"Does he have eight cylinders or only six?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a 440 Magnum, the most powerful engine in the world*, and would blow your car clean off the road, you've got to ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, punk?" "Well, yeah. See, I have a Buick...." (*always lying...)
That's what was "big talk" back in the 60's when I got my first car. Except mine was a pea green, four door, six cylinder, 61 Chevy Biscayne with three on the tree. Mikey.
I sold race parts back in the late 70s. If I had a nickel for every time I hears guys ask for a "3/4 cam", I'd have retired with a few extra $$$. It got to the point where we sawed 1/4 of an old Chevy cam off, drilled and dowel pinned it back together and hung it on the wall behind the counter. When someone asked for a "3/4 cam", we'd take it off the wall, pull it apart and set it on the counter. Got a lot of grins.
I always thought 3/4 race cam was a funny thing, and I always tell guys, "Nah, I'm at about 7/8"....but then I looked it up, and it's a real thing. Crane still makes a 3/4 race cam grind. compiled by HARVEY J. CRANE, JR. October 1, 1999 Ed Winfield made his first performance camshafts in 1914. These were motorcycle cams with individual lobes pinned to a shaft. His first automotive camshafts were ground in 1919 when he built his first homemade cam grinder. Ed was 17 years old at that time. Ed told me his mother gave him the money to purchase a used grinding machine that he converted to a cam grinder by adding a rocker table. This homemade cam grinder was used in his mother's garage to regrind Ford Model T camshafts into racing specifications. Ed told me he first made only two masters, a SEMI RACE GRIND and a FULL RACE GRIND! He later made a third master that was more duration and lift than the SEMI but less than the FULL. He then used the FULL RACE master as an intake and the new master as an exhaust. He called this new reground camshaft a THREE QUARTER RACE CAM! Ed said "It was three quarters of the way to a full race cam". According to Dema Elgin, ED began working for Harry Miller at the age of 14 1/2 in the carburation department. Within a few months he was doing other machine work on the famous Miller racing engines. Harry wanted Ed to stay on with him and offered Ed more money. Ed was being paid .60 cents per hour and was offered .70 cents, but ED wasn't fond of Harry because he was like a dictator. Ed quit grinding camshafts in October of 1969 after he finished a batch of Drake Offenhauser camshafts. That's 55 years of grinding cams! https://www.jegs.com/i/Crane-Cams/271/100082/10002/-1
It wasn't a specific part or manufacturer but if I heard that it was souped up! I didn't know what it meant but it had to be BAD, it was SOUPED UP!!
The first time I heard "Posi" I was super confused and had it explained to me. after that I couldn't stop saying it. "On squeeze" was my favorite. the street racers would take about the cars and say "that ones on squeeze"..aka nitrous
"Dual's" as in dual exhaust. "Posi" "Smoke show" and this is silly as my friends would call my 73 Riv the "Burbler" because stock 455 or not it just had such a nice exhaust sound that other big blocks just didn't sound the same. Oh we went through phases, like "Handler" when the WS6 Trans am aqnd C4 vette came out
Like Peter in previous post.....while walking or riding our bikes around we ALWAYS looked & listened for dual exhaust because we figured it was something special “LOOK! IT’S GOT DUALS!” Closely followed by checking for fender or rocker call outs on any brand “DAMN! IT’S A BIG BLOCK!” we initially ignored the ladies in the neighborhoods station wagons until we were stunned to see what some were packin under the hood! “Let’s just go look it does have duals” Will never forget the day I was riding my bike through my Jr. High School and the principals car which he NEVER washed was sitting in its normal spot, I coasted by this day and I finally spotted way down on the rocker a small badge SS-454. A freakin 454 Monte Carlo SS (Super Slow? Lol) No, but I respected that car a LOT more after that no matter how run down it looked. So other than “it’s got duals” “It’s a BIG BLOCK!” our other big word we would yell out as a kids pleading was “Smoke um?” we had some regulars, a guy in a green 69 GTO and an even more regular SD-455 T/A that always would slow down and give us the nod and boiled the hell out of some posi’s for us. That & the fact my brother had my future first car 1972 GS-350 (with BUILT Hi-Comp 70-350)sealed me on the deal I WOULD one day have a BIG BLOCK & the appropriate quote back then (I know “not today”) “There is NO REPLACEMENT FOR DISPLACEMENT!” Yeh,the good ole “daze” Definitely lit a fire waaaaay back then that still burns today
LOL!! ^^^^^^^ This^^^^^^ I remember the day that I found out the 400 badge on a Chevy Impala front fender wasn't a big block but a 400 small block Yup hearing the word "big block" was cool and my ignorance made the word small block do nothing or me. And seeing true dual exhaust on cars when I was a teen was coming to a end and like Fritzy said just was exciting for that silly reason Seeing a old style Cat split into 2 was just awful Did tend top look at the rear axles on GM's to see if the had the "posi tag"
candy apple red did it for me. Our dad was a car junker and us 3 boys would jump in the driver seat to see how much "pedal " each car had. That would give us an indication of how fast that car would go. haha
Hemi was one of words for me as a little kid then when I turn 16 and my daily driver was a 65Riv GS and later moved on to 455's I found out your gonna need a bigger Hemi.
Hemi was one of mine, followed by solid lifter cams. Yes, I also referred to that "3/4" race cam since my uncle often used that term. Also ported and polished.
When I was in high school , when someone showed up with a new car (used, but new to them) WE would all ask ; "are going to Cragers on it? or Keystones? If they were serious they show up with Spider race wheels
