17.00 Q @ 1904 C&D
18.00 R @ 2006
19.00 S @ 2108
Super Stock
17.00 P @ 1904

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So many cool cars

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Cool find

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Nice little cars but I don't think it'll run under the T/Stock index ( No S class in Stock)
unless it has a JATO engine up the tail pipe..
If you still want to be a glutton for punishment , you could find a GT and run V /Stock , which is not a V8 class.

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Has anyone ever tried to make a 2.8/PFI run competitively in a 3rd Gen F-Body?

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When was the last time you saw a galaxie in s/ss?

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Kip Martin (maybe)

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150 is kinda high for a 2.8 in RWD. The same engine in a Cavalier is 125 , with a .430 lift cam and a softer index.
It will still run under the index, but not by a lot.

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There's one in Central PA. Car is still raced, saw it at Beaver Springs a couple months ago. It's been a while since they ran it in Stock though...5-10 years? 390, stick car, ran in L/S.

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Interesting...who owns it?

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You're right, it should be T not S. Funny, I remembered that, and it still got through.

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A fella named Craig Jerrnigan.

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Here is a car that is almost the size of one of Columbus' ships, the 1968 Plymouth Fury III Fast Top, with the 440/350(355) BB wedge.

https://i.imgur.com/Q4I6HOO.jpg

I have a soft spot for these barges as I used to own one. It was my 2nd quickest car, running high 14's stock.

In Stock, it fits into D thru F/S, D thru F/SA. In Super Stock, it fits into SS/H thru J, SS/HA thru JA.

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Seems there would indeed be more of them.
Back in the day, the 427 HiRiser Gal won its share, until it got factored to 500hp and had to run against the Street Hemi cars from 1966-up, and then against some Race Hemi cars right at the top of the 7.00 weight break.


The 427 LowRiser won its share (mostly automatic classes even though you couldn't buy that combo!). Seems that combo would still run good under today's "Design your own heads" rules since the port VOLUME is pretty big but not the optimum shape. So you could legally make a much better head.


I try to hunt for combos that were UNDERRATED by the factory, and then respond well to legal mods. Most of the obvious combos were of course discovered back in the 1960s. If they were too obvious, they got factored by NHRA, and were still usually underrated but not near as much as before. Ford tried to push the 64 HiRiser Galaxie on NHRA at the same "425hp" rating carried by the LoRiser Gal so they could run the car in A/S=8.70 class. NHRA didn't fall for that at all.


One combo long overlooked was the 352/250hp Galaxie.


When picking out such "dusty corner" combos, I look for stuff that was underrated from the factory. A lot of low-perf vanilla engines were overrated, so even if they didn't get factored, you' re at a disadvantage right off. The big 430 inchers eg didn't make near their rated power, and didn't respond too well to legal mods, so not good combos.


The 352/300hp-4v Ford of 1958-60 was the same way - way overrated, bad place to start. But in 1964, the same combo (nearly identical) came back out and was rated much lower, at 352/250hp. Now it was UNDERRATED. Great place to start. And with a tiny cam, flat log exhausts, and boat anchor intake, you could add a batch of power in a hurry and still be stock or superstock legal. And yet, nobody seems to have run this combo back in the day. I think the trouble is, it was down there with all the Tri-5 Chevy combos which also had a batch of power added to them.

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Saw one running NSS 3 weeks ago at INDY at the NMCA meet. I'm telling you guys. There is some neat old car in that series racing. How about a 59 El camino with a 348? Yep, there was one there. OR I think 65 Studabaker with a 283 running in a pure stock class.

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The spirit of nss has faded with strokers, engines not available in that specific chassis, etc.

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Is this the combo that Kip Martin ran in SS? I never met him, but became a fan from seeing him in Dragster and doing well with the car. (In the 80's?)

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There was another fella with a 64 galaxie running n/ss back in the 80s with a 352. Jerry Pruit. Cars is coming back out of hibernation for some ss action.

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Running r/ss