no, its the little nash rambler, 1958 by the playmates. cadillac trys to get away but the little nash rambler keeps beeping the horn, then pulls up next to the caddy and yells out, how do you get this car out of 2nd gear. nash had a 3-speed standard. doc knows what am talking about, i know am a nut case. lol
You are also correct. Joe was born a decade too late as he loves the 50's. The song is "I can't drive 55" Link: http://www.metrolyrics.com/i-cant-drive-55-lyrics-sammy-hagar.html
Nash /ramblers were known for gas mileage , not performance....that is what makes the song funny,,, The Rambler started out as a model of Nash and then when American Motors took over it became the brand name....
I know a thing or two about the ole slide-glide sooperdooper turbine 300. I've had two of them before back in the old days when I was too young and dumb to appreciate what I had. One was in a '68 skylark and the other was a '68 lesabre, both with 350's. Sure did love that LeSabre. 2 door 'fast back' hard top. Beautiful car, and plently of spunk, even for a 350. These cars were stock with cross-country gears. Skylark had a 2.73 and the lesabre a 2.93. The first one I owned was the skylark, and one day the st300 just stopped working. reverse was fine, but no drive or low (I later learned what had happend to it and it was a very simple fix, but I didn't know better at the time), so I put a 375 in it. Better (marginally) take-off than the 2 speed, but once you were half way wound out in 2nd gear, you could notice the parasitic power loss the 375 was compared to the 300, and when 3rd gear hit, it was like I had hit an upward hill with a 50 mph headwind. The st300 was waaay better on top end. Now on to the LeSabre. Low end take off wasn't very impressive (heavier car), but once the car hit 25-30 mph and the torque band on the 350v4 kicked in a bit stronger, it pulled very well, and from 50-80 it was quite impressive for what it was. The car shifted automatically out of low into high at 80, at which point it did not fall on its face, but did very well since it overreved past peak hp in low. You could feel the power just starting to trail off and it would shift. Very well set up. Well I wore out the 350 (ahem) and moved on to a low compression 455. I was rather disappointed in its hp, since it didn't feel like it had any more than the 350, but I could tell the torque was noticably higher. It would actually burn rubber now from a stop. However, the st300 wanted to shift it much higher than it was used to shifting at, and the hp would nosedive long before it ever shifted. (I can't help but wonder if that 350 wasn't modified in some way--but it looked and sounded stock) Anyway, after the 455 bit the dust, I found another one out of a '70 electra. Now that was a whole different story. Hp and torque galore, and the car would burn rubber from a dead stop all the way up to 80 when it shifted. It did very, very well along with that st300, and both held up very well (even under my 22 year old lead foot). It would even burn rubber from 30 mph up. Needed posi traction way bad. From standstill idle in drive, nailing it to the floor, it would tach up with the speedo reading 80, but the tranny never shifted into high. It held it there screaming its ass off, valves on the verge of floating, blowing through tread on that poor tire until it reached the actual 80 mph. I would disconnect the detent solonoid switch to test it out more, and would floor it at low speeds in high gear, where it wouldn't spin. 1 forward (high) and 1 reverse clutch pack and 1 band (low). that's it. Pretty heavy duty considering. Here's my point: the wide torque curve on a strong 455 fits the st300 like a glove, which has a wide gear. I think more depends on the engine type, power band, weight of car, gear ratio, and other dynamics that come into play when you're not thinking about it, besides the simple math comparisons of static figures. Love the st300. My 2c
The day I bought my 65, I was sure the first thing I was going to do to it was swap in a TH350. Now a tranny swap is probably the last thing I'll do. And even if I do, the ST300 is not for sale.
my first car was a 66 chevelle and had the old power glide. Of course no switch pitch. If I recall right it could take a lot of abuse. Let me think what was popular back then. oh ya the 4000 rpm nuetrul drop. Oh and we cant forget the Hollywood, burning rubber in reverse and slam it into drive without letting off the gas You would think I hated that car but I really liked it. I guess powerglide and 300 are not even close to the same tranny??
Ha! That exact same treatment made short work of my 71 Skylark TH350 tranny at 16 years old, it took about 3 months. My parents let me drive around with no 3rd gear for another 6 months. And I loved that car too! That was the car I perfected my Jim Rockford style reverse to forward swinging burn out....and it was totally worth it.
The Buick engineers were no dummies. I've often thought that they were from outer space or from a time warp in the future, since they were way ahead of their time and did often times unconventional things with superior results. Never owned a nailhead myself, but I'm familiar with the 'on paper' power ratings @ x,xxx rpm and I've read a lot about them. It comes as no surprise that the nailhead does very well with an st300 considering its strong low-mid range power band (much like that '70 455 I had that did well with the st300). It's like free power compared to the larger 3 speed autos. Lose take off and ET, but gain top end and mph. Makes sense to me. Drag racing is fun and all, but I enjoy doing more with my car. Like cruising, getting better mileage, and farting around on the street. Many of the 'street drags' don't happen from light to light anyway--they happen while your car is in motion, and that's where the st300 shines. I'll put an st300 with a weaker engine up against a th400 with a more powerful engine any day above 30 mph, and have. My brother had a 383 in a '68 Monoco (Mopar division for those of you unfamiliar), similar size car to my Lesabre, and from a dead still take off, he'd walk right away from me...but when we were going down a road side-by-side at 30 and floored it, we'd stay neck and neck, neither of us pulling away from the other. This was when it had the 350 in it. His engine was rated at 330 hp and 415 ft.lbs. if i recall. Mine was rated at 280 and 375. Go figure? Both cars ran like a top, but mine was rated at a full 50 hp and 40 ft.lbs. less. Those are big numbers when you're around the 300 hp / 400 tq. mark! That big 727 torqueflight (?) tranny sucked that much power from his 383? I guess so! So that's my experience. G ---------- Post added at 02:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:14 PM ---------- well I wasn't going to say in my older posts, but I did the exact same thing! Talk about abuse! I hear the st400 is more durable than the st300, and you'd think so. It probably is in reality, but my st300 handled the 'valves nearly floating' in N dropping into D and reverse full throttle into forward deal. The st300 took it like a champ and never complained once. I did this on a regular, and I mean regular, basis. I stripped out a TH400 in my '69 Electra doing that. So go figure? and yeah, the st300 and chevy powerglide are way different from what I hear, but the chevy version is supposed to be way more durable. Never had durability issues out of my st300, and I had a 10:1 455 bolted to it. Let me edit this last statement as it is a bit misleading: The neutral - drive and reverse - drive thing i only did when I had the 350 in it. Never did it with the 455, because it burned rubber so bad as it was there was no point. Now I imagine if I had a blown 455 with 1000+ hp in front of a stock st300 it may have some issues (lol), but for stock stuff it does just fine and then some.
nice car stories guys, like hearing and reading about stuff like that. i dont want to bash the sp turbo 400, i would not take the 2-speed out to go with a 3-speed. but on the other hand if the car came with a sp-3 speed i would not take it out to run a 2-speed.
I think there will come a day when I'd like to try the SP400 in my 65. I like 400's alot, and I'd really like to see first hand if it's that tougher to launch or if it truly sucks up that much HP...but there's definitely no rush. I'm not anywhere close to done dialing in the ST300. From the ONE blast I got in before it snowed, it seems to shift alot quicker and there's room on the governor for a few hundred more RPM.
400's a good tranny. I only stripped one out in the entire history of owning my '69 Electra, and I went through one 430 and a '70 455 engine. It sure would take the abuse. It's one of the reasons why I like GM and Buicks so much...I've abused other cars and they wouldn't hold up to near the abuse a Buick will. Well at least in stock form. From my experience though there's a noticable difference in power loss though, but I was running stockers. I imagine it would be less noticable with more power. Hole shot will improve, but you'll lose out after you get about half way wound out in second gear. Not sure how much power an st300 can handle when it's hooking up, so the 400's might be pretty much your only choice when pumping out serious power. Edit: just remembered, I believe the 400 takes 44 hp from the flywheel while the 300 only takes 18. On stock engines (esp the 350) that's huge. On beefed up big blocks, you might not notice so much. But 26 hp difference is like headers vs manifolds, so I dunno...
I think I'm putting about 250 hp to the ground, more or less so the 300 seems to be holding up under that pretty well.. I did play with the governor again this weekend, I started with a (I think) 300 small block unit, had a 5/16 hole drilled in each weight in the spring pocket - no real change in shift points, in fact it might have been lower than the original governor. I drilled another 1/4 inch hole out near the tip of the weight, that brought it up to about 4700 or so (back where I was more or less) Next I'm going to remove 1 spring and see where that gets me. I'm shooting for 5100-5200 rpm. Might get to it this weekend if we dont get any significant snow. Or if I get home! Looks like I'm gonna be stuck in Chicago for a day or two! Was supposed to go to Detroit tommorow, but I dont think that's gonna happen . Likely I'm gonna sleep on a bank of chairs at O'Hare. Yay me.
The lower the gear out back,, the less the strain is on the trans....and the more the strain on the axels/wheels/tires/suspension......:Brow::Brow:
Rhett, every time i took one spring off it was good for 400-500 rpms, pretty sure you will get the number your looking for 5100-5200:TU: when you were at the track did you let it shift at 4700 or did you shift it your self at a higher rpm ?
GSGTX - Thanks for the info.. The original governor shifted aboiut 4700 -4800, I took it out and set it aside. The one I'm working on must have shifted much lower than that because after a 5/16 hole in each weight I was at maybe 4500-4600? I drilled another 1/4 hole at the tip and thats got me up to 4700-4800. Great info on the spring, had I known I would have skipped the 2nd set of holes and just removed the spring - would have put me exactly where I wanted, but I've been told that remving the spring can have an effect on part throttle shifts...How did you set your up? I have tried shifting manually, but I found that while I could hold the rpms, the higher line pressure made the shifts actually slower. Net result was I was always slower when I shifted myself. Aside from shift speed and RPM, I want to mess with launch stall...Tom and I kicked this around a couple years ago. Right now, I launch in high stall, and have a Doug Roe controller set to go to low stall 3 seconds out and stay there for the rest of the run. Easy, my 60 fts are good (2.20-2.10) and I dont have to think about it. But Tom felt I might be making the car trickier to launch, and might be better served by launching in Low stall, hitting high stall 15-20 feet off the line and manually hold it for 3 seconds....so I set up a momentary switch and tried it a couple times. Net result at that time was I was slightly slower. But I also had ignition issues that may have contributed, so I'll have to try again this year and see how it works. How do you use your converter?
Hi Rhett, your not still in the airport are you, lol. i think i did tell you about the spring, anyways dont worry about part throttle, you can take the vacuum hose off your modulator and adjust the screw thats way in there with a very very small screwdriver for part throttle shifts.Tom has the right ideal but you would have to get back in to high stall very fast else i think you would lose some of the benifit of the high stall.i do not go to low stall till after the 1st to high shift and then i will wait a 1/2 second to let the rpms go up. try it you will help your bog from 1st to high.when i dont turn it off i will loss about 1 mph, but no et loss.you will never loss much or any et if you leave it on, but will loss mph. thats what i found out on my car but it could be different for other cars. i know what kenne bell use to say about turning it off right away, but with a 2-speed and 3.23 gears might not work that great.
I am still in the airport, at O'Hare. Midway was running on standby every flight, with alot of Baltimore hub stuff cancelled. Afternoon flight out looks good so far, gonna try to hook inside this storm before it comes up the coast. But I did spend the night in hotel at least. A hotel with a bar. See - I go to low stall before the shift - never tried it your way. I'll have to play with it- so far I've run best on the controller, but I could manually blip it into high stall at the shift, I havent tried that yet either. Too many options is a good problem to have! I'll just be psyched to get the shift speed and RPM dialed in - thats got to be worth a 10th....???? The whole idea this year is to hit 14.5 on the Q-Jet before Toms Rockers, and run consistant 14.7 on the AFB/Non Doc Mod combo for Michigan PSMCR. Myabe I can pull it off, maybe I cant. I think the key might be A/F fine tuning with a meter and o2 sensor.
Those older st300's must shift lower than the '68's or something, because the one I had in my '68 LeSabre shifted way past 5,000 with no mods. In fact, when I put the 455 in it, it shifted way too high for it. Was there some kind of governor mod that came from the factory on the '68 non-sp 300's with the 350 engines?
It could be a big car/small car thing....having to calibrate the shifts higher in a small block full size car to get it moving????
man am sorry, i was just kidding about being at the airport fiqure you be long gone. funny you said i just had a bong welded to my header since the engine is out, have the auto meter #3379. comes with every thing. ---------- Post added at 02:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:44 PM ---------- seems like it would make a difference,26 hp is still 26 hp even on beef up big block.
