FrontEngineDragsters.Org Forum
Social => Your Builds / Photo Gallery => Topic started by: Supercat on July 08, 2013, 11:16:50 AM
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Finally had a few minutes to stop and join this site. A quick bit on me I'm 45. I have been racing for over 30 years from door cars to top fuel. I own a restoration shop and have for too many years. A few years ago I had the opportunity to buy a Fastech 200" FED and so the faster bug finally bit me. My wife and I race as a team which has just made running our FED that much better.
We are an odd team in that I grew up racing Buicks and that has spilled over to the FED. We started the build and ran for a few years with an injected Buick Nailhead. Then a long winter and a blown fuel Nailhead ended up in the car. This past week we put in our Buick 462 cast iron block to go have some fun. We are using a 4 port Hilborn and methanol for the fuel. We are waiting for a few last parts for our aluminum Buick 445cu.in. fuel engine to be finished. Because no one has done it we are giving it a shot.
Below are 3 shots of the evolution of the dragster we call the SUPERCAT
John
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I like alot, Moon
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john,
I still say the nailhead belongs in an older chassis. ;D ;D
john
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I like it a lot, we have Buick, Pontiac, now we need a Olds!
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john,
I still say the nailhead belongs in an older chassis. ;D ;D
john
Very cool but yes it would look real bad ass in a 140" chassis!
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John and Paul as of right now the injected Nailhead is in my wife's 1971 RED I'll post some shots of that at some point.
I do have a mid 60s 145" 3 bar FED with Mag body would that be better ;D for the Nailhead.
We also have a brand new 160" FED chassis on the rack.
The Supercat FED is going to run in top fuel as the first/current Buick in the class. I am motivated by the people that said it can't be done....I just smile and say "Thanks for the inspiration"
Thanks folks for the compliments on the car
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John and Paul as of right now the injected Nailhead is in my wife's 1971 RED I'll post some shots of that at some point.
I do have a mid 60s 145" 3 bar FED with Mag body would that be better ;D for the Nailhead.
We also have a brand new 160" FED chassis on the rack.
The Supercat FED is going to run in top fuel as the first/current Buick in the class. I am motivated by the people that said it can't be done....I just smile and say "Thanks for the inspiration"
Thanks folks for the compliments on the car
Supercat, not kidding, you seem like a well prepared man. Nice car.
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Ricardo thanks on the car. We like to be prepared it's a long drive to the tracks from here ;D
I will start building the Zoomies this weekend for the engine that is in the car now(last picture). I was going to use the headers but it just doesn't look right.
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"...I will start building the Zoomies this weekend for the engine that is in the car now (last picture). I was going to use the headers but it just doesn't look right..."
Supercat, I like your style!
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john, aka supercat, picked up my fed and brought it out from cali 2 yrs ago. can't thank him enough and tease him too. ;D
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Johnny I'll be going by your way in a few weeks. I have to drop off another little dragster up your way. I'll pick it up at the NHRA museum soon and then head north.
I'll give you a shout when I know my schedule.
I talked with one of the ANRA regulars today and he said our car should not have any problem running in NE1. He personally has 3-4 cars in the class at any one time. :o
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let me know when
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And I thought I was the only one who carried his dragster in the back of his pick up.
Don
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And I thought I was the only one who carried his dragster in the back of his pick up.
Don
I was wondering how long it would take for you to see this
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he had mine on the roof of his truck. lol
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Only the short part of the trip Cali to AZ it was on the truck and in good company I might add. One of Roo's top fuel cars was sitting next to it. The rest of the trip it was in the front of my big Haulmark trailer.
Here are a few shots of Johnny's FED on the truck ;D
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Hey FYI. Heres the link for the WandC car that Steve repoped.
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=595703
bcnu
LZ
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Quick update..
We are a little behind due to our house being on the market and all the fun with that scenario.
We received the Race-Pak and are in the process of installing that.
I will be machining a Mag base soon for the 462.
All the measuring is done for the zoomies so I will get going on that this week.
I made the new dash so we now have a tach, fuel psi, oil gauges.
Glen had a loaner fuel pump drive so I will get that installed as soon as it arrives. Thanks Glen.
I will post some pictures soon as we should be working on the car this weekend.
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Here are a few pictures of where we are with the engine updates.
I will post some info when I have more time.
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I Like!
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I got the zoomies done finally on the Supercat... I got the tubes bent to what I needed by Ted's Fabrication (225 digger on this forum).
This weekend we will try to get the drive-line finished and adjust all the cables.
I'll post more as I go.
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We drove to Las Vegas last Saturday and got the Chassis certed to 6.0. I was told it would pass top fuel with the addition of 1 horizontal bar so we were quiet happy. We then drove to Bakersfield for testing on Sunday. Well we had a great time Sunday at Bakersfield... This was the first time we had all worked together as a team and we thought it went very well.
We fired the car up in the pits and got a lot of peoples attention. We fueled the car and set the timing at 32 locked to be easy on it the first pass. This car also uses a 4 port mechanical fuel injection system. We looked at what we had and came up with a tune for the fuel.
The first pass into the unknown was to be an easy one. Launch soft and accelerate down the track (like getting up on the highway) to make sure all was well with the driveline. We have a GoPro video (that was mounted on the front axle facing back) which came out great. We also had one of my sons filming also and that came out great. We made a good pass, as in no leaks, no questionable noises, car went straight and pulled about three G,s on the race pack all the way down.
8.2 @ 166 not to shabby ;D
Next pass leaned out the fuel a little to bring up the power.......... and
Blew the tires off going in to second. Looked all over the track on that pass.
3rd pass was 15 minutes after the second packed the chute, fueled up and into the lanes as they closed.
3rd pass blew the tires at about 300-400 feet out, staightened out got back into it and made a decent pass to close out the day.
I'll post pictures and video links after we convert the video
Here is a link to the first pass
http://s293.photobucket.com/user/JESUPERCAT/media/firstpass11032013.mp4.html
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Looked good on first pass. And you have a good looking dragster.
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Thanks Jeff we try to look the part ;D..
I put up the rest of the videos. I only set the barrel valve by sound/response and that was on the rich side for sure. The timing was at 32 degrees which is also on the easy side of things. Next time out we will turn up the wick a bunch. Our RacePak was also having some issues, no rpm and no record at times. That is going to Racepak next week when they are done with sema and the finals in Pamona.
Thanks again for the positive comments.
<embed width="600" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" wmode="transparent" src="http://static.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid293.photobucket.com/albums/mm56/JESUPERCAT/3rdpassburnfull110313.mp4">
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A lot has gone on since the last post on the build. We moved to Florida just east of Orlando. I have been working 6 days a week since we got here, so not much time for the Fed. We switched to a mag along with a few other things.
Today we finished "all" the work on the car and even prepped the raw chassis so it won't rust down here.
Last week we ran it for the first time at sea level. It sounded a little soft so this week we researched a new fuel tune and set it up.
The car is ready to go in the trailer and head to the track. We are going on Sunday morning if the weather is on our side. Saturday we will go if my morning work load is mellow.
Here is a shot of the car in the shop and ready to go
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Heading up to National trail raceway in Ohio in a few hours to run the Cat at a National Buick event. Looking forward to running the car for a few days with friends.
We will be one of the faster cars there so we are really looking forward to it ;)
I'll post results when I get a chance.
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Somewhere I had a pic of my rail in the pickup before I built the trailer but cant find it now. There used to be some on the net too. Even with the six carb set up. Doesn't matter anyway. I liked the rear engine deal.
Enjoy the pics of everything. thanks
don
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Somewhere I had a pic of my rail in the pickup before I built the trailer but cant find it now. There used to be some on the net too. Even with the six carb set up. Doesn't matter anyway. I liked the rear engine deal.
Enjoy the pics of everything. thanks
don
I saw that over on the HAMB. I have not figured out the new format on that forum since they updated it.
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Here are 2 videos from up in Ohio a few weeks ago.
http://youtu.be/veXqOsnvXww
http://youtu.be/c_fqpJlgCa0
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Few updates since the last post.
We spent some time on the dyno to discover some converter issues. New one is on the way......
We ran a good pass on the dyno. found we do not have enough pump on the car. We have the new one going in over the next few weeks. Trans and engine are being gone through also getting ready to go to Bowling Green next month.
First run in Orlando 93F and 88% Humidity GoPro
http://s293.photobucket.com/user/JESUPERCAT/media/orlandorun1.mp4.html?o=0
Second pass GoPro
http://s293.photobucket.com/user/JESUPERCAT/media/orlandorun2.mp4.html?sort=3&o=1
Second pass camera
http://s293.photobucket.com/user/JESUPERCAT/media/orlandorun2line.mp4.html?sort=3&o=2
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Nice! Very consistent.
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Thanks it is consistent. Like most I just wish it was consistently quicker/faster ;D.
The Supercat is going in to our shop tomorrow for some maintenance.
We are pulling the trans to freshen up at JW's . We have the new converter and we will add that to the mix.. We are ordering new Hoosiers on Monday and will mount them on wheels 1" wider than the ones on there now. I also want to check the balance on the front wheels. We are adding an RPM data logger to the car also next week. I need to build a tin box to put the computer and small battery in so the Mag stops playing havoc with the signals........
We are heading to Bowling Green next month for a National Buick race so we need to spiff up the Cat a bit
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Finally an update........
This engine mock up is finally in the works.
The heads on the engine are similar to the heads on the right in the second picture.
The head on the left is one of our new heads that our friend Ken and I have been designing for a few years.
They are done and so are the Jesel custom rockers.
I'll post more updates soon.
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The heads
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More
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:)
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All I can say is impressive work I always wanted to build my own set of heads (even though I run a SBC)! I ended up buying a used set of AJPE billets to get what I wanted to build. I'm just not competent enough with the mill!
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are those heads for a nail head buick if so very nice the best of luck
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Paul we did most of the running around on the design work.
We digitally merged all our ideas and most of the wants into a final program.
Then a shop in Texas ran the program and now we have some nice heads. It was easy......Not...
We do like the final result though.
These heads are for the Buick 455 style blocks. One of our blocks will be 477 cu.in and the other is around 600 cu. In.