64 FRED LORENZEN CAMMER CAR

[BruceS]

Loved that post by C5HM and the NASCAR "wars" of the 60s.  I remember seeing pictures of the '66 Galaxies at Daytona and the way they massaged the aero!  The car pictured is I believe the #29 HM '66 Galaxie driven by Jack Bowsher.  Notice how far the front fenders have been lowered and/or sectioned!  The lower headlight is about half exposed above the bumper, and the front bumper is "V'd".  It was said they canted the windshields back too but that's harder to tell from the pics...

[Drew Pojedinec]

Cool car Tom.  You say it was a Stroppe car tho?  I didn't realize Stroppe worked for Ford, I thought he was a Mercury guy.....  I learn something every other day.

[Heo]

I saw somewhere pics of a cast aluminium 64 nascar instrumet panel.
I think it was a repro.Any one who knows who makes them or have
a pic of a panel?

[HolmanMoodyStroppeGang]

Thanks from me and the guys, it has been a thrash lately, I did a reply but will post it soon.

I wanted to try to reply to the email first and thanks from all of us. 

Just got to see all of this, I will let the guys know and forward it.

Next reveal SOHC 57 Ranchero

Big news pending on other things

Jay, you are the class of the field, our best

[jholmes217]

Still waiting on the bikini post!!!!!

Hi guys

Many of us wish we could be at Beaver but we kind of debuted a car I have been very quiet about for a while,

Please check it out.  This car recalls the Stroppe car we had a cammer in way back when, that was too fast, then got banned after practice.  I will say one thing about this car, it has a race engine in it, like we did then, and since, and this old FORD  is F A S T.......!!




Also, the collection acquired Bat Mobile 10 and that's me getting ready to light her.  Barris authorized 10 special continuation cars and this one is fast. My kid brother drove it to the show.  He gets paid to drive this down Pacific Coast Highway?  We estimate that thousands of people wanted a picture by this car and it was a blast.  Kind of hard to keep people from touching it which we have to stay on guard for.  Has a big stout Rat in it. The original, with an FE, went for 4.2 Million a while back.   This is the latest acquisition and all I can say here is, Batmobiles are not cheap...LOL !


I will do a Biikini's and Nitro post soon.  Made a lot of noise and there were a ton of pretty ladies there. We light the fuel stuff backed in to the tanning part of a big car show by a surf beach.  So the ladies get all wound up and that is fun.

We fired the Beaver Hunter,,,,on 95% nitro. John Force got his license to drive fuel cars in Beaver Hunter 2.   We may acquire the Beaver Hunter, who knows, maybe bring it to Beaver some day.  That would be hilarious...darn thing went way over 200 MPH in 65

One picture is of Don Long, Tommy IVO and me last Saturday at a chassis shop.   IVO is just the kindest, funniest, coolest guy.   The plan is to show him the big shop soon.  Awesome man, go to his website, it is awesome.  One of his old short wheel base rails sold for $600,000 recently.  A wealthy collector grabbed it, then donated it to a museum for the write off.  IVO has a lot of cool things to share about Cammers on Nitro that he raced.   For another day.

Good luck from all of us to everybody at Beaver.  Hope the records fall and of course, please have a safe and fun race

Thanks now,

Tom

Busy

[57 lima bean]

"Next reveal SOHC 57 Ranchero"....This I got'a see.

[jayb]

I see that over on the FE Forum C5HM has uncovered some more information regarding the SOHC running in 1964 at Daytona:

http://www.network54.com/Forum/74182/message/1462404898/More+NASCAR+Cammer+Data

Seems that Earl Wade was giving me the straight scoop when he told me about the SOHC running a test session at Daytona in 1964, although there's no way to verify the speeds he was quoting.  Nevertheless, I'm glad that Earl had this right.  It reminded me of an old magazine I had from 1964 with an early version of the SOHC installed in a 1964 Galaxie.  After I dug it up it turned out to be CARS magazine, from November 1964.  I've scanned it and reprinted it below. 

The article shows one of the early SOHC engines with the spark plugs coming in at the bottom of the valve cover, instead of the top.  Also, if you look very carefully at the pictures of the driver's side of the block from underneath on page 4, you will not see a sideoiler oiling passage.  Its hard to tell from the scanned photo, but from the original photo in the magazine it definitely does not appear to be there.  Definitely an early 427 block, not a sideoiler, which I found very interesting.

Another thing I noticed is the front cover, which looks completely different than the production style front covers, which had the inspection plates on the front.

Another thought, pure speculation, is what SOHC engine ran at Daytona in 1964?  Given magazine lead times, this magazine would have probably come out in September, and the article written in June or July.  I wonder if the engine that ran at Daytona in 1964 was the early version?  Earl told me it was the later version with the revised spark plug location and sideoiler block, but I wonder...

[nhsohc]

Did anyone notice on page 70 of the Cars article the statement that "Heads are separate from the aluminum intermediate adapter housing that carries the cam and rockers"?  Could this be a mistake?  Was the author confused about the aluminum front cover for the chain and sprockets?  Interesting.

[cjshaker]

I have that magazine also and never noticed the fact that they're using external oil return lines on the heads. Obviously this was before the sideoiler block was designed, or at least finished. That also sort of confirms what I've always heard, that the sideoiler block was originally designed to support the SOHC platform and incorporating it into the standard 427 was sort of an afterthought.

Has anyone ever seen a set of those early heads, beyond the one engine that is known to exist with cast iron SOHC headers? I wonder how many sets were cast and if any still exist?

[babybolt]

I know a collector who has some parts of the early engines and he is looking for some parts to complete a display engine.  He is not intending on running the engine, and he not the type who ever sells anything.  Right now he is looking for one more head and some valve covers where the spark plugs are near the exhaust side.

[jayb]

Did anyone notice on page 70 of the Cars article the statement that "Heads are separate from the aluminum intermediate adapter housing that carries the cam and rockers"?  Could this be a mistake?  Was the author confused about the aluminum front cover for the chain and sprockets?  Interesting.

I think there were a few mistakes in that article, including the one you pointed out.  They were only looking at the engine from the outside, and admitted they were making educated guesses, so they could have easily thought there was a separate housing for the cams and rocker shafts.  They also guessed head studs tightened from the underside of the valley (wrong), "chains" for driving the cams (rather than a single chain), and the water pump bolts up to the "cam drive tower", whatever that is.  They were probably looking behind the water pump and saw part of the stub cam cover, and figured it went through to drive the water pump or something.  The engine was kind of a mystery to most folks back then...

[babybolt]

Pictures of an early Cammer head:

http://s134.photobucket.com/user/stuffnpics/library/sohchead

[babybolt]

He is still looking for some more early parts for his display engine, and some more pictures of the front accessories, like the alternator brackets and front pulleys.

[MeanGene]

I would bet a couple dollars that the 64 Gal in the magazine article was the same one that was sold to Gordo Cooper for $1 for publicity, and he drove it for an extended period on the street

[MeanGene]

The testing in the Lorenzen car was / is no secret, pretty well known and documented, as was the 64 Galaxie going from Passino to Gordo Cooper for $1. The SOHC got effectively legislated out by huge weight breaks against it which would have made it look like the Hammy cars "beat" them- just like NHRA did with Jenkins' small block Vega, just gave it a huge weight break compared to just about everything else, Hammys, B9s and SOHCs, and in particular the Cleveland, to make the Chebbie fans happy as it appeared the Vega "beat" the others, when actually, as with 'ol Hillary, the fix was in