Bringing back a lot of my old hot rod memories here... I started driving in 69 so a lot of great used hot rods were available at the time and I took advantage of that every chance I got - when I could afford it. Had a bunch of fast cars in high school- a 64 Malibu SS, my dads Caprice with a 454 in it, my 68 GTO with the 400 hp/400 High Performance engine in it. Fastest I ever went in a car was in that GTO- got on a new highway they were going to open the next day with my brother. Moved the barricades and drove down the exit ramp to get on the freeway and opened it up down that stretch. My speedo got up to 140 or 150, not really sure any more, but I was watching the tach keep climbing over the top mark and realized I had gotten up to around 155 at around 6500 rpm on that motor. Had to slow down because the front end was floating all over the place and I could barely drive the car it was so light in the front end. 6500 is pretty high for hydraulic lifters and I had to pull over for about ten minutes to cool the engine off and let the lifters pump back up and get some oil back in the engine valley...
I say I think because I had another car about then- a Vega I installed a built 327 with Z28 internals and 400 Turbo Hydro in it... Speedo only read to 120 or so, so once it pegged I was on my own. No tach in that one while I owned it but it was a kick to drive and beat everything I ever raced in it. Had to sell it for a song when the Army decided they needed me overseas and my dad refused to store it for me...
My present hot rod I don't have the foggiest idea how fast I've gotten it going. Speedo hasn't worked since I built it and it gets pretty light over about 130 or so, but I've pushed it way past that a couple times. White knuckles is an understatement in the AC Cobra. Short wheelbases and high speeds are a serious affair and still at almost 70 years young is fun and a good way to blow off some steam when you need to. The most fun though is pulling up to lights and having fart can ricers blow their whiny engine noises at me to goad me into a race.... I just rev the sidepipes and the noise drowns out any ideas they have about racing...
I remember all the "3/4 race cam" talk and all the nonsense we used to talk about with my car buddies back in the day. I finally realized this was just about the only way most guys - even some good mechanics I knew- could describe a racier cam since nobody really understood lift, overlap, timing, etc... and we didn't have the sophisticated machinery back then to measure A/F mixtures, Air Flow, etc... to really dial in our engines. It was pretty seat of your pants tuning and some were better than others at it. We had a couple good friends who were pretty well known Top Fuel drag car builders and we used to hang out and make a nuisance of ourselves until he would run us off... Even back then a lot of us had 12 second cars but some of those muscle cars back then had a lot more horsepower than advertised due to insurance limitations. Those were some great days- CAPO Camaros, Vettes, 396, 427, and 454 engines in the Chevies, Pontiacs with the excellent 390/400 and 455 engines, the Fords with the 390 HP, 427, 428 PI engines, the Mopars with the 340 Six packs, 383 HP, 426 Hemi, 440 .... I could go on and on but it was a great time to be a car guy and young enough to enjoy it. Which is probably why I am still a car guy and built an AC Cobra pretty much from scratch a few years ago. Some itches just never can be scratched enough...
My next build will be an LS of some sort for sure- I'm thinking a 67 Nova, or a 68 Camaro, or a 70-72 Chevelle... but time will well...
Bob
