Dragfreak

Some may remember my post a while back about when I finally was able to afford a 1971 vega panel express tube chassis drag car. From there, I continued to work and save to buy things like a distributor, waterpump, oil pan, little nickle and dime things I needed before I could drop the small block chevy my dad helped me put together in the car. It took us two weeks to get it running and driving in the race car. It's nothing special, just a 357 out of a 360 sprint car, it has iron heads, 12:1 compression, and makes about 600 to the flex plate, it's backed up to a TCI super street fighter turbo 350 and 3500 stall continental converter. By the time I got my car together, there was only 3 races left in the season. By the last race after some fine tuning and hiccups that slowed us down, I was racing in the high school class running 11.20's at 120 mph against kids in their Hondas or mom and dads Jeep Liberty running 17's at 80 mph. Bracket racing against a car 6 seconds or so slower than you is a learning curve especially when you're running them down and meeting them around the finish line moving 40 miles per hour faster! I ended up going going rounds and winning the whole event my third race out in a brand new car running low 11's! To top it off, I cut a perfect light ( reaction time of .000 ) and my worst reaction time of the night was .054. I'm rather proud of myself having not drag raced in two years and only making a total of 9 passes in the car total before that race. Being successful in the car after all the hard work I put in to buy the car and everything else I needed to get it back on the track after sitting for 3 years, really feels good. The car still has some issues, mainly the engine has a really weak bottom end so its a ticking time bomb, I need new slicks, and a higher stalling converter. My goal for the winter is to buy a short block and throw a bigger solid roller cam in it, put my heads, intake, and carb on it, and have a bullet proof motor to get me in the 10's. I really have to give a big thanks to my dad, he has been here helping me along every step of the way, if it wasn't for him getting me hooked up with a friend who has some parts I need for cheap and even being there standing behind the car every pass I make I wouldn't be here right now talking about this. Anyways, here's some pictures of the car (Click on the pictures to make them bigger)

Fantastic!

Very nice!

Thanks again every body! I appreciate the compliments! They are from scale dreams right before they closed up, I absolutely loved this wire because it was a much better deal than detail master and much more realistic to me.

Thanks Russ, my original plan for the build was to steer away from the traditional building of this kit by changing the wheels and body color so it is indeed sort of a my way build

Loving the color

Thanks Mike!

Thanks again! With or without the decal it turned out nice, but that decal just sticks out like a sore thumb every time i look at it. All I did was sand the slick surface with a fine sanding stick and lightly waxed the sidewall with some meguiars cleaner wax

Thank you for all of the compliments! the paint is testors one coat lacquer inca gold, with it I used the wet look clear.

Almost a year and a half ago I started this build. After clearing the paint and decals, I realized the Accel decal is totally wrong for the era. From there I boxed the build for about a year. I recently pulled it back out and told myself regardless of how stupid it looks, it has to be finished. The 426 has ignition wiring and fuel plumbing from the tank to the hilborn injector and the steelies are from the parts box, other than that it's box stock. Try not to mind the silver paint that magically appeared on the radiator or the crooked front wheel in the last picture So here it is,

Picked these three thunderbolts up for $30, all are 100% complete and the street rod one is still bagged

Nice paintwork, it really looks good!

Oh yes, this thing has been sucking my wallet dry already, last Friday I spent $411 on the distributor and waterpump, it only took me 3 weeks to earn that money at $10 an hour doing yard work.

The engine transplant is complete and here's the first start up!! a lot of hours and hard work went into getting to this point. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmIrWOBS4Ho

She's a beauty!

Not in the poll, but Fuel by Metallica is hands down my favorite, I suppose I'm a strange teenager by not being interested in "rap."

While at practice fed ex showed up nice and late with my distributor and 3 speed B&M shift gate for the pro stick ( the car had a power glide in it previously so it had the wrong shift gate).

Got the electric waterpump for my dragcar, the MSD distributor is on it's way and then It's time to get her started!

I am loving how this is turning out, it makes me want to go pick up the new drag version!

It must be a relief finally finishing this project! it was very enjoyable watching it come together. Nice work Fred!

Very nice progress Niko, you"re really going all in with this one, I'll be closely watching as I want to do this with another '71 cuda I have laying around.

Top notch as always Ron!

Looks fantastic Stan, definitely a show stopping model!

As far as I know that's what NHRA allows for cars that need it, most pro mod bodies are cast with the front end extended and the top layed back kicking out the bottom, here's another photo of the "fin." Also the '57 you can see the nose tilted back with the bottom kicked out to somewhat extend the nose

Simply incredible Tyrone, I strive to one day build something as clean and detailed as your builds