Dusty corners of the NHRA Classification Guide

[MikeMoller]

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.

[Mark Yacavone]

Originally Posted by oldskool

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.

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.

[Shadylane]

Originally Posted by Mark Yacavone

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.

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

[534X]

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

[427FE]

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

[Randall Klein]

Kip Martin (maybe)

[Steve Stasko]

Originally Posted by 427FE

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

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.

[DeuceCoupe]

Originally Posted by 427FE

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

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.

[Terry Cain]

Originally Posted by 427FE

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

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.

[Mark Yacavone]

Originally Posted by 534X

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

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.