No this isn’t going to be one of those talks and no we aren’t going to run out and hung a tree, ok…if you must…go ahead I’ll wait…..(insert bored whistling)……(more bored whistling)…..Ok…are you done?!!
As I get closer to getting the heads on the Mustang, I’m going to have to begin picking any changes I want made to the CJ heads. While cruising the web checking out options, I ran across this piece (Corvette related but springs are springs as far as an engine is concerned) and there are some good tips here.
Quick! What the fastest moving component in your engine? If you’ve taken a hint from the title of this article, you probably guessed correctly – it’s your valve springs, those tight little bundles of joy that open and close your engine’s valves.
Beehive springs come in a variety of shapes and sizes. The benefits of moving to Beehive springs where possible (and today few situations are not Beehive compatible) are many.
Beehive springs, such as those offered by COMP Cams, offer a huge number of benefits over stock-style cylindrical springs; reduced valve spring mass, faster valve acceleration, increased valve train rigidity, reduced valve train component stress and a whole laundry list of other positives.
Best of all, the word has gotten out and folks all over the country are using them for a wide variety of applications from street performance to extreme racing endeavors. That’s a really good thing.
Along with their success has come some confusion over exactly which beehive is right to purchase. Currently there are over a dozen beehive spring styles out there, each offering some unique take, be it in the seat pocket diameter, ovate wiring diameter, pitch or internal spring “frequency.” Regardless increased selection has bred some minor confusion, albeit easily cured.
Beehive springs are conical shaped springs that employ this powerful shape in the creation of a spring that can deliver both excellent performance and lowered seat pressures. With lower seat pressure, valve train components (especially the pushrods, rockers and lifters) are less stressed to perform the same work.
This beehive spring weights in at 99 grams, while a comparable conventional spring is 121 grams.
The difference between beehive and conventional cylindrical springs is obvious especially when you compare them in this manner. Note the dramatic difference in retainer diameter equating to less valve train weight.
According to COMP, effective beehive springs can support an additional 700rpm over stock cylindrical springs. How? It just stands to reason that the smaller coils at the top of the spring don’t require as much force to get the valve moving quickly, much quicker than conventional style springs. The higher rpm potential equates to better durability and performance.
There are some very knowledgeable engine builders who don’t understand how a single coil spring can be better than a dual conventional spring.
“Its like watching a race car running 60-foot elapsed times on the drag strip,” stated Bill Godbold, Chief Engineer for COMP Cams. “For example, take two identical cars with equivalent 500 hp engines.
“One has stock suspension and the other a sophisticated racing suspension. The car with the race suspension will get going more quickly and achieves better 60-foot time. The same principle works with beehive spring mechanics.”
I ran across on ton http://www.corvettereport.com and thought I pass it along. If only they made some of these!!! You got to check out the 1991 C4 body.
Hot rodder Shinoda teams up with Bill Mitchell and defined the “Corvette look.”
Perhaps it was “in the stars” that Larry Shinoda was in the right place at the right time. If you strictly look at Shinoda’s resume in 1956, you might ask, “How did this guy get in the front door?” As a young man, the only thing Larry ever graduated from was high school, Army boot camp, and the School of Hard Knocks. Twelve-year-old Larry had his life turned inside out when along with thousands of Japanese-Americans, he and his family were sent to interment camps for the duration of WW II. The experience had a profound effect on his personality. A self-professed “malcontent” Shinoda could be a little difficult to work with.
After his Army tour of duty in Korea, Shinoda attended Art Center School of Design in Los Angeles, but truly hated being there. He could see no purpose in taking the classes in design and the various art mediums, such as watercolor painting. He was a car guy/hot rodder and he wanted to draw and design cars! So he left Art Center without graduating and based strictly on his car illustrations, landed a job at Ford, then Studebaker/Packard. Just a year after starting his career, he landed a job as a designer at General Motors.
The rest is the stuff of legend. Street racing and blowing the doors off of Bill Mitchell’s souped up Buick and quickly being taken under Mitchell’s wing. Things like that happens, but rarely. There was obviously some chemistry between the two men, perhaps it was because both men could be brash and had strong opinions.
Shinoda got his first big break when Mitchell tapped the 28-year-old to translate the body design of the ‘57 Q-Corvette on to the mule chassis from Duntov’s aborted Corvette SS project. The finished car became Mitchell’s 1959 Stingray Racer, which formed the styling theme for the ‘63 Corvette. From there, Shinoda got one peach project after another. It’s worth noting that the design of the Stingray Racer is held in such high esteem that current Corvette chief designer, Tom Peters (C6 Corvette and late model Camaro designer) is on record stating that his ‘09 Corvette Stingray Concept (aka Transformers Corvette) was influenced by the ‘59 Stingray.
During his almost 13 years at GM, Larry designed numerous special Corvettes, Corvairs, and several race cars, as well as his usual duties working out the styling details of various production cars. Presented here are Larry Shinoda’s most important Corvette designs. Later this week, we’ll take a look at Larry’s very slick Corvairs, and race cars, including the body design for Pat Flaherty’s 1956 Indy 500-winning Watson-Offenhauser.– Scott
1959 Stingray Racer The 1959 Stingray Racer is still a stunningly beautiful car design. The idea of a “broad, flat top surface” was to create a reverse airfoil that would pull the car down. The problem was that the sharp leading edge was too high and at high speed, more air was knifing under the car rather than going over the car, causing a serious front lift problem. The production Sting Rays and even the Grand Sport Corvettes all had the same trouble. This could have been corrected with a slight forward rake, if the nose had drooped down a n inch or so, and a chin spoiled was added. The Grand Sport replica cars from Duntov Motors use these corrections and front end stays where it belongs at high speed – DOWN.
1963 Sting Ray Concept Art The road to fully worked out new car designs was littered with concept art – most of which was probably thrown away. Here we see a headlight treatment study. Sorting out the production car’s rotating hidden-headlight design was a brilliant but challenging project. Note the absence of hood lines and windshield wipers. It also looks like they were considering scoops on the back edge of the doors.
1961 Mako Shark I Showcar – AKA “The Corvette Shark”
With the basic Sting Ray design approved for production, Bill Mitchell had Shinoda design an exaggerated version for a teaser show car. Known today as the Mako Shark-I, the car’s original name was simply, “Corvette Shark.” 1961 was still the “Jet Age,” so the car was originally shown with a plexi bubble top. It was kind of “Jetsons” neat-looking, but would anyone really want one for their daily driver?
1963 4-Seater Sting Ray Split-Window Coupe
The XP-720 4-Seater Corvette Sting Ray was an exploration into the possibility of the Corvette competing with the much better-selling Ford Thunderbird. Ed Cole, head of the GM car and truck group, thought it was a pretty good idea. After all, GM is in the business of selling cars – LOTS of cars. Since the public bought 73,051 Thunderbirds in 1961, compared to 10, 939 Corvettes, it seemed like a no-brainer. The story goes that a tall executive got stuck in the back seat and needed quite a bit of help getting out. The 4-seater concept was quickly dropped. Good!
1963 Production Corvette Sting Ray Split-Window Coupe
Look at 1963 cars from America and Europe and there’s NOTHING like the Corvete Sting Ray. The split-window was one of Bill Mitchell’s pet design elements and was a one year deal. Although the design concept of a “split rear window” wasn’t new with the Sting Ray (the 1950 VW Beetle had a “split” rear window), the overall presentation of the Split-Window Coupe Sting Ray looked like NOTHING else.
1964 XP-819 Rear-Engine Corvette Engineering Study
The Corvair was the only production car to come out of Ed Cole’s ‘57 Q-Chevrolet initiative and was considered very exotic when it came out in 1960. But trouble quickly set in and it wasn’t just Ralph Nader’s doing. The early Corvairs were not good cars. But the “rear-engine” concept was very alluring to Chevy engineer Frank Winchell. Frank insisted that with the correct size tires the inherent oversteering problem could be corrected. Winchell envisioned a rear-engine Corvette and Zora Duntov said, “No!” To prove his point, Winchell had Shinoda design a pretty body to cover the big V8 engine hanging out behind the trans-axle. Upon seeing Shinoda’s rough full-size drawing, Duntov asked, “Where did you cheat?” Where he cheated was that there were no real rear bumpers or crash zone on the back end. The concept was quickly dropped. it was also discovered that the car did excellent wheelies!
1966 Running Mako Shark-II Showcar
Bill Mitchell verbalized the parameters of the design and Larry Shinoda and a small group of designers and stylists worked out the details. It was as if lightning had struck twice – first with the Sting Ray and a few years later with the Mako Shark-II. The exaggerated fender humps have become THE signature Corvette profile. A non-running full-size version was shown to GM’s management in ‘65 and received unanimous approval as the next Corvette. While the new body and interior designs were being worked out, a second “running” Mako Shark-II was built to keep the Corvette fans stoked. Almost 50 years later, the Mako Shark-II is still a jaw-dropper!
1991 Mears-Shinoda C4 Corvette Body Kit
Larry left GM in 1968, stayed at Ford for one year, then formed his own design studio where he worked on all kinds of automotive and non-automotive design projects. Corvette body kits and add-on parts became very popular though the ‘70s and ‘80s. Three-time Indy 500 winner, Rick Mears teamed up with Shinoda and businessman Jim Williams in 1991 to create and offer the Rick Mears Special Edition Corvette.
Arguably the cleanest full-body-kit ever offered for a C4 Corvete, the coupe version lowered the coefficient of drag on the car from .34 to .30. The complete kit cost approximately $5,200, plus $3,000 for installation, and around $1,000 for a new paint job. With a cost of just over 10 grand on top of a $32,455 new ‘91 Corvette, there weren’t many takers. But, it was a very nice design.
Shinoda C5 Sting Ray Concept
The all-new C5 1997 Corvette was released in the Fall of ‘96 and Larry Shinoda got right on it. Note the date on the rendering, “1-6-97.” Obviously, Larry wanted to see more “Sting Ray” in the new C5. If you’re a mid-year Corvette fan, Shinoda’s concept looks pretty good. Larry died the following November and to the best of my knowing, there was never an effort to make a full-body kit based on what may well have been Larry’s last Corvette design project. Any fiberglass fabricators out there that would like to take a shot at the Shinoda C5 Sting Ray???
My last post “Dodge Unveils Next-Gen Sprint Cup Car in Vegas…..” (http://wp.me/pKHNM-ZJ), invoked a few comments mostly on Facebook and at least one here that touched on something that ‘bugs’ me about where NASCAR has gone since the 60’s.
Here is an excerpt from Bill:
“….
I’m bittersweet about manufacturers participation in NASCAR, and have been since TOYOTA wrapped themselves in the American flag and joined the series. If manufacturers are to continue participation, then I would like to see rules such as motor sources must be manufacturer sourced, running pump gas, and back to body templates that must match their street versions.
Back when MOPAR was absent from NASCAR, the ideal was that there just was nothing to gain in NASCAR other than name recognition for Chrysler. Even TOYOTA admitted when they joined NASCAR that there was nothing to gain other than getting their logo on the field….”
In another post I talked about loss of innovation and brand loyalty and I have to expand on and disagree a bit with Bill.
When NASCAR started the templates and restricter plates and began the standardization of the cars that participated, I began loosing interest and a lot of other did as well. One of the biggest complaints I hear among the fan I sit with during a race and talk to is that the cars a so similar there really isn’t much to the racing part. Those rules are what killed the major benefits for the manufacturers. It killed individual innovation. The cars are now tube framed, bland sheet metal, sticker covered shell of what racing use to be, 200 per hour uninspiring billboards. Headlights and logos…. STICKERS… people!!!!!
Following the precedent set by Ford with its hot new NASCAR Fusion, Dodge unveiled a muscular Charger that’ll be running Sprint Cup during the 2013 season. Dodge enjoys the distinction of being the only Cup car that’s based on an actual RWD V8 civilian version, but the reveal also comes at a problematic time for the manufacturer: with Penske Racing having just announced that it’ll be leaving Dodge for Ford, the only Charger in the field is run by independent Robby Gordon. SRT Motorsports chief Ralph Giles says all options are on the table, including pulling Dodge from the series altogether. What do you think, does Dodge have a future in NASCAR? After seeing this new Charger, I kind of hope so. More info at NASCAR.com, pics via Autoblog.
You loved the Camaro Firebird he drove on the show, but in real life James Garner was a car guy!!! (Corrected – As Bill points out in the comments – the car in The Rock Files was actually a Firebird! — Thanks Bill.)
by Chris Demorro on March 7, 20
American muscle cars and Hollywood royalty have long had a close relationship. While just about every star from A-to-D list celebrities has some sort of muscle car in their garage, back in the day actors like Steve McQueen and Paul Newman did more than collect these cars; they raced them in serious races, from Trans Am to the Baja 1000.
Having film and television star James Garner piloting his Goodyear Grabber 4-4-2 was publicity boon for the tire maker.
Yes, it might be strange to think of American muscle cars racing across the desert of the Baja peninsula, but back in the 60’s what else would you have raced? There were all sorts of shops that specialized in converting American muscle into crazy off-road competitors.
Among the many Hollywood stars who would drive in these off-road desert races was one James Garner, a television actor who became so enamored with car racing that he raced an Oldsmobile 4-4-2 in the 1969 Mexican 1000 (a pre-cursor to the Baja 1000).
The star of the Western-comedy show Maverick, detective show The Rockford Files, and racing-packed Grand Prix, Garner rose to fame as an actor. But he was a more than competent racer as well, and among his many rides was a rather unique 1970 Oldsmobile 4-4-2 modified for the NORRA Meixcan 1000 off-road race.
This car was lost for decades before being found, restored, and brought back to racing condition for the 21st century. Now this unique, star-touched car is up for auction on eBay, of all places.
Getting The Grabber To Go
Garner first got involved with the world of motorsports during filming of the 1966 flick Grand Prix, in which he plays a race car driver who falls for his teammate’s estranged wife. In 1969, Garner grabbed a sponsorship from Goodyear tires.
Garner suffered a virtual Rube Goldberg-level breakdown that robbed him and the Goodyear Grabber 4-4-2 of their 45-minute lead, landing them a 2nd Place win during the 1969 Baja 1000.
I thought I’d share the an interview of Ed Pettus (previous owner of this unique vehicle) conducted by Dave Rasdal in is column “Ramblin'” in the Cedar Rapids, Iowa Thegazette.com. I’m interested in his next project.
The Crow Lakester
When Ed Pettus finished building his bullet-shaped Lockheed Lakester a year ago, he didn’t plan to sell it. But, after a whirlwind tour of the car that’s a cross between a jet airplane, a Bonneville Salt Flats racer and a 1930s biplane, he changed his mind.
“I do all of these projects and when I’m done, what do I do?” says Ed who with son Eddie Pettus Jr. has Eddie’s Rod & Custom in Cedar Rapids.
The Lakester, which I wrote about last July, is built around a wingtip gas tank of a 1950s Lockheed Super Constellation and has a steering yoke from a 1948 airplane. Parts came from 1930s Packards, a 1940 Ford tractor and a 1959 Chevy pickup. It has a turbocharged Toyota engine.
From shows in Cedar Rapids and the Quad Cities, it went to Chicago’s World of Wheels, a two-month stay at the Experimental Aircraft Association museum in Oshkosh, Wis., and on display at El Mirage near Long Beach, Calif., where dry lake bed speed runs originated.
“I thought, you know, after that I’m going to take it home and put it in the garage,” Ed says.
But, as a fan of the famous Barrett-Jackson vehicle auction in Arizona, Ed inquired about selling the Lakester. Told it was too late, he sent information anyway and was surprised to become a last-minute entry. It went on the block Jan. 21.
But, this auction doesn’t allow sellers to set a minimum price — if the high bid is $100, the car sells for $100.
Ed had insured the Lakester for $100,000. Bidding opened at $10,000.
“We were a nervous wreck,” he says, referring to his wife, Kathy, and friends in attendance.
Bidding quickly rose, though, to $100,000. Two bidders pushed it to $170,000, the winner from Georgia adding it to his collection.
“We feel so blessed with what we got,” Ed says. He’ll use the extra funds to retire the mortgage on Ellis Boulevard NW property (home and vacant lot) destroyed by the Floods of 2008.
Unsure about what they can do with the property, Ed, 60, isn’t waiting around for another hot rod project. All he says is that it’s a unique truck. “Let people wonder.”
Not only is there a ton of beautiful cars at Barrett-Jacksonauctions, there are also a lot of venders. Anything from car care products, to engine builders to custom building shops.
One of those was Karl Kustom Corvettes located in Des Moines, Ia. I had a chance to speak with Jim Hidy one of the reps for Karl Kustom at the auction this past January.
SWEET!!!!
Nice looking car, yes? HELL YES. But there some interesting things I didn’t know about these custom Vettes and how they are made.
I spoke with Jim at length and I have to tell you that how I thought these were made wasn’t even close and how they are made was pretty surprising to me. Jim set me straight.
Great Creation
These are of course C6 machines with the look of the 60’s Vettes. All the great handling and power of the C6 underpinning and classic looks. I thought ‘how cool they manufacture a body that snaps on the C6 frame. But that’s not how it’s done.
