justa few thoughts....great issue,i especially enjoyed the test articles.unfortunately,i have a few points to ponder,maybe some of our fellow readers can shed some light.first of all,the flow numbers provided for the Dart 227's struck me odd.i've seen other publications use these heads,and the flow numbers provided were alot different.were these heads flowed at a different rate of depression than the others i have read about?was the bore of the flowbench a 4.03 bore or a 4.125?i know a smaller bore will effect the flow by shrouding the valves,but by this much? another thing that really struck me odd was when the 3 inch exhaust was bolted on.the power loss was staggering. 50 hp? i know you changed the headers,but such a substantial loss in torque and hp makes me wonder something was amiss.all in all, it was a great issue and i thank you for putting out a quality publication every month.  

I thought the article Smith wrote was great. They need to do more of those kind of side by side testing only with the engine in a car on a chassis dyno. That's the only way to truly see what you car's power is.

I also really enjoyed the article McGann wrote on the Anti-Tour. Me and my buddy Malkeet were there again this year. That's him smirking on page 94. I wish they had published a picture of all those idiots poking Glad's bloated radiator hose and him with his panicked "how am I going to get to the hotel" look. Oh yeah my car made it in this year too.

I wrote McGann about his article on his "faux project Cuda". That wasn't very nice. Heck, I was even excited about seeing a Mopar project. I warned him to be on the look out for the Mopar faithful. They don't like being tricked like that.  

Your car looked *** good rolling down the road. I too was hoping to see a picture of the "Bloated" radiator hose after hearing so much about it here.  

About the "Faux-Par" build, Doug sent me to the Mopars at the Strip show saying "Get something DIFFERENT". I had no agenda when I got there but was struck by the volume and variety of parts available in the swap meet area and thought- you could almost build a whole car from all this stuff.  So the story was totally off the cuff, but yeah it would have been cooler if we actually came back from Vegas with a shell and a pile of parts!  Maybe we will do that in the future.

I never got a good picture of the swollen radiator hose other than the one that ran with the story- that's on me.  Thanks for the positive feedback about the write-up, though.  

You should've had Doug park in a lit area of the pits. It was pretty dark where you guys were parked near the staging lanes. That way dozens more people could've seen and poked. Live and learn.

I still think a cover with "72 Challenger Project; Part 1" would raise sales dramatically. This time with a real car. "Project No Money Mopar" ?  

The wife and also had a great time on the Anti-Tour. We arrived at Global West a little late, because we were fighting a passenger side window until 10:30 Friday A.M.  We met up with a flamed Ranchero (J/K) in Baker and followed Jeff Smith and the others to Vegas. We had to leave Saturday morning because of commitments in LA I couldn't get out of. We would have really liked to stay another day.

We broke at the strip and wouldn't have made it back to the hotel without the help of Rowdy from Team Chevelle. We stopped off of Tropicana to re-lash the valves before making it the rest of the way back to LA without incident.  Upon our return to LA, we found 3 cracked retainers.

We wanted to go on the anti tour for many years.  Either none of my cars were running, or if they were running, I got sent on a last minute business trip. We finally made it and had a blast. We look forward to doing it again.

Any chance of a Fall 2007 run?

Wes

Anti Tour Pics
http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=16277675&uid=649897&members=1

Rat Fink Party at LACR Pics
http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=17243282&uid=649897  

I saw your car at the last stop somewhere in the desert. At first, I thought your wife might be a new Car Craft staffer with her Hot Rod belt buckle and big camera. Saw your car run a couple of times too. I only ran twice. Totally cool car too. Looks like it's been in a time capsule since 1965. Very cool. You had Jeff Smith drooling all over it.

Great pictures. I missed the Rat Fink Party. I think my flat black Impala might've fit in this year. I wanted to go up to LACR this Saturday for their farewell races, but I couldn't get out of work. *** X-Games.  

Rebldrvr, I really wish the wife and I could have hung out more and met some more people, but between arriving late to Global West late, and breaking at the track, I just didn't have time.  

The Rat Fink Party was unique in the sense that I occasionally get snubbed by the Vette guys for being too Bubba.  At Rat Fink, I think I was perceived by the Bubbas to be too Corvette...

Anyway, prior to Rat Fink, we swapped the original 327 (stroked, 1962 #461 heads, and a reground cam by Ed at Camonics) back into the 62. It ran a disappointing 14.4 @ 96.  We only got two passes in.  I was stumped. I expected it to be quicker.  It had only been running a day, and had about 65 miles on it by the time we ran it. Decided to swap intakes, prior to the Last Race at LACR. During the swap, I figured out that I had over tightened the kick down cable on the TH350 and didn't have W.O.T.  I replaced the Torker with a Weiand Airstrike and ran an uncorrected 13.25 @ 106.24 on 235/70/R15 Radial TAs on my last pass on 7-29-07.  Wes  

I enjoyed the anti tour. I wasn't around much to see, I was bent on getting my goals met with the car. It was it's first big run, never been raced yet. I'm a sucker for vegas, and one of my goals was to make it non-stop, so once the group I was with leaving global west peeled for a gas stop, I kept on going. I caught up with the rambler, waved at them and kept on truckin. We stopped at the state line and rode the coaster. That's a rough one! We hit the road and checked in, got a bite to eat and put a couple of gallons of local 87 octane in to add some weight to the rear, then got to the track. I made it to vegas all 300 miles on one tank. Managed 19.9 mpg. GPS showed a peak speed of 98 mph, and an average of 76! Went through baker with the engine sitting at the 160 thermostat. Wesmigletz, I noticed you mentioned heating up at the track. I had those blues for a while too, so on this new build I went with a meziere electric water pump. That was the ticket! I could sit in the staging lane with the engine off, run the pump and the fan, and the engine would be at 160 as I pulled up to stage. The article on the home page about the mustang going fast and cheap with 20 mpg is why I built my car. It had to make vegas non-stop, so I needed at least 17mpg. Kept the 302 CI displacement, (wanted a stroker...), and backied it with a T-5. Gas is so expensive, it had to run 87 octane, so I went 9:1 compression. I wanted to hit the 12's. I didn't get the 12 second timeslip, but after running what I thought was a slow 107 mph run at vegas. I went to the stands and watched 6.0 GTO's run 98mph and c6 vette's run 103. I guess the altitude takes it's toll, but it's all relative. I figure at sea level, as long as I'm stompin c6 vettes I have my 12 second car. Next time I think I'll stick with the group and hang out more now that I can just drive and relax. All I want to do with the car now is a top speed challenge. I'm thinkin about a standing mile run... Next years anti tour?  

How exciting to see my beater Malibu cop car in Car Craft!  Even better than the coverage in Hot Rod from Drag Week '05.  The reliable old girl got me out to LA and back to Colorado with no real issues at all (save for a noisy wheel bearing 50 miles from home.  All I can say to everyone out there is, DRIVE your car!   My friend Mike and I have done Power Tours, Drag Week and now the Anti Tour.  Keep the parts simple, bring spares, and let that odometer spin! I never regret these trips even though there's lots of last minute thrashing and big bucks spent on fuel.  Can't wait till next year.  I hope to see some more Tour cars on the track this time around.  If it will run down the road, it will run down the track, Cough, Cough Glad, Cough Rambler.
Andy Maass  

I really liked that issue as well as this months' with the cam tests. Those kinds of back to back dyno testing give all of us something we can't afford to go out and get on our own. If we did a little page flipping we were able to do more comparisons than even what it appeared you provided. I'm fine with that!

I was also sort of surprised about the 40-50 HP loss with the exhaust system. Seems like a lot..but hey..it is what it is.

What are the chances of doing a similar set of cam/intake tests, but on a 540" or larger motor? I'm thinking something with at least 10.5-11.0 compression, some real good aluminum heads....AFR 335's or better etc. Need to make sure they can flow well at the max lift numbers....maybe even do a back to back test with 335's against 357's with the big cams.

The cam tests would be a solid flat tappet in the 260-270*@.050 range and .660-.680 or so lift. yes I know that's fairly serious for a flat tappet, but we need that to really tell what is available. Make sure you use a *real* cam with fast lobe intensity...not some wussy one. You can get pretty serious stuff and still live on the street OK. Check the lobe listings in the catalogs..not just the shelf grinds.

Maybe throw in an old ZL-1 GM cam for comparison?

Then you throw in a typical .700-.725 lift solid roller with similar duration.

Then maybe all the way out to a .775 solid roller for the true die hard street freaks. I've been at .774 lift on my solid roller on the street for a long time now..no issues.

Somewhere in here you could also try two HR's. Maybe a low-mid .600's lift to comapre against the soild flat tappet. Then maybe one of the new .700+ lift HR's that folks are playing with. See what RPM ranges you really get out of them.

Then somewhere through all of it we try an RPM Air Gap..even on the insane combo...then a Victor Jr with a 1000HP type carb. Then a Super Victor with a 1050 Dominator..plus all the spacer tests. Maybe a CNC intake against a stock one? They all need some work out of the box..so at least clean up the stock ones a little before comparing them.

And if you were bored...you could run through some 2", 2-1/8" and 2-1/4" tubes on them.

This would be some great info for a lot of folks. 540's are the 454's of today...lots of them out there. The small block tests have been done many many times....let's play with the big motors the same way! If you read the web sites..this is the stuff people are constantly looking for info on as they plan to build these things.

Again, thanks for doing this stuff for us!


JIM  

I just read the cam test article - a total waste of paper.  No new ground covered,  pretty engine/combination specific.  If you didn't know that a similar duration cam in a roller configuration with mucho heavier spring rates can extent the effective RPM range of the engine, then you did learn something.  There could at least have been a solid flat tested in there.  All I learned is that Chevy engines seem to have cam offerings with big duration numbers and tiny lifts.  At least it seems that way, compared to the Ford cams I use.  I look forward to Car Craft every month and the tech is always good - but IMHO, that article was the weakest piece of filler in a long time.  

Hey Wes,
Glad to hear that your making the rounds. I just got back to Vegas after a month in Sturgis. Registered for PINKS All Out at LVMS September 7-8. now to find some consistency off the line.

I saw that the red '63 Galaxy made this months mag, nice long article too. I expected something along the lines of those on the "Reader's Pages". Both of us were called back to LVMS Saturday morning (after Anti Tour Friday racing) for photo's, although, all appear to be Friday night pictures. So, with any luck, maybe my Chevelle will grace the pages sometime soon. I really should have washed it, but it was pretty late by the time we had finally finished diddling with your Vette.  

67ta, that's pretty cool about making the drive to Vegas on on tank of gas.  The engine that we went to Vegas on has some other issues, that probably contributed to its overheating.  The stroked 327 holds a steady 180*, even when I sit in L.A. traffic during my commute from Burbank to Torrance.  BTW, are you in the L.A. area?

Rowdy, Winny and I really appreciated the help you gave us and your hospitality.  I hope to get a 12 sec ET out of the 62 at Fontana as soon as the weather cools abit. I plan to do this on the 235/70/R15 Radial TAs, with the stock 62 block and heads. Then I'll put the stock intake and carb back on. Sorry about you not getting your Chevelle washed.  We didn't get the 62 washed before the trip either. Heck, I've only washed it once since...  

Wes, I'm in the temecula area. Just a tip on tires, I'm runing 225/60/15 on all four corners and I gotta say I was sweating the drag strip before the anti tour. My first tests with the car would light them up through first and light up again at the top of second. This was with some older radial T/As. I saw the new BFG G-force Sports and decided to give them a try. I got them about 3 days before the tour. The first torque tests lit them up, but not as bad. As days went by and I scuffed them a bit, the traction came up to where they were just barely holdin on in 1st at WOT. At the track in Vegas I couldn't get them to break loose. I was shocked! I never had the car hook all the power in first. That was fun! I got the tires for $84 ea from summit. I'm not sure if they sell a 70 series, but if you want a budget tire in 15" size that performs the BFG G-force sport is it! They'll have the traction for a 12 second pass. They're V rated for 149 mph which is a bonus.