68 replies to this topic

[Tom Katsanis]

Those are some impressive times from that Vintage dragster.

[MSwiss]

Yes, Tom, the motor really seems to be a stud.

There hasn't been a smooth run, yet.

It's been more of just trying to make it less of bad run.

Once I get Mark a handful of 1/8" axle rears, we can also play around with narrowing the rubber.

The track seems to have a lot of bite.

The regular drag racers, who were on it, a bunch, earler, were constantly wiping down the start.

Mark also brought the below pictured item, for us to play with.

I haven't had the intestinal fortitude to even plug it in, yet.

[Tom Katsanis]

Maybe it has a rewound or 3v arm in it.

Did you see on Facebook that a couple of cars Floyd built were right around a second on 16v one of the cars he built for a friend actually went under a second this was with modern Neo's replacing the alinco magnets & 3v arms.

[MSwiss]

I did spot that post on FB,about the sub 1 second pass, and the caveat about the neo mags.

Do you happen to know if it was done on vintage, or modern rubber?

[Ramcatlarry]

Be sure to plug the 'zapper' into a 20 amp circuit.....

[Tom Katsanis]

Mike they were using modern protrack 1 5/16 rear tires on those runs.

[MSwiss]

Mike they were using modern protrack 1 5/16 rear tires on those runs.

Thanks.

 

Good to know.

 

It will be interesting to see how Alan Draht's Hustings build hooks up on vintage rubber.

 

Is there any video footage of 60's drag runs?

 

I'm curious to see what a good run looked like.

 

Be sure to plug the 'zapper' into a 20 amp circuit.....

All my raceway circuits are at least 20 amp.
 

[Tom Katsanis]

No footage I have seen unfortunately just stories on 36 volt there are stories of the vintage rubber flying apart & cars coming off the track on occasions & according to Gene Husting on his Impossible build the production tires were not up to the task on 36v that's why they were making there own out of the RC plane tires.

[boxerdog]

We used the Graupners for everything in the early 60s pre-glue days, that rubber was just better. It was a PITA to make tires, however, so some of the road stuff got the ever-improving foamies. 

[Dave Crevie]

Blowing tires was common on 36v. The molded sidewalls of the Graupner tires helped keep them together. Plus the rubber was better, could

stretch further without breaking. Cox, Ruskit and some others made molded sidewall tires, but not big enough for the rails.  

[Ramcatlarry]

Yeah, just like the real cars, motors and tires 'blowed up real good'......on three batteries.

[MSwiss]

More drag racers are here, playing tonight.

The modeling on these cars is making my head spin.

[MSwiss]

Crazy day at the raceway.

Just as guys started showing up, we had a brown out, with the AC, and about half the outlets out.

Luckily, the ones that still worked, allowed me to stretch extention cords to power up the drag strip and the Trackmate.


Despite the lack of AC, we saw our first car go over 100 MPH.(actually 103, but not a smooth run or a good ET)

We still have a ways to go, as about 125 MPH is where funny cars start to really impress.

It turns out the problem was a blown transformer, behind the raceway.

A ComEd truck showed up and informed us the power would be totally out for about 45 minutes, to an hour.

Dave Crevie, Mark Mattei, and I, stuck it out, and it came back on, and we had a little more fun.


Dave really impressed with a .688 @ 76.78 MPH, with a $16 Hawk 11, in a 15 year old funny car.


Mark's march to a magic sub 1 second run, with his vintage magwinder, got a little bit closer.

Still, the problem is the short vintage guide not allowing very long braid, or the ease of changing it, when needed.

With narrowing the Protrack tires, from .435", to approx. .300", he still was able to get down to 1.10, at almost 56 MPH.

[MSwiss]

The Chuck Gambo rail made another appearance tonight, and broke into the 9's.

[MSwiss]

I haven't posted in awhile.

With a change to an old Proslot Minimotor, with JK Hawk 11 mags, and Koford G20 arm, the Chuck Gambo scratchbuilt, vintage style rail, got down to a pretty incredible .773.

It also hit 70 mph once, on a .793(?) pass.

And earlier today, I finally got the big monitor, above the track, where the drag racers seem to like it.

[kvanpelt]

Mike, Maybe I missed the explanation, but what does the "102" signify?

[MSwiss]

The track is 102+ ft. long.

55 ft./1/4 mile, approximately 2 1/2 ft. staging, 44 1/2 ft. shutdown.

[kvanpelt]

Cool!

[MSwiss]

Mark Mattei brought this, his fastest of his vintage dragsters / magwinders, on Saturday.

 

He's made an effort to keep at least keep the motor, 100% vintage, for the time being.

Within about a minute of walking in, he plunked it down on the track, and made his smoothest pass, yet.

 

I heard just the end of it, as I was at the far end of the raceway.

 

I was hoping for better things, but as in the past, it seems to run the smoothest, the first pass, when the tires have sat for a week.

 

A couple subsequent runs went downhill, and he shelved it, to practice for the Hardbody road race.

He did pull out this vintage Mustang.

 

I'm 99% sure I've shown it before.

 

It has a motor, purportedly, out of a 60's Detroit police car, that was involved in the operation of the siren.

 

Even with silicones, it ran a pretty respectable 1.67, using up all 44 ft. of my shutdown, before it softly rolled into my rolled up microfiber towels, at the end of the strip.

The bolt on wire hookups can be seen in the rear window.