Competition Plus DP and CJ article

[Ken Miele]

Arnold, that's a great idea, I am all for being able to run the modern high tech engines and components in old cars. You know that would be stepping on the holy grail of Stock though, not that there is much left to step on. I can here the purists now, that will ruin stock, lets not change stock anymore.

The new cars would no longer have an advantage. I know I would be able to run with new CJ's and DP's if I could run the same engine and components. Heck, I know I can get my car to work better. I'm sure most older stocker's could do the same. Manufactures would love us using the new stuff and might even get more evolved in class racing. Lower all the old combo's hp and everyone is happy.

Just image putting a LS7 in a F Body Firebird rated at 375 with a single plane intake and 1000 cfm tb, it would be a killer combo. Hell that would be a great combo for a new Camaro. Shipping weight 3200 and the LS7, way cool.

You wouldn't even have to add another class. Just take the hp rating and divide it by the shipping weight and your good to go. That's way to radical for you purists...... right?

[CycloneFE]

Only if you use the ORIGINAL seats!!!!

[Arnold Greene]

Ken, that combination would only be rated at 265 horsepower, based on the CJ/DP factors! Remember, that combination is actually street legal and anyone can buy one.

[Alan Roehrich]

Knowing Arnold, that was merely an example he used as a commentary on what actually happened, he only substituted the 40 year old car to demonstrate a point.

The truth is, Ford and Chrysler did just go through their catalog and pick out what they wanted, submitted it with a low HP rating, and went racing. The only difference between them and what Arnold was saying is that they used new cars. If you do it with the "old" cars, it's just another "crate motor" class.

But where is the challenge in that? It merely becomes the next iteration of what IHRA Top Stock devolved into, and we know where that went. Every year a new, more expensive, and under rated combination, making something that came before obsolete.

Honestly, what that will come to is a game of yearly sand bagging and planned obsolescence. Every year, each factory would submit a new combination just enough better, and just enough under factored, to make the better than last year's package. So, every year, even your "crate motor" combination is outdated. You get to jump on an entirely new "crate motor" program every year, out of your pocket.

It won't be an evolutionary process, where you keep your combination, and look at a couple of cams, a set of heads from another shop, a set of headers, a different ring package, or a new carburetor, over a period of a few years. You'll be looking at another entirely new engine. Every year.

What Arnold posted really shouldn't need to be explained. It was a warning of what could easily come to pass, either with the new cars, or with a "crate motor" class.

This is NOT a return to those thrilling days of yesteryear, where you could go to the dealer and buy a car just like the one that won the class trophy that weekend, and drive it home, then take it out to the burger stand or the drive in.

This is a trip to the new age of corporate drag racing, where they don't have to actually tool up and build anything, and you won't go to the dealer and buy the car that won that weekend, either. You just get to go spend more money to buy the next big deal in their "crate motor" world.

They don't even have to tool up and build parts, they can just buy aftermarket pieces, put their name and part number on them, and put them in their catalog.

Be very careful what you wish for, you might just get it.

[Ken Miele]

Arnold,

I was talking about the modern LS engine family. The LS7 from what I have read on the GM Performance website is rated at 505hp and is very similar to the modern 428 CJ. I think a similar rating of 375 with the same type of intake and tb would make for an interesting battle.

[Chad Rhodes]

Originally Posted by Ken Miele

Arnold,

I was talking about the modern LS engine family. The LS7 from what I have read on the GM Performance website is rated at 505hp and is very similar to the modern 428 CJ. I think a similar rating of 375 with the same type of intake and tb would make for an interesting battle.

sign me up, if it will fit under the L88 hood on the vette

[Ken Miele]

Alan,

I disagree with you on a few points. In the 60's and early 70's engine options changed every year. There was a new combo coming out all the time, and a smart racer could figure how use that to his advantage.

Money wise, I have said over and over again. I could build a competitive car for 15,000 today. That's the same as spending 2500 in the late 60's.

If you wanted to build a new CJ with a 4.6 3 valve, you could do that for around 25,000 and be a top 5 qualifier anywhere. I don't think that's to much if you compare that to 1960 dollars.

As for as using new parts form a catalog. Everything in my engine is from a catalog except for the block and crank.

I know you want some of the old days back, but that's not going to happen. The new cars have more factory pieces on their cars then I have on mine. I don't see much of a difference between old and new expect for the soft hp ratings for the new cars.

These cars effect me, and my old race car. I'm not parking my car and or selling anything. Although I love the heads up part of racing, the new cars will not effect me that much. The chances of a heads up race in the eliminator is small.

[X-TECH MAN]

But FIRST and foremost you must be able to qualify unless there are less than 128 cars. The more new and under rated cars that show up the less older combos will make it into a large field.

[Ken Miele]

Terry,

I think that's kind of a stretch, except for Indy. Many people on Class Racer like yourself say its getting to expensive to race, and these cars are expensive according to them. NHRA is loosing participants because of they way they are treated, and they are not happy with the new cars hp ratings. If this is all true, I don't think anyone that continues to race with NHRA will have to worry about qualifying.

[Alan Roehrich]

Quite the contrary, Ken. As an example, the 396/375 and the 427/425 Chevrolet engines remained much the same, especially with respects to Stock Eliminator as it stands today, for almost their entire run from 1965/66 to 1969, and if you include the minor overbore that created the 402, all the way up until 1970. That's just one example, with two engines. There are others.

While there were new cars and new engines introduced on a regular basis, even yearly, back then, the factories actually had to produce complete running cars that were sold in quantity to the general public in order to get them into the guide.

It's not so much that I wish for some return to nostalgic times as it is that I fully recognize what factory involvement with zero constraints can do, especially given the fact that they are no longer required to actually produce complete street legal production cars, but can in fact sell "packages" of partially assembled parts that meet no recognizable standards, and can even just change a few specifications with the stroke of a pen.

Those new cars often only have more "factory parts" on them because now the factories often merely buy aftermarket parts, and put their own part numbers and logos on them.

We're not quitting either, as I've said before, we're adding a Super Stock car to the stable, I'm leaving to go work on it after I post this. We currently run A/SA and AA/SA, so we're just as effected as you, and now we're going to run SS/EA, and possibly SS/DA as well.

Where you see all these wonderful possibilities with new cars and "crate motors", I see that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and the OEM's are getting a blank piece of paper from NHRA allowing them to do pretty much as they please. Much like one would look at a law not just to see what good it could do when administrated by a good person, but also to see what harm it could do if misused, I look at the "new cars", the "new rules" and the "new factory involvement" to see how it can be used for both good and for harm. I see far more potential for the factories to abuse the "new" things, as much by what they have already done with them and what they've shown they plan to do with them, as anything else.