jim hayes wrote:
>
> > What gets people talking is: a) when you put an
> > different size engine from a later model of the car into an early model
> There is a bright yellow Bugeye in CT that sports a 180+HP Alfa 1750 and CR
> gearbox. The conversion was done many years ago, and if it weren't for the
> flares....
> Strangely enough, I like stuff like this, perhaps because I helped build a
> McKee-Chev from a "kit" and stuff a 1300 Alfa in a Zink sports racer back in
> the 60s. And had a friend who put a Corvette engine in a 55 Ferrari after
> the second V12 blew. Once looked at a Maserati 300S with a Pontiac V8. All
> this was very common 30-40 years ago.
> I could see a "engine swap" class....
> But I apologize if this starts another long discussion - it is an effect of
> cabin fever....
>
> jeh@fotec.com http://www.fotec.com/jim.htm
> veni, vidi, veloce
You know, that brings up a situation I'd like to toss out for comment.
My brother and I rescued a rust free Austin Healey BN1 out of a barn
near our home 10 years ago. The car had been there for at least 25
years. Also in the barn were a '41 Willys, a TF, a TR3, tons of hot
rodder parts, etc. The Healey firewall had been cut and '55 chevy V8
engine mounts installed... the making of a poor man's Cobra. This was a
common fate that became of many Healeys. So in the spirit of keeping
this car original in it's late '50s modified state, we're considering
the completion of this project that was started so long ago and racing
it in one of the vintage organization's modified or specials classes.
We're very serious about using all the period pieces that came with the
car such as early fuelly heads... all the truly period late 50s/early
60s stuff. If you look close at a majority of the "vintage" small block
stuff racing at events today, from the average Corvette to Augie Pabst's
Scarab, you'll see angled plug heads or new Targetmaster 4 bolt main 350
CI blocks. We didn't want to do that. We really wanted to keep in the
spirit of a car that would have been completed in the late 50s....a
stroker 283 or something.
So, we're talking to a honcho in the vintage racing sport (first
correct guess wins a Team Thicko hat) and he wants to make sure that
this car had a "history" of a V8 from years back, and blah, blah, blah.
Really pissin' and moanin' about racing a production car with an engine
swap. Hell, we didn't want to run it in production. We expected to run
with the Devins and Listers.
Later that summer, I peer under the hood of this honcho's "vintage"
racer, a Lotus 7 and what does he have? A Wankel motor out of an RX7 or
something. Can you freakin' believe that? And he vintage races it!
We've had discussions about proper vintage cars, proper vintage years,
and proper vintage rules, etc. What pisses me off more than anything is
the behind the scenes secret handshake mentality in vintage racing
today. Rules that apply to everyone except the friends of the organizer.
Tell me how a guy who in a 13 month period wrecks a Ferrari SWB, then an
F40 (in exhibition) then a GTO, and still has a race licence? Doesn't
have anything to do with the size of his checkbook? How about
"convenient" mechanical causes that are discovered by friends on the
driver's committees?
Or how about overzealous tech inspectors? Apparently there was an
incident last year where a carb fire was escalated by a pin hole in some
guys firewall... acting like a venturi that sucked the flames into the
cockpit of this closed car, buring the interior trim? So at the spring
SVRA event that was the major concern of tech inspectors... taping up
any miniscule pin holes in the fire wall of every car. Maybe not a bad
idea, but the one particular inspector I witnessed passed a car that
didn't have any seat belts.
Off my soapbox again... I'll listen for my answer. Let the fun begin,
Wm. SeverinThompson
Team Thicko
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