Mopar meets a Stage One

I have just sold my 69 Charger R/T SE and I am going to love kicking some mopar ass this year, Just for the fun of it :laugh: They can be a funny bunch :idea2: Here is my old girl with me and my boy kristian who is loving the BUICK Kicking MOPAR thing, I just need to get my 455 over here and start to play :3gears: Iv had the rest time to run the BEST :laugh:

 

Sweet charger! I love the 68-70 B bodies,especially iwth dog dish caps

383 or 440?

 

New is pretty good for us all...Re: Mopar meets a Stage One

Who has a 500 hp plus motor built where builder offered a 36,000 (or more) mile warranty?
Who is getting ~20 mpg in their 13 second car?
I, like many of you have, many magazines (100+ says my wife) from the old days with test data that is often false.
A good read is Joe Oldham's Muscle Car Confidential. In it, he admits that road tests he wrote were sometimes based on seat of the pants estimates.
Rather than be annoyed that new stock Corvettes and Mercedes BMW Audi luxury cruisers can waste modified big blocks from the big brands, we ought to be happy that we aren't stuck in the 80s. It is true that big dollars are required but then again how many of us are in a hurry to add up those receipts? I love all cars and am not obsessed with the 1/4 mile times. What is more fun that pushing the back end out and keeping it there for as long as is safe and feasible? That can be done in a TR4 with 155s and the like without risking financial ruination...
Just an opinion, Scott

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zz8vXazXYI&feature=related

 

someone needs to do a good tune up on that Charger ou:

 

It sounds pretty tuned up to me... Not to mention the buick is the low compression version. Mopars have lots of bark but lack the bite.

 

Just one trip to the MOPAR Nationals would change your mind.

 

Anything will run if it's built too, I know even stock mopars ran, but so did buicks, neck and neck. Moms boyfriend had a 67 GTX with a mildly warmed over 440 with 3.23 gears, 2500 stall, etc.. It flew quite nicely, but dads basically stock 396 Nova would eat it for breakfast in the top end once the revving started to get past 3000 in second.

 

Looks like the Charger spun quite a bit, driver needs practice.

I noticed around 1987 things started to sway towards the new rides being equal or starting to surpass the old school rides. I say this with the rides being roughly equal in weight and cubic inches. That being said, the old school big block still ruled in acceleration.

Around 1984 my `68 Barracuda with 318. a single plane, 600 cfm Holley and 3.23 gearing was definitely faster than any stock Mustang or Trans Am in my area, trust me I did my share of "testing".

I later rebuilt the engine with some 340 and 360 parts, and it really ran strong. I'd guess 13.3's, that was decently fast for the 80's on street tires.

The Gran Nationals were the first small motor rides to run high 13's in relatively stock configuration. These cars were too fast for other new cars but too slow for old big blocks....it ruined some of their fun I suspect. Now I know with mods these things can fly but at that time nobody knew how to do it. About that time I bought a `89 LX 5.0...... with some exhaust, pulley and gearing upgrades it ran 9.2's in the eighth. The modded Gran Nationals at my local track were running 8.8's mostly. At that time a friend had a `85 Corvette, we must have raced 50 times, we were very close. He would get me out of the gate but I would pass right at the eighth. That was some good racing!

It wasn't until ~2000 that I got back into the local drag racing scene (after soloing a `73 Mercury Capri for a while). I purchased the `72 Skylark you see here, it originally had a 350/350 setup. With headers and 800 cfm carb. installed it ran 9.2's in the eighth.....same as the mildly modded 5.0 I once owned.

The LS Camaro's and Mustangs in the later 90's really helped to get the car guys back into action. I built a 455 for the Skylark with the goal to run low 12's, this way I could beat the ever improving Z06 and avoid installing a roll bar.

A few years went by and the factory kept upgrading the Z06, and about the same time I needed new bearings due to pushing the crank forward. This gave me a couple of good reasons to upgrade and fix the 455. So I installed some lighter forged pistons, did some porting and purchased a better converter. My goal was to run 11.5, this way I could still keep the factory Z06 in my rear view and still avoid the roll bar (due to the then recent roll bar rule change). So far so good on both counts. :beer

 

On of the fastest stock muscle cars tests ever was a 69 Road Runner 440 six pack @ 12.7 in the quarter. Perhaps the fastest of all were the late 60s Hemi Darts and Barracudas. They owned the record books. It is just a fact.

396 Novas were cars fast also. So were some stage 1 Buicks. We have owned a number of those including two that were GSX cars.

 

Male testosterone flowing off the charts...I love it !

Eric :3gears:



PS...I can outpull any musclecar ever made with just 8 horsepower...Guaranteed !

 

I agree, great thing about this hobby is the bench racing:Brow: So let me add that even a hemi equipped polara wouldn't stand up to a stage 2 equipped stage one 4 speed car with the 4.75 gears. :3gears:

 

:beer

 

well, my 8 hp. is faster 'cause the magazines say it is :bla: :beer :grin:

 

I think you mean 4.78 gears. We had a set in a stage 1 GSX. No one I know today runs a set of those in a 1/4 because of the rpms the car would have to turn. It is also a weak 8.2" gearset.

You make kind of a broad statement since the Buick block is structurally limited in its ability to handle power. The limits of the hemi are way above the Buick 455. Back in the 60s and early 70s NHRA felt they had to keep adding weight to Hemi cars to slow them down so other cars could appear competitive.

You have to love both engines if you are a real car nut.

 

I just find it interesting how more than one person on this buick forum is defending mopar:bla: Cmon' Buick boys defend me!

 

Just because were on the topic, didn't alot of the 440 6 pack cars run better than the hemi equipped street cars on the 1/4 mile back in the day? Mopar buddies I have always seem to bring that point up, and that they would much rather run a 440 than a 426. Probably for the torque I'd imagine. In which case I would tell them Go 455!!

 

I like Javelins and AMX cars too;

Had a Z06 LS7;

Had some Austin Healy 3000s o No:

 

440 six pak was the quickest on the street because you were running short distances but the Hemi would overtake them in the 1/4 mile because of the top end strength. There is some parallel with the Buick 455 which was king of the stoplight to stoplight but it is hard to hold off the Hemi on the top end of the quarter mile.

 

block limitations aside though, lets just talk about mildly 'hot rodded' street cars when we talk about buick vs mopar. I mean I get that for 500+ hp combo's the buick 455 is very limited in it's structural integrity. So lets sort of keep this thread true to the story from whence it came. but as far as a mild street car goes, Me and my 430 wildcat buddy will attest that these motors do not just fall apart when you beat on them. Really like any motor from that time period unless it's built to rev you can't hold it at 6000 for 10 seconds when it's only supposed to make power till 4500 and expect it to take it, however we beat on that original 55000 mile 430 like it was 1969! We'd rev it till the power went away and then some and shift. And I tell you we sent a few of those fart canned honda's and acura's crying home to mama, not to mention a slightly hopped up turbo T bird, and one of those new camaro's, and a hopped up 350 elcamino. It's hard to beat those 2.45-2.75 gears with a switch pitch and a 430 on the high way, it would have swamped my 69 GS350 with ease, even with me having 3.42 gears with a way lighter car, but my car was gutless so that's kind of moot. Anyway, I liked the original story that started this, how about we hear some more stories from back in the sixties of the buick vs whatever in the stoplight grand prix!