[Alan Roehrich]

Jim, you CAN get pistons, cams, and lifters for your car. You would have to PAY for them just like the rest of us.

We don't get "trick" oil pans, we have to run stock GM pans. We could weld baffles, if necessary. They aren't. I have a scraper and a windage tray. Both could easily be fabricated in any garage where you'd maintain a race car.

There's nothing "trick" about a connecting rod. We have to run stock dimension rods (some can run a different rod, if necessary NHRA will approve something) and the aftermarket will make you any rod you want. If you NEED an upgraded rod, they'll make it and NHRA will approve it. But a stock dimension rod won't make you any faster, even in you manage to get it a few grams lighter.

NHRA offers you .430" lift on your cam or factory lift, whichever is higher (special for FWD), and I run a .390/.410 in the G/S car, cores for your cam are available, and a cam company WILL grind you a stocker style cam. It's even easier and cheaper these days, with computer modeling, and CNC grinders so you don't even have to pay to make a master. They'll even cut you a trick steel core custom from a billet, if you want, just like they will for me.

If you need a flat tappet made, several companies will make you a tool steel flat tappet, and if you want them DLC coated, they'll do that too. Whoever makes the Shubeck style lifter would probably be more than happy to make you a set.

I can't run replacement heads on the G/S car either. It's the original head approved for the car. Some of the fastest rear wheel drive cars in the country run original casting heads.

I have to run a stock crank, nothing trick, a GM forging, blueprinted. You can have yours blueprinted, too. Anyone who can do a Stock blueprint on a 350 Chevy crank can do the exact same thing for you.

JE, CP, Ross, Diamond, or Venolia will make you a set of pistons just likeJE made mine. And you can go through the NHRA piston approval process, just like I did.

Total Seal will make you just about any ring package you can think of, so long as a base ring is available in the bore size. They'll cut them down, they'll make spacers, they'll do a Napier cut, they'll even mix and match oil ring components. So will Childs and Albert, so will Ackerly and Childs, and if you're really industrious, you can get a Speed Pro catalog, and make some of it up yourself out of open stock. I did that long before I started getting Total Seal to do it for me.

If you want to work with the wiring, you can have aftermarket ignition, if you need it. We adapted MSD stuff to computer cars long before there was "plug and play" stuff available. You can do it too, if you need it.

And there are PLENTY of aftermarket EFI computers, and they don't ALL just work on Camaros and Firebirds. Computers are stupid, they just crunch numbers, and read tables. The factory programmed yours, just like they did the ones for Camaros, Corvettes, Firebirds, and Mustangs. An aftermarket programmer can be adapted to reprogram yours, just like it can theirs.

You can have whatever header you need made, or make it yourself. If you want or need one, any number of custom header companies will make them.

Ferrea, REV, Manley, or any number of valve companies will make you a set of stainless under cut valves, too. And they won't be much if any higher than ours are.

No, you can't get aftermarket gear sets or final drives, you do have a handicap there, I agree. About all you have is converter options. As short as some of those slicks are, they shorten up the gear just a little.

But do not try to tell me you can't have parts made for your engine like the rest of us, or you can't tune your computer. I have custom stuff made on a monthly basis, and I've been through the NHRA approval process, the hard way.

Without what you call "trick parts", you are, by your own admission 1.35 under your INDEX, and .37 under the RECORD. If those trick parts that I have supposedly make it not only possible but easy for me to go fast, imagine what they'll do for you, as fast as you are without them!

As a comparison, 1.35 under for me would be a 10.85, and .37 under the record would be a 10.61. Doesn't seem to me like you have it all THAT tough. NHRA would have me down so far it'd take 3 people 8 hours just to load the car in the trailer, and it'd take a month to put it back together. Not to mention a 10.60 would get me enough HP to move up a couple of classes.

I don't begrudge you a class to race your car. But I don't buy the line about not being able to buy parts, except drivetrain parts. And supposedly, it's more efficient to pull a car than to push it. Or so several FWD car makers claim.