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Originally Posted by Robert Swartz
OK, I've read almost all of this, sounds very interesting. Would it work in this day and age? It's not 1977 any longer. Yes, it would need to be a grass roots level class. Tod and I have a car that would be a good candidate for this. Our 79 Firebird crate project. It's far from completed.
What kind of hybrid are we seeking here? Stocker type suspensions with "spec type" engines? Super Stock style suspension with same? Converted bracket cars, that really opens a can of worms.
Just a thought, come up with a basic set of "rules" as a guide. Make it a Class Racer stickey? Then we can bench race and tweak them?
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I think the class would work very well today. Heads up drag racing is alive and okay-look at the ADRL, the 10.5 stuff, drag radial 275, and all of the Pro Modified associations and events. But consider this-
When the 'fast street car' stuff really got legs in the mid 1990's the main attractions were 'heads up racing' and almost anyone could fford to do it.
10 years ago, at least in the south east, the 'automatic/powerglide Pro Mods' caught on big. Most of these cars were Top Sportsman cars, they were a notch or two below the pro Mod cars.
IMO this series caught on largely because the powerglide could only handle so much power-it made fast heads up racing affordable for lots of people. The glide was the buffer so the budget guy could race with the big money guy.
Fast forward to about 3 years ago- Lenco and others started building powerglide parts that will take 3000 plus HP, and the fields have gotten smaller around here-because now the 80K engines can be used and not many folks can really afford that-or the maintenence that comes with throwing the kitchen sink into the mix.
The 'Fast Street Car' thing is still pretty strong, but not many people can afford to do it now compared to 10 years ago. A high school friend of mine got into the street car thing-10.5 outlaw-in the beginning. He had a very modest budget and even built the car (his first) himself. Now he can't even qualify and told me how he walked into a competitors trailer a few years ago and the guy had 3 600 inch Fords in the trailer and one on the car.
The thing about this Super Modified deal is that with some strategic rules in place the class could be affordable for a lot of people. Put it in the hands of the drivers and the tuners, not the mega bucks guy. The $500 head claimer thing will keep things from getting out of control better than probably anything else imo.
As for the suspension set ups-
Someone, I think SSDIV6, mentioned that the HP for a 358 with the Brodix spec head without all the dry sump/crank trigger etc stuff would probably make around 650 HP, a stock type suspension can handle that. Look at Anthony B's black '69 AA/SA 427 Camaro with slapper bars, for ex.