I should probably give a little background on my experience. When I was younger i always had fast cars of some sort. In high school,I ran a 70 Chevelle SS with LS6 (wish I had that car now
). Anyway,I got into dirt racing. Sprint cars,running 406 with mechanical injection in the All Stars and 355 with inj in USAC. 1250lb car with 750hp gets exciting. I finally settled down with kids and work. I own an automotive repair facility and a motorcycle shop. I got away from racing for a long time. It was always,go to work during the day,get out of work and work on the race car,weekend comes,drive 10 hrs into Ohio or Indiana,run the races,go home and start all over again. We were spending $100K a year which was alot of money in those days.
Now I hear they are reopening a track near me. It was a pretty well known track back in the day tho I never drag raced before,I always would hear about Onondaga Dragway. So now they are going to reopen the track and i thought it would be fun to get an old car,get it together without spending a ton of money on it and have some fun with it. I thought the guys at the shop might enjoy having a race car around-something different than the same old repairs every day. We are pretty good with driveability and electrical problems that come with the late model cars and trucks nowadays.
I found the 65 Chevelle in Ohio and traded a 55 chevy truck for it. They were both projects and the truck was worth more than the car but the car was an old drag car from the 60's and 70's. it had been sitting outside for a long time and needs alot of work but it has a history and putting the car together is 1/2 the fun for me. It needs qtrs,floors,wheel wells,dash,basically everything. It has the original 10 bolt rear end in it with ladder bars. the rear has 8.2 gears in it but I do have a 12 bolt that i could fit into it but I thought if i got a spool for the 10 bolt,good axles and a rear support cover that the rear diff may hold up for awhile. I'd like to put 8.5 in tires on it so as to be able to fit the tire within the wheel well but maybe use a slick so it will hook up a little better. Onondaga is going to be a 1/8th mile track to begin with but they are working on maybe extending it back out to 1/4 mile within the next year or so.
The engine that i have is something I have been gathering parts for. I can not afford to make mistakes buying parts and need to get the most bang for my buck all the while planning for down the road. Like most of you have said,i know i will want more speed but still want to temper it so as to have fun and not get so serious about winning that the fun goes away like it did before.
The block I have had for 20 yrs. I just had it bored to 30 over. It is a high tin,high nickle block. I have a set of GRP 6in rods,12-1 domed Manly forged pistons,a very nice set of 68 2.02 heads that have good valves and springs with titanium keepers,ect. I also have Crower 1.6 roller rockers with 7/16 studs. Crane solid roller lifters,gear drive,7 qt oil pan with oil deflector. Edelbrock torker II intake and Holley 750 double pumper. I still need to get a crank. I'd like to get a forged crank but.....
The trans i have is just a TH350,it is built but i still need to get a torque convertor and it sounds like i need to change out my cam as well. I will call the guy who had the NOS setup and get that from him so that i can set it up at the same time as i do not like to waste money and time by doing something twice. I was thinking of going with a 4.56 or 4.88 gear with 26" high tires. any suggestions as to what convertor I should go with as well as what fuel system i should plan on? I get the idea that I will need to fatten up the fuel mixture when the NOS kicks in and the setup has NOS coming in on one side and extra gas on the other side besides what is already setup with the carb. Sorry for the long post but I appreciate the suggestions,ideas,cons and pros. thank you Jim