Seeing your 1st Mopar 'Upset' a Chevy

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my dad has a 340 dart and he had a guy come up to him once and say you know? I only ever lost one race he had a 454 chevelle and he said it was to a 340 dart. Then another guy he met was a gm guy and said he once saw a 340 beat a 427 corvette and the next day he went out and bought a 340 swinger now that speaks volume
 
At the track a few months ago. Lined up next to a new camaro SS in my rough looking 70 dart. Spectator on video actually said something along the lines of "Why would you even bring that out here". I got the jump when the light dropped and held the lead through the traps. Felt nice knowing the dart surprised a few people that day. Dat ran 12.9 at 104. Camaros run about the same.
 
In 1969 I was cruising with a friend in his 67 GTX with a well built 440 and 456 gears.
A friend of his from another town pulled up and challenged him to a race with his 64 Impala with a built 409 and 4 speed.
They raced three time and needlees to say the GTX ate that 409 for lunch.
 
When I was a senior in my very small high school, there was a kid that had a late 70's Z28. It was all original with low mileage, 350 4bbl (L82 vette motor supposingly), auto and 3.42 gears. His dad built drag cars and runs a speed shop to this very day. I had a '72 Demon with a 318 that I added a cast intake and 600 holley. I had a auto with 2.76 gears. On paper, I was out cubed, out geared, and out tuned (his tuned by his dad). The guys all thought I was nuts for wanting this race, but I begged for it. It only took one run. We went from about a 15 mph roll to about 85 mph. My Demon pulled away from him the whole way, and no rematch was needed. I "shocked" my little high school "gear heads" and the kid was very honest and confessed.
 
when I showed up at the local dirt track with my a/f body mopar all the chevy guys started bitching because no body knew anything about them including the inspectors ,the first race was a end of season eastern street stock champion ship that included a $10000 race with over 100 car count with only 22 to make the race ,only 8 cars from my home track started ,all very fast Camaros we lucked out to make the field because 3 cars were disqualified for cheating ,to make a long story short ,we finished 4 ,only loosing out to 421cu in engines.not to bad for a 360 with 340 exhaust and 2 barrel carb ,there were cars there from nc,pa nj, showed up in 200000 dollar riggs and we beat all the cars from my home track . so you know what happened the following year ,we were tore down almost every week for finishing ahead of the local guys. being disqualified almost every race and then giving us back the points/dollars on Monday after a machinist inspected the illegal parts. and declared them legal and then I started helping the only ford (we could share wheels /tires) and then they turned on him .it was ok until he started to improve .
 
So I was just reminded of "the good ol' days" and thought why not share a few stories from back then.
So one night soon after my motor was dropped in, I was headed for the outskirts of town with a girlfriend at the time and I was sitting at a gas station and a mid to late 70s Craparo pulls into the gas station. Of course we noticed each others cars and we happened to leave at the same time. Well we hit the light and are lined up. He revs it and I get smacked on the leg-------- "NO!!!" she says. As any typical jackass kid I just laughed at her. He revs again so I rev too. No she is sayin "you better not", I just chuckle and place a foot on each pedel. Now as the car is sittin at just under 3 grand and poised to strike she is screaming at me. GREEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and we are side ways!!! Damn too much throttle! I come out of it and this tank of a camaro is just barely ahead of me because the damn thing wasnt capable of spinning the tires I bet! well with in 100 yards of the light there was an over pass that raised up over the train tracks. As we crest the overpassIm pullin on him hard, and her screams went from Bitchin' at me to "go-go-go" As I passed this clown she is yelling "you beat him you beat him!" That crap was funny.
 
Same NHRA Class

1966 = D/SA {10.60 to 11.29 Wt/Hp}
1967 = C/SA {10.60 to 11.29 Wt/Hp}

* 1960 Plymouth Savoy ~ {361/310 HP}
* 1967 Camaro ~ {327/275 HP}

kammer_1.JPG
 
Another story from back in HS:

One of my friends had a 1968 El Camino that he and his dad built. The car was way too nice for any of us to believe his dads wallet didnt play a part in the creation. That said, it was a great car. 1968, SS, black on black, 396, 4 spd. He by far had one of the cleanest rides in HS.
Needless to say my burger joint budget built my little Valiant very slowly. He would always give me a hard time. He'd mock my car as did others occasionally. Nothing outside the normal trash talking I suppose.
Anyhow, after I built my 360 and had been working on it for a while, he had been talking trash and I told him "Lets see what happens at the track...." "You may be surprised!"

We would all do the HS drags every Friday night, and it just so happened we lined up that next Friday night.

Keep in mind the conbinations here.
His Elky: 396, 4 spd, 3800lbs-ish?
My Valiant: 360 (with 318 heads) single plane intake, 500cfm, Stock 904 trans. (headers wide open! LOL
My combination of parts was a damn mess!!!

We line up, Ive got the RPMs hanging around 2500, and the suspension is loaded as the /6 torsion bars are still in the car so the front has lifted a few inches, and Im sitting on the homemade pinion snubber.

Tree gives us the go-ahead and before I know it, I dont see him in my peripheral any longer and I realize he had to be spinning! I get half track and cant believe I have such a damn jump on him that I may actually beat him.

Then......... I hear it... I hear that big block screaming and gaining on me. He finally catches me at about 3/4 track. Needless to say he snatched the win at the last second.

What was so great about it was he came back around to say how surprised he was and from then on he gave a little more credit to the Valiant that almost made a mockery of his high dollar big block!

We are still friends today and I may very well get to visit with him after all these years...next month. :)
 
My son's second Neon was a 98 ACR. Black 4 door. Chrysler made those things bare bones with wind up windows, side moldings deleted, etc. Looked like a typical bare bones Neon. Some of the cool things were Koni adjustable shocks and steeper gearing in the transaxle. He had only a few simple bolt-ons, K and N filter, header, bored throttle body, under drive crank pulley, and a tweaked computer. He soon started drag racing it every weekend at Norwalk. I told him this is your everyday car, take it easy, you need it to drive to school, work, blah, blah, blah. If you keep racing every weekend something's gonna break.

One night he was matched up against a brand new Mustang GT and jumped out ahead and held it the whole 1/4 mile. The guy in the Mustang was so pissed he drove around him on the return road, stopped, jumped out and demanded he open the hood of this POS Neon. He looked around, didn't see what he was looking for and asked where he was hiding the NOS.
Nothing, all motor, 14.4's on regular street tires.

Of course he eventually blew a hole through the trans case. We put another trans in w/o the special gear and he calmed down a bit after that before he totaled it. Now he drives a Fiat Abarth which is another fun car to drive.
 
street racing stories, hmmmm

Spun No. 1 rod bearing in my 67 Satellite, racing a 95 Mustang Cobra (in 95) down the freeway. He kept getting in to the rev limiter, I gave it the rest of the gas and stayed in it way to long (minute or longer) 130+?

A friend of mine has a 62 Bel Air 409, dual quad 4 speed, 4:11 gears vicious car, no way I would ever try racing it in anything I have ever owned, been with him in several street races, unbelievable car.

Took about a mile in a industrial park to beat a ZR1 Corvette, but he beat him, gave a crap talking punk in a 69 Javelin 401 a good head start and ran him down.

We were sitting at a light and a nice 69 Road Runner Convert stopped next to us, "nice car" Road Runner guy says, "likewise" Dave says. "Do you feel lucky" "no" I saw you take that Corvette, I will just watch"

Had my 383 in my Satellite rebuilt and a GNX stopped next to me at a light, it had a vicious whine to it. He wanted to go, light turned green and I wasn't ready, left me like I was standing still, he was waiting at the next light. "whats in that" 3.8 Dual turbo with supercharger he says, holy poop, "lets do it again" Hmmm ok, light turns green and he lets me go, great race though, neck and neck for a bit till we slowed down, I think he was probably playing with me though.

In my Bee, I spanked a 70 Vette 454 that wanted to race, not sure what his issue was.

In my 65 Custom 880 this dude with a 327 in a 70 GMC always wanted to race me, he lost

"
 
best race ever was at the track, went up against another stock 383 67 Satellite. Pretty even match

Light turned green and we left at the same time, stayed on each others fender the whole way, almost one, but I slapped the shifter and missed drive and lost by half a car length.
 
I can honestly say I've never lost a street race to a gm product (while driving a Mopar), and only lost to 2 fords.

The losses were to a junky looking maverick with a manual trans (guy said it had a 289..... riiiiight) in the 66, going downhill from a rolling start, and to a 5.0 mustang vert FULL of people to my 70 Super Bee. They walked all over me ?!?!? had to have boost, bottle or both!

My most memorable races in the Bee were-

1- A friend had a 2 year old firebird gta about 1990. We were coming back from a gathering on a country road. I was behind him and he started speeding up. About 90 MPH I decided to see if I could pass him. After a slight bit of a struggle, I did, and the speedo was bouncing off the 150. When we got home, he said I was crazy and said it was "only" 130 by his speedo. Even so, another 70K plus mile Mopar takes a nearly new 350.

2- I had just stopped to help a biker looking couple who had car trouble (in of all things, a 70 Super Bee that I had never seen before), and had both of their nearly 300 pound dead weights in the car. Along side comes this 71-ish camaro with 427 badges (later found out it was a 454) and of course he wants to race. I loaded up the throttle until just before the tires broke, and right before the light changed, let off a bit, then floored it. I got a fender on him, and he couldn't gain any. That's the only time I ever flipped off a race opponent. I actually couldn't believe I pulled that one off. No easy kill for that guy.

For the record, and for the most part, I was fairly selective about who I raced. Sometimes you DO win the battle before it's begun....and I never raced another Mopar, unless there were severe extenuating circumstances.
 
Not a Chevy , but a Ford Mustang.
I had built an engine for my 1979 Express truck, nothing fancy.
Just solid blueprinted short block, stock pistons, crank, rods.
340 MP replacement cam & springs.
Installed 2.02 int valve & cleaned them up the bowells.
Eddy performer intake (port matched) & a stock T-quad.
Stock convertor & 3:55 gear.

I was living in a 1-stop sign town, when a Salen Mustang came rolling thru.
This was in the mid 80's.
The nice thing was, there was another 8 miles of straight hiway to the next town.

It was dark & my Buddy & I knew we couldn't outrun this guy, but we thought we would see how long we could hang with him.

Right on que, he nailed it at the edge of town, with me on his bumper.
I stayed with him until he went into 5th gear.
Nothing like the sound of stacks @ 5500 RPM in high gear!

We both pulled over in the next town, he was very suprised to see it was a pick-up truck that had hung with him for so long.
My speedo only went to 100MPH, he told me to get everything out of his Stang, that he had to redline all gears before going into 5th.
Which is around 125MPH.
Not too shabby for a barn door.

Later on, the neighbor kid that was my helper on the Race car was wanting something to race.
I put an 8 3/4 with 4.30 gear, 9 in slicks, 10" convertor, shift kit, headers & a 650 Holley D/P carb on it.
The truck weighed 4000LBS. ran a best of 13.80. Not bad at all.
 
The funny thing is, I don't remember too many races I won, but I do remember the ones I lost. The worst was to a "68" 383 Road Runner, that I rebuilt the Carb on. I was driving a 64 Barracuda with factory Commando exhaust, Offenhouser intake and 600 Holley. Both were 4 speeds with 3.23 gears. Since we were living in rural South Dakota, we just drove out of town to the marked quarter mile. When we started, he pulled a 4 car hole shot with that 11 in clutch and good weight transfer. He never got any farther but I could not gain on him either.

I guess the best Gm "Win" was cruising on the freeway in Orlando, Florida in a 68 383 Formula S Fastback Barracuda. An Olds 442 kept pestering me to run. After a while, I figured he'd leave me alone if I floored it. So I did and walked away from him like he was standing still. Slowed back to 60 MPH and finished the drive.
 
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