Lets call it the Can Am survivor showdown! HEMI vs. 427 vette

He`s fast at it Bruno did it twice in 3 hours last night for practice... No Joke!

And I would love to lay under the car and help but Doctors orders will have none of that .

I will be feeling lucky I can drive my car if we can get it together after what I been thru ...


Paul

 

Hope to see you there, Paul in the drivers seat. See you got the 71. In the body shop yet? What happened on the other big block Impala?

 

actully both cars are in process the big block guy did a no show and no awnser when we were to set up the pick up so I am letting him stew a little by not calling he needs the money. The Cutlass problem is his buddy said "I will assembaly it for you!" . So in about a month or 2 when it is snowing and his moms car is out in the snow I will call and make the offer again . I will get one or the other sooner or later.As for me and the Impala, the engine compartment was painted tonight and the motor should be going in in the am tomorrow if everything works out... So far so good for me driving told the Doc what I had planned and he said should be no problem keep your fingers crossed....

Paul

 

Bruno's Girl

Good luck Paul and hopefully the doc stays on your side and you can rip down the track in two days.

Spent yesterday on Bruno's 427/390 vette. New tires mounted and installed, went through all the fluids, checked the brake function, put gas in (that is one way to keep me out of the seat give it to me empty), made sure the carb was clean and working perfectly, checked and made sure the distributor weights were moving smoothly and since Bruno has not had the chance to detail her I did the underside, motor compartment, interior, degreased everything front to back, waxed, polished all chrome and stainless and did all final checks to make sure she was race ready.

I must say this again, very cool car in my favorite color no less. On to the better item Bruno gave me the thumbs up and I broke the new tires in and got a good base setting on the old style bias ply's. No Polyglas tires here. Now I am a believer in bias ply's but these looked to have no chance at working. A wheel barrel puts double the rubber down and has a less rounded tread pattern. But darn if they did not come around and work. The car drives like brand new and has given me a healthy respect for the oval port 427! The car runs crisp and quick.

The Hemi better be on its game or I will suffer the pain of seeing a base boat make a wake in front of me.

As I have not driven the Hemi yet and its first outing with me will be Friday when it comes in from WI, I have no idea how it will do. But having put 1500 or so miles on my Hemi R/T Coronet that is all original I do not think I have anything over Bruno's car. Granted the Coronet is a bit weathered and a 3.23 rear to the 4.10 in the Challenger but I was really pleased with how nice the 427 pulls. It will be fun.

Mark

 

Mark:

What are the tires on that Vette if not Polyglas? Radials? Neat car. I had F70 x 15 Firestone Supersports (narrow whie stripe) from a restored Corvette on my 66 442, and always wondered if they'd hook up like Polyglas. Alas, never finished the car to try it. Oh well.

Paul,

You may not want that Cutlass if someone puts it together that doesn't know what he's doing. Hope it works out for you and see you Friday.

 

Dave they are the correct for '67 B F Goodrich bias ply's. They were something like 7.75 X 15 tires. But in reality the tread is about 5 inches wide (I did not measure) and the ballooned out side wall is 7.75 inchs. Very tall and narrow. They are the old school pre-polyglas style bias ply's.

Mark

 

Dave looked them up at Coker. They list them as B F G's 775x15 w/1" side wall.

Specs:

Overall diameter: 27.42
Cross section: 7.65
Tread Width: 4.50 (even worse then I suggested)

Some how they can almost hold the cars power. With the glued track they will work decent. They do have a lot of role out to help get a little extra rubber down. Scary looking tires to be going 100+ on.

Mark

 

That is a similar tire to the 8.00-14's on the '58

 

...............and now I'm gettin' goose bumps!

 

Does that mean that you wanna go first????

 

why didn't you have Bruno get a set of legal F70 - 15 tires.......

2 extra inches of rubber on the road


edit, nevermind, I know why.......but there will be plenty of F70-15s in the pits, if needed :grin:

 

what a couple of b-e-a-u-tiful cars.........

anyone know how the shootout went ??

 

Thanks all for the compliments! The featured 2 of 3 showdown was won by the HEMI. Actually,it was Driver of the hemi won the first race and then the
hemi won the second race.The vette was car #129 and the Hemi was #132.
They were so evenly matched that they actually drew each other in the
Purestock shoot out.I guess you could say that they were the "purest" of
the pure stockers in attendance.

Can't tell you how amazing it felt to be a part of that event this weekend.
My hat's off to Bob and Dan for putting together THE car event of the year.

A huge thanks to their support staff too! You were all GREAT!!!!

Thanks Mark W for making that vette sparkle and extending the invitation to
participate in the showdown.

So what could possibly top that event?????????


Here's the timeslips.......

 

It was truly fun and I was honored to get to work on Bruno's car. It sure will be sad when he picks it up Tuesday and I can not look at her anymore.

Bruno and I each had a couple high 13 second passes and it was fun.

Thanks again Bruno for brining her out and stretching its legs.

By the way I hate looking over my shoulder. I need to go back to RA IV's. It is much easier to be the chaser than the chased.

Mark

 

You're welcome,Mark!
It was a blast. Still can't believe how nice that HEMI is.Most people in our hobby would take a good look at your car.......and immediately call for the men in white coats to haul you away. High 6 figure cars gettin' spanked at the track is priceless!
.................and how about Stefina beating on a gem(emerald?) like he did!
The hobby should take notice of this "pure stock drags" thing and organize more drag racing/show events rather than the emphasis being placed solely on who did the best Q-tip job. As a matter of fact,national events should establish a minimum e.t. for a muscle car to be judged as "gold" or "top flite"
status. If it can't pull itself up on a trailer,how could it possibly represent its original form?

That was THE best car show/race...........BAR NONE!

I hope the winners get the exposure they truly deserve in any upcoming
magazine features.
More and more exposure and people will fight for a seat to witness the
"the sights,sounds and smell" of this type of racing.

 

I may be very late on this subject or completely off kilter, but it would be worth much more if it was a 425 horse 427 as opposed to the 390 version.

 

Bruno has raced L71 vettes of his friends and come out on top. Most guys are not good with multiple carbs and even in a virgin stock setup you must have them sinc'd properly.

His car ran exceptionally well. Posting mph's over 103 at times. I think the L36 represented itself better than anyone could expect.

The bigger issue is finding people who are willing to run museum pieces. I feel fortunate that Bruno and Mario are willing to take such a risk with that special of a car. It looked radiant and ran perfect. Maybe a few more people will step up to the plate next year to replace Bruno and I and show us what some other Virgin cars can run.

Anyone willing?

Mark

 

I gotta agree, Bruno's car has really fired me up about Paul Vitales '67 385 horse car....we were really worried about power with oval port heads and that intake (the L-72 was not an Impala option in 67)

to think Bruno's car was running that number with a little 585cfm carb is something else......

 

Mark, what did Larry's car run when it was pretty close to "Virgin Stock" at Martin ???

 

LS6 Vette

It ran a best of 13.28 @ 105 with 100% original condition. That included things like carb/distributor settings, motor, and factory original exhaust.

With carb, distributor and exhaust tuned it went 13.10's @ 107's. At all times the car raced with the 3.36 factory installed gear.

With the new motor and gear it ran a best of 12.083 with a best mph of 116.85. He weight in 125 lbs. over the heaviest L88 and over 200 more than the lightest. His car carries every item it was built with. You can not mess with a 13/K mile original paint car like that.

He needs to build a clone. He is getting crazy to race that thing! Ok I retract that as I do the same thing with my virgin cars.

Mark