Grumpy's Toy - Detriot Iron

Mark Boesen wrote:great video, thanks for posting!

You're welcome. I've watched it about 5 or 6 times.

Yes, fun to watch.  

In my mid teens we used to do the same thing with old clapped out Fords.  The biggest danger then was a wheel coming off.  My first car was a '34 Ford, my second a '37, two door and coupe respectively.  Followed quickly by a '47 Plymouth coupe, a '50 Plymouth convertible, a '52 Ford, and a '51 Studebaker.

Back then transactions were easy.  Hey,  will you take ten bucks for that piece of crap?  No paper work. The '34 was bought together with a friend @ $5 apiece.  The '37 a step up at $80.  I was working by then at age 14.  $5 a day for a 10 hour day.  

Yup, "there will aways be another Indy."  

Bob

This was the man around here , you know Piedmont Dragstrip is just through the woods from my house and Burlington NC a township away ! My cousin and i road our bikes there to get in free for a lot of years at the 1/8 was some serious action (back then) and to get to see Ronnie run was the BomB , I am sure i have seen Grumpy run if he came to our strip . The Cuda has always been my dream car of coarse dreams are to bee broken ......
,,  https://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2013/12/17/racing-heroes-ronnie-sox/  Looks kindy like Rusty Thanks Man !!

I was fortunate to grow up 20 min from Grumpy's shop. The other direction was K&G speed shop which is still there today. Jungle Jim lived between both destinations. There were some truly amazing cars that would pass by either driving or on a trailer. My uncle owned a 70 SS Nova which was built by Grumpy. Radar was another familiar name which built engines . I loved those times the most and wish I could go back in time. Ken

Very cool video Rusty. About 6 min. in.. he's bangin' through the gears.. and it's a sweet sound! Nice to have a vid of that back then.

yep, good to see an old 'close-ratio' trans goin' thru the gears! I also noticed that Grumpy towed the Camaro with just a car not even a pickup, very different than today.

I was surprised to see him hauling it on a trailer with a car too. And he was only wearing a lap belt. The wheels looked like ordinary Cragars and the front suspension appears surprisingly mushy. 540 HP. I'm pretty sure in my driving days I could handle that without lifting, though I never drove a 10 second car. The fastest I ever drove was my friend's 90s Camaro in the high 11s. He could make it go a half second faster, but I was reluctant to power shift someone else's car. I did love shifting gears, even though everyone else was starting to use automatics. I wanted to be like Grumpy Jenkins in my dreams. Glad y'all liked the video. I added it to my 'Tube favorites.
Rusty

I got to see Grumpy tuned Dave Strickler cars and later Grumpy himself race many times. I saw him at the Southern Nationals and asked him to sign my copy of his book and for a second or two I didn't know if he was going to hit me with a wrench or sign the book....I guess I saw the real side of him.. Years later at a Muscle Car reunion race, I was hanging out with Floyd Garrett (Muscle Car Museum, Sevierville, TN) and he invited me to dinner with him and special guy !!! OK I said and it was Bill Jenkins!!!!! He talked about so many things re Small Block Chevy engines that it was hard to remember them all. He had mind like a computer !! He could remember virtually every part number of SBC, BBC, 409 Chev, and 426 Hemi that he ever used. When I got back home and told my friends about the dinner, they all said yea right !!!! Then about 3 months later a picture of Grumpy, Floyd, and me was published in a Muscle Car magazine....Sweet !!!

Rusty, Jenkins talked at length about the Z-28 302 engines and said that the real secret to make them scream was the Off Road #140 camshaft with .493 intake lift and .512 exhaust lift. He said that the intake lobe design was from the 427/425 HP Chevy and the exhaust lobe design from a Mercedes Benz LeMans racer. That cam won more races at the drags and dirt short tracks than you can count. I didn't ask exactly but I got the feeling that he and Zora Duntov designed that cam.

Growing up in Charlotte, NC, I saw Ronnie Sox run many times from 1960 on. He started out in a black 1960 Pontiac Catalina called "The Untouchable" after the TV show. He would spot any car a car length ( Flag man start then) and beat them all. He ran under the name "Jack Strader". My favorite Sox car was the "Carolina Thunder" 62 Bel Air that held the NC State Stock Car speed record at 116 mph when everybody struggled to beat 112 mph.
Check out "George Klass Remembers" web site and see thousands of pictures of S/S, F/X, gasser, altered, and dragster pictures  if you have an interest......
Steve.................

I did not know or even have any idea about this stuff OUTSIDE the areas where I lived , so many of these Icons to some of you east coast guys are neat to read about and fill in gaps in my experience

As a natural motor head...thanks Dad

I always had the notion I could take ANYTHING and improve it...

from 1974 to 1979 I was fairly active as a racer and more notably a sought after engine tuner/builder in the areas I was assigned. Because I lived a lot/most of my life in Germany at the time-- we played with the stuff there---- and in my area volkswagen stock cars were the game... between my skills ( and hand me down Dad's engine tools) and the JC Whitney catalog, my buddy and I built many a winning combo VWs on a 3/8th dirt track in Bamberg and Schweinfurt

Back in the USA in the Fort Lewis WA, area I raced at both Portland International Raceway (Drag) and Seattle International (Drag) as well as hobby stock at Spanaway and Tenino stock car tracks

I was and still am a FORD guy and my drag car was a 1965 289 Ranchero asd a 67 Chevelle 283 4 door .... I hate bracket racing!!!

Rusty made a comment about the mushy looking front of Grumpy's car....(( all I noticed were the way cool Cragar SS wheels...that I assume were the original Magnesium versions)))...sprung and unsprung weight is also a important consideration...we can discuss later

He probably knows this becaus he raced...but in those day we had access to shock absorbers with different RATES....

The idea was to keep the ass end sort of stiff with not much "squat" while forcing the front to lift a predictable amount to transfer the weight

To that end we had Monroe Shocks with different rates of extension and collapse...

on a drag car (before 4 link days) we usually had 50/50 shocks in the rear and 70/30 in the front........there are many guys who played with all sorts of rate combinations ...some even deliberately MADE the rear squat and keep the front stiff... by using the 70/30s right side up one way and upside down the other way

50'50s had the same rate of extension and collapse up or down...the 70/30s were set up to EASILY extend (lift=weight transfer to the rear) and hard to collapse ( hold the new high angle longer to keep the weight aft for the 1 to 2 shift then gradually lower to help aero drag.......

BTW I was the second to run Nos in the seattle area...the Owner of Tacoma Speed works was the first as he was the first and only source for the new kits in 1973

I had a 450 HP 289 SM Ford on Nos vs his 670 HP 427 BB Ford.... That shop also had the very first chassis Dyno in the area

I am sort of an outlaw guy who much prefered late night impromptu challenge drags out near the Olympia airport back road.... Bracket racing I sucked at.... I absolutely was angered when I would win but lost becaus I "broke out"


Note to Bob... I came by this affliction becaus YOU ad MY DAD were damned near same age and same youthful experiences.... I loved his own version of Hot Rod Lincoln stories... in a 39 Packard or 40 Ford

Hey Steve, good to hear from you. Did you ever get any use out of my old race car parts? I was scared your little Chevy's front wheels were gonna float off the road with all that stuff in the trunk Lol

I wish I'd known more about cams back in the day. I mostly took what seemed right and threw it at the engine. It mostly worked, but how much better could the same 4-bolt 350 have been if I'd known more details... we'll never know. But it did run very good and reliably when I wasn't busting rocker arms. That was so much fun, and I did win some races and even a trophy at a big NHRA event one night.

I'm glad that 20 years later, my best friend built a '99 or so Camaro that he told me to drive like it was stolen. But as I mentioned, I didn't have the nerve to risk power-shifting it. Just like when you're flying another guy's plane. A little extra carefully. But it was still a solid second faster than my old '67. He also had secret help from a speed shop up in Cary, NC where he lived. We ran it at Fayetteville Motorsports Park on I-95. I ran mine back in '80-82 at several strips in SC, but mostly Blaney. All were 1/4 mile. Pictures of mine are probably in the Redneck forum somewhere.

Fred, I had no doubt the soft front shocks were calculated weight distribution, and wondered if those Cragars were magnesium too. No doubt. And my big-block '69 Chevelle SS used to squat something awful when it launched. It had coil springs which I always thought were less effective than the leaf springs on the Camaros. And yes, I do know there is a huge advantage to reducing unsprung weight vs. sprung weight. I hoped one day to get a 71 or 72 Chevelle SS with a 454, but it never came to be. I had plans all laid out for what I wanted for it. Sort of like my faux profile Hyper Viper drawings that I whip out about once a year Lol. But I did have an orange 69 Camaro SS.

I love all this reminiscing!
Rusty

Note to Bob... I came by this affliction becaus YOU ad MY DAD were damned near same age and same youthful experiences.... I loved his own version of Hot Rod Lincoln stories... in a 39 Packard or 40 Ford

Only the experiences fit for publication Fred.

Marriage and the Navy saved? me from a mis-spent life, or I would have been pumping gas from the local Gulf station for the duration.

Married at 18, a first child at 19 and an enlisted man's pay kept me away from the wild side.  But I did live vicariously through the single guys building engines and thought that STP was just another soft drink.

Bob

Edit add:  Just another little note.  That Gulf station.  My brother, five years older than me and his friend stole that stations Gulf sign and used it as a drum at a dance at their frat house at UNH.  I discovered it weeks later in the woods behind our cottage at Onway lake covered in pine needles.  I confronted him about it because it was all over town that the sign was missing and he promised to "kill" me should I ever tell a soul about it.  Wasn't the first time. Bro did walk on the wild side.

LOL....Rusty, when I left your house I had to stop about a mile away to shift the weight forward in my little 2003 Malibu, because it was lifting the front wheels off the ground with the smallest bump. Once I got on the Interstate I stopped again to get more weight forward due to dips in the road. Kind of comical at first, but then white knuckle in traffic. The brakes were really stressed to slow down the momentum !!!!! Those idiots who run on the entrance ramp 100 mph and cut in front of you and then get off the next exit ramp caused me some serious drama and closed eyes waiting for the noise a couple of times !!!
Got home OK though a little slower to be safe .....Wish I got  a couple more small things from you but I was maxed out on safety.
I think I asked you about rocker arms because those heads had some killer roller cam valve springs. Just guessing, but I'd bet you were bending pushrods and punching pushrods thru the rocker arms with that setup. I will rebuild the heads with some stock size but high quality Iskenderian springs and retainers. Got a complete 11 inch clutch set up recently but still have Turbo 400 under wraps if I don't want shift the Muncie 4 speed.

Almost got everything I need for assembly, but need to have the block cylinders clearances checked for hypertec pistons.
Couldn't scrounge enough cash before Christmas to do it yet....

I'll keep you posted as I near the build.

Merry Christmas to You and Your Wife,
Steve......

That's funny in a scary sort of way, but I'm glad it all got a good home. That was a lot of stuff.
One thing you probably know is those camel hump heads don't have much accommodation for accessories. I've seen guys cut a big aluminum plate that bolts to the face of the engine where they bore all the holes necessary for easy mounting of alternator, electric water pump, aux generator, etc. Did you get that set of new pistons and moly rings? I can't remember if I'd already unloaded them or not. I gave my slicks and Cragar centerline rims to a dude and sadly he died a week later. I gave the two blocks away more recently.
Rusty

No, I didn't get any pistons or rings. I bought a set of .030 over for my oldest block which I hope is not too worn out already. It was built twice before I got it and this will be the third time by me.
Not too worry about the heads since I have brackets to make them work. If not, I have some of the double hump heads with bolt holes in the end if I need them.
Sorry about the other guy...that's tough.......

This thread brings back so many 1960~1970 memories of building engines

I wish I had kept many magazines from those years... a Lot of what made me (semi) successful was SIMPLY following a recipe some other (smarter than I) motor head had come up with, tested, adapted,and refined....like Ed Pinks or Edelbrock, Roush, Shelby, Mancuso

I built a Ford 289 to 450 HP from a Hot Rod mag article complete with part numbers of available items and the hints to mating it all together
Later a Chev 283 to similar HP

Luckily I had access to a chassis Dyno to learn and adapt

Would have loved to he access to a engine Dyno

Dad gave his 6 to 10 YO son plenty of training and skills...like reading a caliper; Understanding concepts like running clearance; Fully understanding the design and reason for each of the 4 strokes

The Magazines did a good job of teaching about Cams, why, lift, overlap, actual vs dynamic compression, valve sizing (implied fluid dynamics)

And of course we had mountains of advertising where the dealer ...say Accell...needed to teach about dwell, timing, voltage, air gaps, spark strength etc etc to sell the product as superior

All this early learning was all about normally aspirated engines on pump gas

We then started learning about some of the "tricks" like very high compression that required a much Higher octane... and why
Mechanical as well as Chemical superchargers and the potential to take a Small block up to over 800 HP.... my lord...if this thing ever blows I am gonna die!

I was asked by a guy to build him a 600HP V twin and I did it entirely from a magazine recipe... did not have to slide rule ONE thing...just buy parts, clean, assemble, dyno, tune and get paid... he blew it on first run with a missed shift...I knew he might, so we actually built two.... his next pass and the rest of the weekend was enough for him to have a BSEG and throw probably the best party I ever attended....
I like rich people with a dream or mission!!!!