smhardesty

Make sure you build it level or nose down. Otherwise the engine runs backwards, makes the car hopscotch down the track, then flip up on it's back and spin like a turtle. ?

Well, Bill. I have to say I'm a little dumbfounded. I'm just stupefied. You have as much as said that your point of view is the only one that counts and only you are right and you are never wrong. On an open forum you have stated that 14 car owners don't own the gassers they say they are. You stated that the black Willys and the maroon '37 Chevy (not Chebby. I quit such nonsensical language in grade school) couldn't be real race cars because they are on street tires. Were you not aware that many gasser type cars served dual purpose, especially in the 50s and 60s, but even yet today? Street tires don't disqualify a car from being a drag car. You have continued to claim that it is completely and entirely impossible for a car with an elevated nose to race. You also allude to the fact you were there when all these period race cars were at the strips all across the country. If you were there in the 50s and 60s you would have seen cars just like the ones in the photos making their passes down drag strips across the country and not flipping over on their backs like turtles. The George Klass site is indeed a fine website for some research. It is not however, a one stop, Gospel of drag racing or even gassers. There are a great many sites on the 'Net that can contribute to your knowledge. Try checking a few more out. Sorry to see that you chose to attack and vilify Mike Bumbeck, Hagerty, and Hot Rod. If you don't mind I believe I'll choose to believe those accredited sources over your quite opinionated one. You state that Bumbeck is a "noob" simply parroting misinformation. Could you identify his sources so I won't read and believe them anymore? As for the Hot Rod article, you might have misunderstood it being about only "tribute and themed cars". Slow down and re-read paragraph 5. It specifically states, "Gathered here are 13 tasty gassers. They range from restored originals to recent recreations and tributes. Some are spot-on correct right down to their bias-ply cheater slicks while others take liberties with the theme and blend in a heap of modern amenities." Very specific in that it states some are restored originals, just like you seem to prefer. It's extremely difficult to completely disregard any information gleaned from an article due to your not understanding what the author was referring to with the 111/42 inches comment or because there was an unfortunate typo. Mistakes do happen when publishing written documents. Together the two attacks on otherwise sound technical sources seem like maybe you skimmed over the articles and picked out pieces, or possibly had trouble comprehending what the author was stating. One thing I've never done is completely discard a well written technical document of any kind simply because I disagreed with one sentence or one paragraph. In 30 years of the computing industry I read an awful lot of tech manuals, found mistakes in many, disagreed with a few, and learned from every one. My experience with those manuals began in the early 70s while teaching myself first COBOL, then FORTRAN for use on IBM mainframes. Finally you state that the cars in the video are the "real deal", thus implying that a car with a nose high stance isn't a real race car. I can provide an estimated 150 or more photos of cars that have a nose high stance. That doesn't prove or even imply that all gassers were nose high. It doesn't even imply that MOST of the cars were nose high. It just proves that the cars did exist, they were there in the 50s and 60s, they are still here today, and history can not be changed by the will of a single individual. Meanwhile, here are 8 more photos. The first is from George Klass' site. The source of the rest SHOULD be easily identifiable. I fully expect to hear how these guys are doing it wrong, or they aren't real drag racers, or something similar, but here they are none-the-less. To the best of my knowledge after looking over the websites I retrieved these from, none flipped over on their backs.

OK. I stand corrected and offer apologies. As for mechanical advantage, yes. Once the center of gravity is raised by raising the nose, the weight transfer to the rear wheels is much quicker and more of the weight gets transferred. Here are a couple of quotes and links to the actual article regarding the "nose high" stance. If you do a search for "nose high stance gasser" you can find several other articles discussing the typical nose high stance of gassers. "The gasser look and stance – nose-high, the better to transfer weight to the rear wheels for traction" https://www.hagerty.com/articles-videos/articles/2016/11/16/gassers-rule-the-strip-and-street "To many hot rodders, young and old, there’s just nothing as cool as a gasser. The nose-high stance and brutal simplicity take us all back nearly a half-century to a time when amateur drag racers ruled." https://www.hotrod.com/articles/hrdp-0606-traditional-gasser-hot-rod-cars/ .

I don't know if it's "too high" or not, but it definitely is what I would call "nose high". It's what most guys think of when the term gasser is thrown out. .

The vehicles I posted photos of are NOT street freaks. Every car in the photos is a legitimate gasser. I'm fully aware of the 24" crankshaft center line rule - NOT the engine, but the crank centerline. If you will look closely at each of the photos, the cars either have their gasser class posted clearly on the car, or they are otherwise obviously drag racing cars. I took every photo off the web from a gasser site. I'm not sure why there is so much resistance to the fact that there were, and are, gassers that raced that had a "nose high" stance. These photos are pretty plain and obvious to that fact. And yes, I'm fully aware of the George Klass website. One of my photos came from his site. Regardless of the number of photos you post showing a gasser that is either level or lower in the nose, the fact remains that cars with their noses to the sky existed in the 50s and continue to this day. .

I thought I'd post up just a few of the dozens and dozens of photos of gassers with their noses to the sky that I have on my hard drive. Recently Scott (Oldmopars) had asked for assistance with understanding the rules for gassers and also general help with his build. I'm afraid he might be slightly mislead regarding the stance of gassers. After getting some advice from forum members he went out of his way to be certain the front of his build was lower that the rear. There seems to be some differing of opinions on the stance of gassers. I'm thinking that Scott, and others, might get the wrong idea about what is and isn't acceptable regarding the stance. So here are 15 of the many dozens of photos I have of gassers with what most would consider a "nose to the sky" stance. Most of these cars have their gasser class designation on the car and it's easy to see that the ones that don't are actual racing cars and not show cars. None of these photos depict a car launching on the strip as all are at rest. This is NOT to say that a gasser must have a stance similar to these. It only illustrates that "nose high" stances are very common on gasser class vehicles. .

I'm afraid you're going to meet with some resistance to that way of thinking, Ed. The forum seems to generally reject the idea that there were a great many gassers and other drag cars that were built with the "nose to the sky" stance. I'm not sure why that seems to be the general consensus, but it sure looks like it is. I have dozens of photos of gassers with the "nose to the sky" stance. I also have distinct recollections of a great many cars with noses up from several drag strips in Southern Illinois, Southern Indiana, and Texas from "back in the day". I wouldn't claim that all, or even most, gassers or other cars were that way, but there sure were a good number of them. There were several such cars at Little River Dragway near Temple, TX and also present when we raced at the railhead on Ft. Hood in the 70s. I know that Little River is an IHRA track now and I believe it was in the mid to late 70s when I was there. The IHRA has a "Match Race" and "Exhibition Vehicles" class so this could possibly be where all the "nose to the sky" gassers run. The reason for the peculiar stance of these cars was a result of the lack of a good racing tire (slick) when gassers got their start. The tires were made with a very hard rubber compound that was exceptionally prone to spinning on the hard, smooth surface of a drag strip. Race teams figured out that by raising the front of the car they changed the center of gravity of the car which allowed for the weight on the nose to be transferred to the rear wheels very quickly, thus giving them a much improved launch. Even after tire technology caught up and began providing softer compounds racers knew that they could still benefit from the fast weight transfer to the rear wheels. Yep. I applaud your effort, but I'm afraid you'll meet with some differing of opinions. .

I do the same thing. I'd like my builds to be as close to realistic as I can make them. My real point was for you not to get TOO caught up in whether your build is a C/G or a D/G. You can drive yourself nuts trying to be that exact. Like Bill said, posting a non-supercharged class designation in the window of a car with a big, old blower and hat sticking through the hood is an obvious mistake you'd want to avoid. As for nose to the sky stances being "wrong", well that's not entirely true. Exceptions to the norm - yes, but they can't be labeled as wrong. Once again, as Bill has already stated, you'll find photos of gassers from all periods that seem to somehow openly deny conforming to the 24" rule. There has to be something we're missing by only viewing the photos and not knowing all the facts about that car. Build your car the way you think it should be. This is a hobby and should be fun. Don't turn it into a job or a school project that is to be "graded".

My wife has never seen it either, and I won't be changing that. I can do pretty much what I want, but I've learned not to expect too much companionship on some of my treks.

Let me ask you something, Scott. Do you intend to enter this build in a contest/show somewhere where the rules state all details on the build must be correct or be disqualified? If not, why not relax a little and just get somewhere close on your class designation? There are a lot of unknowns in the scale world that wouldn't be on a 1:1 car. For instance and as stated previously, the car might be stripped of every once of weight legally possible, plus a few illegal pounds, OR as Muncie stated, the car might have had some weight added to push it into the next lower class, especially if it was close to the weight break but the motor was a bit weak for whatever reason. As for finding "errors" in photos and drawings, there is too much unknown to be sure they are errors. The "Anatomy of a Gasser" is an artist's rendering for "Street Rodder" magazine. Maybe the artist just didn't know, or maybe it just slipped by him. And street rods don't necessarily depict an NHRA race car. Try this. Do an image search for "41 Willys gasser" in your search engine of choice. Then just browse through all the images noting the different class designations. Same car photo to photo, but you'll find lots of different classes. Choose the year you want your car to depict, look at the rules for that year, locate the weight of your car on the 'Net, divide by the cubes, decide if your engine will be supercharged or not, then use the class designation from the table in the rulebook.

Nope, don't know her. Her voice does kind of wear on a guy though. Kind of a nasal whine.

There are a few advantages to living in a really small, podunk type city. Not many, but that's certainly one. Never a traffic jam.

Once I get it here and do a full inventory it'll probably be a trader. I do have 2 already. This one was an open box. There was a photo of all the sprues and plastic bags laid out. It sure looked complete, but those photos aren't real big. I don't want to offer it or make a trade commitment until I'm sure it's all there.

Dang. Here I go again. Who the devil is SHE? Must be from some TV show and not movies, or at least not the type of movies I watch. I don't recognize the name at all.

OK. Call me stupid, or at least uninformed. Who is she? Other than movies and live sports I just don't watch TV.

Yeah, I do that for several announcers. Hawk was one, but he's not really around anymore. I have to admit that I much preferred Jack Buck or Vin Scully. It's the "analyst" position that gets to me and that's especially true of football announcers.

I'm sitting here watching and trying to enjoy the Braves & Dodgers game. I realized there is just no way I'll be able to enjoy it so I muted the sound and I'll just watch. The ridiculous chant the crowd does, over and over, while they swing their foam "hatchets" in the air is just mind-numbing. Yep. I definitely have a new most annoying sound. This even outdoes fingernails on a blackboard.

Just picked up some trading material. I've got to check, but I believe I have two of these already. I know I've got at least one of them. I got this one pretty darned cheap so it might be used to trade. .

Fotki .

Yep. Exactly Bill. .

I didn't think anybody even messed with PhotoBucket any more. After the problems they have exhibited in the past I'd find it more than just a little difficult to trust them enough to do business with. How many times do you let a rabid dog bite you? .

Slight disagreement, Mike. Class designation for a gasser would never indicate whether a small block or big block was used. It would depend on the weight of the vehicle and the cubic inch displacement of the engine, not whether it was a small or big block. Here are the rules for 1958 and for 1968. Gasser class rules changed pretty regularly through the years. You first need to decide what era/year you want you car to be, then check the rules for that year.

An early attempt at air conditioning, of sorts. Billed as a "fresh air supply".

I'll have to be very careful in answering your question. It would be VERY easy to cross a line when discussing the new "Code of Conduct". First, even if certain developers did attempt to cripple the kernel it wouldn't take long for things to get ironed out in at least some circles. I don't think any one person, or any one sub-group of people would ever be able to "kill" future kernel development. Yeah, things might be a bit touchy for a while and kernel updates might be slow in coming, but I don't think it's possible to kill Linux (but if they did, I'd sell my computers). As for the whole SJW movement and it's appearance in Linux circles, I hate it. I hate politically correct mandates in general. In the simplest form, I always use this analogy: It's my store. Why should you tell me who to hire and who to serve? But I'm also one of those guys that would hire the best qualified individual regardless of gender, race, religion, etc, etc. I think we have a society of people that get their feelings hurt too easily as well as one that goes WAY overboard to resolve a conflict. Whatever happened to saying you're sorry, shaking hands, and moving on? I realize this will probably get whacked, but I'm not intending for any individual to be offended. Just stating an opinion.

Yep. Much too late. They're closing the barn door after the horse done left. If you're Unix literate, we've got to do something about all those Windows machines. Start with the Win98 SE machine. Wipe the drive, then install Linux Lite. That will turn that machine into a once again fully useable box. It'll do twice the work in half the time, be virus proof, for all practical purposes, and allow you to make further use of a PC that M$ has made obsolete.