Critter1

An L79/350 HP 327 in a light car like a Nova was bad axx on the street. Lotta guys with big blocks got beat.

Critter1

And then there was the Z28 with a crossram. Never factory offered on the car but one of my favorite small blocks of all time. I built mine to factory Trans-Am road race specs, then drag raced it instead. Ran a best of 11.79 with street legal M&H 7" rear tires. (pic from 1969) GM dyno with the off road cam and headers showed 465 HP.

Powershift

The quickest 1/4 mile car I worked on and drove was a 69 Z28 with 4.88 rear, traction bars, MT Super Scavenger headers (remember them?) , and Mallory Rev-Pol. Carb dyno jetted. Hurst shifter. Was a neat Saturday night cruiser and racer. Agreed that a number of good performing big block cars could not keep up.

MikeM

You have good eyes.

The top picture was taken in South Louisville in 1969 in front of my BIL's apartment. The bottom picture was taken in Summer, 1965 in front of the big house where I lived with some other guys. I was still single..

I (supposedly) ordered the car in November 1964 as a 327/300 which I think had not gone in to production, just yet. The dealer kept my down payment and didn't order the car. Just waiting for a similar car to show up in the zone pool I guess. New Years Eve, I get a call. Your car came in today but it doesn't have the engine you ordered. It has a 283 instead of the 327. We figured you wouldn't want it so we sent it on to Montgomery Chevrolet in Louisville. We can go get it if you want it? I asked if the color was right? Metallic brakes? AM radio/front antenna? Posi-traction? Blackwall tires? HD radiator? Yes to all so I got weak and told them to go get it.

That night I had the car at my house. I would let them do any prep work on it. Not even install the carpets. They were in the trunk. Later in January, on the dirt floor of a chicken house, I pulled the 327 out of my '56 Bel Air and dropped it in to the Chevy II. I had to do some cobbling on the clutch linkage and the oil filter as that block wasn't exactly Chevy II friendly but it worked well. So, I terrorized the streets in it for a couple years. The 327 crapped out after awhile, I fell behind on payments after I went in the Army and GMAC wanted the car back. No more late payments I showed the guy the car in the basement and he changed his tune. It was sitting there with no engine/transmission in it.

Later, I financially recovered and went to the Chevy dealer for another SHP short block and that's the way I ran it on the 1/8th mile. In the meantime, got married. My wife's GTO got stolen/stripped and she needed a car to get to work so, the 283 went back in the car for a couple of years and then it was off the road for good except for one trip to Gatlinburg in 1980. Then, it was/and still is off the road.

Critter is right. There were many, many BB cars that got their doors blown off by a Chevy II with a SB on the street. The BB's couldn't get a bite, couldn't get the soot out the back and often, had an inexperienced driver trying to make a show at the wheel. The Chevy II would just scratch and leap!

Needles to say, both cars race prepped for the track (on the street), the cubic inches will dominate, sooner or later but you have SB (400+ cubes) engines today that you didn't dream of having back then and they are relatively cheap to build..

PS. I ordered the car from New Albany Motor Co. and the factory window sticker said Montgomery Chevrolet so who screwed who?

GTOguy

Great story, Mike. What year was the wife's GTO? I ran against a guy in about 1980 and he had (still has) a '68 Z-28 with the 302, cross ram, 4 speed, and 4.11 gear out back....and I barely beat him with my 400cid, tripower, 4 speed, 3.55 geared '66 GTO. I hole-shot him by hooking up better, but didn't pull any length on him on any shift. We came out with him a half-car back, and ended that way. That little sucker was fast. Much faster than the usual 325HP 396's and 383 Mopars and 390-429 Fords I was used to clobbering. (had a friend with a 375HP 396 Nova, but never raced him...that would have been a different outcome!!

wmf62

383 Mopars were only good as boat anchors....
Bill

Nowhere Man

you remind me of when I first got my Chevelle done I was some where where a older gentlemen approached me and told me his stories of when he bought a new 67 GTO tri power and how he could beat every SS396 Chevelle in town

GTOguy

Yeah, and my sister's cat's grandmother had one of the very first all steel '63 Sting Ray's with the 409 big block.....LOL!
Truthfully, that '66 GTO ran really hard. I got beat a couple of times, but was selective. I didn't race another Camaro that pulled the wheels up, and I never ran against a Hemi. A guy in a 440 Charger beat me really badly, but I beat him about a month later on the open road, where his 4.11 gearing was a handicap. When I tore that old 400 down after I damaged it, I found that it had been warmed over with ported heads and a decent cam. I never ran against a 375 HP 396, but I did beat a guy who had a '70 SS454 Chevelle.....who should have beat me, going with the specs on paper. My point is, a well-put-together small block Chevy can be pretty amazing, performance-wise and surprise a lot of 'big inch' competition.

wmf62

other than modified and exotic cars (we had street driven Thunderbolts on the road), the baddest things I street raced against were 289HP Fairlane Sport Coupes and GTOs
Bill

DSR

In 1990 I bought a LS6 from G.M. At that time you could still get a LS7 short block,

Powershift

Good stories...........but the cross ram on the Z/28 was probably more for show than go. Not needed for the street. If Z/28 did not have 4 tube headers, it was at a big (BIG) disadvantage. These cars needed gears and headers (and a decent driver ) to go fast.

I always like the GTO's, but never owned one. Raced a 1969 GTO in my old 1969 AMX 390 (Rambler ). He was stock and I was not. Not a pretty outcome for the Pontiac. He was a very good friend, and swore that no Rambler would ever beat his Pontiac. At least until that day.

Larry

ajrothm

I love hearing all of these race stories from you cats that were doing it back then in the height of the musclecar era....Keep em coming...

MikeM

Did you have one of these? Or factory parts available for them? Most here have probably never heard of these cars. I always liked them.

https://www.streetmusclemag.com/feat...per-stock-amx/

http://www.hotrod.com/articles/tribu...1969-original/

Powershift

I lived in Beaumont, Texas during this time. The 69 AMX was purchased for my new bride, and had just about every option one could order, incl A/C. In the next town over (Nederland, Texas) Butch Jones of Jones AMC (a very small dealership........max 2 cars in the showroom) owned and raced the S/S AMX. He also had a Javelin race car, and his brother-in-law also had a S/S AMX. They raced all over the South........although the home racetrack was the Golden Triangle Raceway in Nederland. I knew Butch quite well and bought AMC speed part from his dealership. They had NO lifts in the garage and worked everything from floor jacks. Their race mechanic was a guy named "Blackie".

I later bought new wife an economy car and stripped the AMX for some street racing action. Added a lot of "go-fast" stuff and gears, etc and removed the A/C. Car weighted 3150 lbs with 1/4 tank of gas. I personally called and talked to Shirley "Drag-on Lady" in California regarding building the AMX automatic trans to performance standards, since the engine HP was more than the trans could stand. AMC used a BW M-12 trans for the 390 engine......it was similar to a Ford C-4 or FMX. See told me no self-respecting AMX racer ran an auto...............although B&M Brothers could probably fix me up. They laughed when I called them, but said send $300 and the trans to California and they would fix me up with something when they had the time. I said no way and bought a 4-speed conversion from a wrecked 70 AMX 390 and installed it in the car. The 70 AMX cars had a Hurst Competition shifter from the factory. Car ran 13.8 sec 1/4 mile in street trim, which was okay for the street scene at that time, but I needed a cam change to get it in the 12 sec category.

Took another job in West Virginia and the AMX sat around for many years. Tore it apart for a restoration and then accepted a job in India for awhile. Finally sold the AMX to the President of the AMX World Club and he restored it. He sold it to Gene J in Colorado. He finished the restoration and showed the car. Platinum Level Awards in the West Coast and California. Gene still has the car and I talked to him awhile back. He would sell it back to me, but I simply don't need another car to take care of.

When I sold the AMX I bought the 67 Corvette I now own. It was 1994.

I was once very knowledgeable about the 68-70 AMX cars and knew many of the "players". Wished I had kept it, but also don't need it back. Did you ever hear of the mid-engine AMX-3?? It was like the Ford Pantera.......except the AMX-3 never made it into production. I had a chance to ride in one of the AMX-3 prototypes owned by the AMC/AMX Designer Dick Teague. I think only 3-5 of these cars were made. Bodies and many parts came from Italy.

Larry

jerry gollnick

A 327 1963 Corvette just won the SVRA Indianapolis Pro Am vintage race. It beat all the big blocks of all manufacturers.

63 fuellie

I street raced a 67 small block Chevelle in the 70s. Ran 440s, AMCs, Mustangs , 442s, Cougars, GTOs, even a few motorcycles. Had a 327, 11 1/2 compression, big heads big Holley, 488 rear All the go fast stuff. Car would pull crazy RPMs all day long. Biggest thing I saw back then was most of the cars were never running 100%. I worked on my car every night. No money and no girlfriend left me little else to do so my car was always 90% or better. most of the rich kids with the big block high dollar cars knew nothing about them and if they did decide to run up against the little mouse motor they usually lost their allowance. It was lots of fun and the small blocks could hold their own against pretty much anything on the street. The track was another thing all together. I usually broke my car every time I took it to the track due mostly to stupidity

Critter1

Very interesting. I'm told that this is the very same car that I drove decades ago at Road America. Looks like the roll bar has been modified.

jimgessner

My first car was a $50 Dodge 6 cylinder at 13 years old I had my neighbor tow it home and totally rebuilt it over the next two years.. I did not have a driver license until 17. I lived in New Jersey at that time and I bought a used 57 Chevrolet convertible from Rutgers Chevrolet, the dealer. Dad had to co-sign the loan, as back then you had to be 21 to finance a car. $500 down , $750 note. That car grew into the used 61 bubble top 348 / 350hp big block , which was the worst Chevy I ever owned. It was a fun car, but had the engine out three times in the two years I had it. Broken push rods broke many other internal motor parts.

In the Fall of 63, I went to the Pontiac dealer across the street and ordered a new 64 GTO TRI- POWER convertible. When it came in, same story, Dad had to co-sign the loan docs. I had made all the payments on my earlier cars so he was happy. When we got to dealership, Dad inspected the GTO. When he lifted the hood, he said
'' TO MANY CARBURETORS ''. So I had to cancel the order. I went back to the Chevy dealer that I knew well. He was happy to order the 64 Chevelle, and Dad saw it had only one carb and thought it was the 300hp motor.

GREAT DAYS...........And a fantastic Dad that helped me with life in the GOOD OLD DAYS.

Nowhere Man

Vettrocious

Just think how well it would have run with that phantom 385 HP cam and valve train....