1962 F100 unibody drag truck

[KMcCullah]

Thanks for the pointers BP. I'm learning. It would have probably been better to have started with slicks to get our bugs worked out. And then tried the radials.

We've got the rear end tore apart now. The factory shock mounts had the shocks laying at about a 45* angle. So we weren't using much of the shocks travel. They're gonna be standing straight up and down when we're done. Calvert adjustables.

[KMcCullah]

We hauled the truck to town last Friday for the street legal drags. Ran a new best of 11.47@113. With a 1.567 60’. Getting back down to 1.5xx something in the 60’ is certainly a win for us. Getting the rear shocks squared up with the springs seems to help the launch. Pic of the new shock arrangement below.



 And following Blair’s advice on the burnouts was spot on too. Thanks again, Blair.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G9IXn77sfCg

Edit: My apologies for the low quality video. It came from one of our slighly buzzed fans.

[KMcCullah]

We had another good outing with the truck. The local track shuts down for the season in 3 more races, so we decided to try the Saturday night race. Wow what a blast! We ran a new best of 11.34@112 with a 1.458 60' in practice. What a difference a prepped track makes. Friday night races are no prep. But man does that heavy ass truck launch with a prepped surface. What a ride! The drag radials hook pretty well now.

 I've never ET raced before. The Friday night races use a even starting tree. So getting used to seeing a car launch a second before me is really difficult with a ET tree. I have to constantly remember to just race the red truck. Lol And be consistent. I won the first round race just barely against a 69' Olds 442. Nice car. I posted the time slip from that race below. I ended up losing in the second round to last years Pro ET class champion. He ran a 9.35 on a 9.34 dial in. Hard to compete with that.

[Stangman]

Those are some awesome 60 foot times, truck sounds great

[KMcCullah]

Thanks Stangman. It's a work in progress. Me and the truck.

[KMcCullah]

What a fun summer we had with the truck. We didn't have any major mechanical carnage to speak of really. Lost one cheesy Trick Flow electric fuel pump and completely used up a pair of M/T drag radials. Hindsight being 20/20, we should not have started out with drag radials. Even though we did figure out a prepped track was what made them hook up good. Trying to learn the ropes with ET drag racing and dealing with traction issues is difficult. My driving got somewhat better but still needs work.

We have several improvement projects slated for this winter. First and foremost is dealing with our lack of traction. We're actually working on this one right now. Will post a few pics when we get it done.

I shot a video of our last pass for the season. Will post a link to it below. I had made it to the second round for the first time. Without having to buy back in! Pretty good for me. I drove one of the best passes of the summer. But ended up losing by .033 seconds. Keep an eye on my wing window. The guy just shows up, and hands me my ass on the way by.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCCFMJbyRBI



 

 

[KMcCullah]

Happy new year guys. One of my new years resolutions was to figure out how to post better pics. I think I got it!

One of the big issues we had at the track last season was traction. I went with M/T DOT drag radials because several acquaintances liked them. They all have much lighter cars so maybe they work better for that application. They don't like a heavy truck. They did work better for us with a well prepped starting line. But still shook the truck. So after much measuring and discussion, we ended up with a 30.5x13.5 Hoosier bias slick with a stiff sidewall. Hoosier lists this tire as a 29.5x11.5W. It seems odd not being able to look at the tire to see what size it is. Anyhow, we also had a pair of custom 12" wheels made. We didn't want to radius the bedsides so it took some back spacing.
 
 


 To get all that tire to fit, I cut out the old factory wheel tubs and got an aluminum wheel tub kit. These are no fun to assemble at all. Dad and I fussed with these for a while. But in the end, we came up with a pretty sweet installation.

[Towd56]

Looks great-Where did you buy the wheels from?

[cjshaker]

Mayhem Bob would be proud 

[KMcCullah]

Thanks for the kind words guys.

Towd- Wheels came from Wheelsmith. I called and gave them the dimensions we needed and mentioned were planning on racing. Wheels showed up 2 weeks later. They measured exactly what we asked for. Easy peasy.  https://thewheelsmith.net/

Doug- I used to enjoy reading about Bob's progress when he raced Mayhem. That truck honked! I think it was a '66. I remember twin I beams. Found a cool old pic. I also wonder how Lady K is. She used to pop in on occasion after his passing.

http://www.slick60s.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=14045&sid=be0d61ff168254b7215d8e5d91c203c4

[KMcCullah]

I think most everybody saw the thread where I asked if it was possible to have too much air from a cowl induction ram air duct. The general consensus was, more air is typically better, but not always. So it sounded like a worthwhile project to me. And it fell right in line with our overall goal of moving more air thru the 504.

I started out with a Quickfuel Air Bell for a Dominator flange. The fit was super sloppy on the carb. We ended up making an adaptor collar out of some 1/16 aluminum strap. It helped with leveling the bell to the bottom of the cowl. After tacking the collar and the bell together, the extra bit of collar standing proud was removed and then contoured to the inside of the bell.



We can't wait to try this thing out. I have a 1/8 NPT aluminum thread-o-let to put in still.

[jayb]

Looks really good, Kevin.  It will be interesting to see what the results are...

[KMcCullah]

Looks really good, Kevin.  It will be interesting to see what the results are...

Thanks, Jay. The proof will be in the time slip.

[KMcCullah]

After we finished the cowl ducting, we tore the whole thing down for a thorough inspection. I didn't get many pics.



 Everything in the 504 looked pretty good. The cam lobes and roller lifters looked new. The T&D's didn't show any signs of distress. Nothing turned blue, Lol oiling thru the push tubes is working good! We did give it a new set of rod bearings, with an additional .0005 clearance. A few bearing shells showed some weirdness.



The intake was sent to Joe-JDC for a judicious porting job. Thank you Joe! The roof of the ports were raised to better align with our Pro-Ports intake port. This was the last part of our plan to move more air thru the 504. We can't wait to see the improvement!

[Heo]

I have thought about doing the same type of cowl induction on the Galaxie