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Jerry Wilson would take a Holley 4bbl Dominater carb. cut it in half, weld a plate on the 2 halves and we would have a Dominater to run on the Modifieds. Everbody thought that was one of the speed secrets that mad Mike and Gene See so fast. Mike's engine had a miss that we could not get rid of, one night we put a 500cfm holley carb. on at Dewey and he ran better so we tried it the next night at Tulsa and it was better than the Dominater that was cut in half. Several people wre bugging Norman to sell them a Dominater. He would not sell them,but would trade them for a newHolley 500 or 650 2bbl. We would run the 500 on short tracks and put the 650 on for Tulsa and they were better than the Dominater ever was. I guess ever body was happy the other racers got one of Norman's speed secrets and he got brand new holley carbs. for the secrets that didn't work.

Ray

I LOVE stories like these! See when you guys won as much as you did, others thought you were rich, cheating, or both and had paid off the officials in some way to get an easy win.

So, when you finally gave them one of those inside trick parts(re:carb cut in half, special torsion bars etc), they were actually happy to have a little less(in some cases) than what they already had to begin with, if they didn't know any better! Once you get inside of this 'niche', the momentum just builds until it runs out, "they get slower and more confident, you get faster in relation to them."

Proves once again, 'A huge part of winning races comes BEFORE a lap is even turned.'

Tech question again here--

I just picked up a basic, rebuilt 327, early 60's model with small journal crank and what was said an RV Cam fro 'street use'. These guys I bought it from are trustworthy.

I'm looking at running this at 6k rpms. What do I need to do to get this thing to live for a total of say, 75 laps?.........valve retainers, guide plates, ARP rodbolts etc?

Brian,

We built some of the first SS/BB motors using this crank, the SJ steel crank is a good steel forging, big thing to watch is if it has been turned make sure they left a radius on the main & rod journals, if they have you should be ok, we turned these cranks 7800/8000 and never broke one, the BJ 327 steel crank is a differant story they were the lighest SB chey crank made and don't have as good of steel and the throw arms are really cut down over what the SJ crank is. If you have the good 327 clover pad rods then just some good bolts should surfice, unless you hang a slug on the end for a piston. I have built one of these 1 time for the #01 Jelly car and I used the stock crank,rods a TRW piston with a set of 492 straight plug heads with the stock 1.94 IN&1.60 EX with stock GM 302 Hi-Perf springs and a flat tappet cam and turned it 72/7500 with no problem. Make sure you use a good oiling system. Hell this was one of the basic combo's back in the day it ought to run all day at 6000 much less 75 laps!!!!

Bkcr,

Man you guys could have fooled me because I thought that was one of your secrets, Jarvis & I tried to run the chevy's at that big Tulsa track and we didn't have much luck durability wise, we never had the power you guys had. Only 6cyl chevy that we ran there that lasted more then a couple nights and could run close was the motor out of Gary Coles #35, that thing was a hoss compared to any others that Jarvis & I ran, I just found out from Gary in these post awhile back that Louis Boyd had built it. We had Nix,Jenks,Richardson & Rice build us 6 bangers but none were even close to Garys motor!!!! We did put a 650 on a couple of our motors but I don't remember it making them run any faster. Funny thing we built a 6cyl one time out of a bunch of scraps we had and the pistons liked about a 1/8" from coming to the top of the deck but we wanted to race bad so we put it together anyway and ran it a few weeks and it didn't do half bad.

What is something is remembering some of the guys who use to hang stuff on their car in the motor area and use it as a diversion to keep you from really looking at what they were really trying to do, like dzus a can on the dash (Motor Side) and keep a red rag in it in case of emergency if needed on a red flag or ?, but it sure would make people wonder and ask what was the function of the can.

David and Luther, what is your opin about lugging an engine and turning to many rpms, which is harder on the engine? Like I said earlier Mike ran any wher frm 10-40 pts higher gear than Gene did and Mike blew 8 engines and Gene 2.

Ray

At Tulsa you had to run the Ford "240" 6 cyl. to be competitve in the modifed class. The limit for the class was 260 cubic inches. JerryWilson would bore the 240 .060 and it came out to 256-259 inches. we were protested several times and always came out below the limit but never the same, it vareied every time, the sizes that I rember are 256.3, 258.6 257.2 and 259.7, that was close. I guess the puffer was that in-accurate. We never did run the 300 inch six with the modifieds, it even sounded different. Jerry was the only builder to be able to take the 240 to .060. When everbody else tried that they split the cylinder walls. One night at Tulsa when Mike Was protested Hershel Thompson's engine builder was the tech rep that was sent down to puff the engine. Norman lost his top and told them to get somebody else to do it, Not our chief competitor's engine builder. The OCRA saw the wisdom of this request and had somebody else do it. I don't know that much about the ford 6 cyl engines but for some reason it had to be the 240 not the Ford 250 engine. Don Engel would have won the championship on the old track in 1973 and the new track in 1974 if he had ran a Ford. He must have blown 20-30 engines those two years. If he finished , he won. Our engines were not special, Jerry would build the same for any body that would pay him. I heard that some of the other racers were afraid that they would not get the same engines that Norman did, that was a bunch of bull because when we ran low of engines and Jerry didn't have one ready, Norman would buy any used Wilson engine that he could find.

Ray

Bkcr,

In general I perfered and still prefer to twist them up, however both idea's work mainly just depends on the combination. When MP drove for the Old Man if we ran a SS/BB motor we were low in the box, usually 30-50 pts lower then everybody else, if we had a std package in we ran about the same gears as everybody else.

In '85 we won an A-FEA. at OKC and the tach was sitting on 9300 which in those days was aload, I think Pete or TA said something to Carbone about it because he called on Monday wanting to know if it was true. Later on a couple of guys heard we were running 6:13/6:28 at OKC which we did with the SS/BB combo, they tried to run that with there 9/16th motors and run over there cranks or broke the mains out of there blocks, hey we broke a load of main caps ourselves until we bought the Bow-Tie blocks and had Donovan caps put on in place of the stock caps, what alot of people didn't realize is the stock cap was pretty decent until you detonated the mix then broke the main or broke the crank.

I bought a HTC Crank from Carbone that had a small crack in the oil hole on the #3 rod throw for $200.00, he had taken it out of 1 of Offixco's motors. I ground that crack out and took it to Parker's and had it x-rayed to make sure I got it all then sent it to CSC who welded it up and Hard Chromed it. When we got it back we had about $650.00 in it, we never had a problem with it and won several races with it. At Whicita Pete was doing a little moaning about how legal our motor might be, well Carbone shut him up telling him I did the block (which he did) and I've seen the crank and if you knew where it came from you would drop it!!!!

As far as puffing goes man we've had motors that were right on the limit puff small and some that were small puff right on the limit, At '81 SPDY Samuel was driving the Tony Bruce SR Stanton car an they were big on the puffer, poor Tony didn't know what to do and unforunately for them we had our 342 in motor in and it puffed 345, I believe BE puffed 358 on his 9/16th motor and the other motors all puffed legal so Samuel was DQ'd, personnally it was a raw deal 2 inches didn't beat us we had the wrong tire on the RR, I'm sure BE felt the same also it was a good race right up to the end Samuel just won.

In '83 we won at Lawton and Lanny puffed the top 5 BE, won they messed around for a long time before they puffed his motor letting it cool, Stan ran 2nd and he had a similar pkg to BE, we had a std 350 motor 30 over and it puffed 359.6, Stans and BE's 9/16th motors puffed 353 & 355 respectively. If a motor didn't puff 10-15 over I wouldn't sweat it!!!!!

I to have ran into that inspector at Tulsa, NO!!!! offense to you Tulsa guys but I was always leary of engine tech at Tulsa, man you guys didn't like any outsiders beating you, that's what made our rivilries so much fun as I'm sure you didn't trust our tech guys either and I wouldn't blame you because there has only been a few in OKC that I FELT LIKE I COULD TRUST!!!!! I had a tech guy at Tulsa on the #10 tell Carbone what piston # was on top of the piston and that we had 292 mondello's on and they looked ported to the max, had that same inspector tell Carbone 3 weeks later after looking at the motor that it had the same # pistons but had a nice set of Brownfields on it know. That crap really pissed me off!!!!!!!!

Ray,..No 1, I do not want to lug the engine. I liked to run it high enough rpms's that it ran free and easy. If you are going to run the top half of the rpm range, make sure you have enough clearence on the rod & main bearings. Blowing engines can (& likely is) be not enough bearing clearence. I also had one crank chromed & it served very well; but I know it had the proper clearence. If you turn it to high rpms & have proper clearance, it only levels off on the power curve.

I think the above relates to tacky or dry slick tracks. A tacky track will hurt an engine if it is geared to high (low rpms). I was using Corvette short blocks in the early 60s & was taking the new crank out & having it turned to .010 under plus the clearance I wanted. One well known racer in KC told me no need. Just put it & run it. I spun bearings in the next 2 engines. I never done that again. Jerry Blundy told me he would have the crank polished on any new Corvette sb & keep the standard bearing with no prohlems. Chevrolet was known for spun bearings in the early 60s. The local banker bought a new Chev station wagon & even spun a bearing in it. Of course, I knew what was happening.

I took the parts from the 2 short blocks with spun bearings to Chet Wilson in the winter of 65/66 & had him make me an assembly which was the first engine I put in the T Coupe car. It ran very good & was the engine in the car when I sold. It won the 67 Knoxville Nationals.

Answer,...I like a loose engine running higher rpms & the driver can't hurt it. Only top out on the power curve & he will ask for a higher hear if he feels that......Luther

  Luther i had a talk with Al Weiland about this same thing ,he said to tell when you get to much clearance is when the driver tells you that if he gets out of the gas in the turns the Oil Pressure will drop,,and the light comes on. That is with a big block pump.

  They took a set of bearings out of a 400 small block after a full season,Al looked at them and said put them back in . But he said if you run this motor more than 20 nights your Oil Presure will start droping in the turns at low Rpm. Rodney the guy with the motor said at the end of the next year the pressure started to drop on him in the turns when he would shut the car down to turn the car to come off the bottom of turn 4.

  What you said here is word for word what Al said about the right bearing clearances.  This is  one of the most important Blogs about engine building i have read on here ,,,everybody should read what you have wrote hear and take it to heart.

Win as if you are use to it.And lose as if you enjoyed 
it for a change.Its hard to get to the top and alot 
harder to stay there.

Luther,

I also agree on those clearances, very important. When we were buying the 302 Z-28 short blocks we followed a very similar path, we took them apart had the crank turned low 10 then reassemblied them, we tried to shoot for .0035/.004 on the mains & rods. The motor you won knoxville with was it a 327 bored and stroked, did you run a roller cam or FT, what size injectors?

I bought an original 327 SJ motor all std. just last year had 67,000 miles on it, I'm going to build it back some day for a restoration, I've told Kim Parson if he could ever get his dad's orginial 4-bar car together I would build it back as a 301 like was in that car.

DGM i agree with you 100% on your statement on the Tulsa guys not liking to get beat buy outsiders. You are not the first one to feel that way.

In 1960 and 61 Al Weiland went there with Jack Belk and beat them pretty handedly,if it werent for broken axles Belk won all the races there except for a few , and in 1966 Al went there with Ron Fowler.Ron beat them because when he got in that high grove out front they could not pass him. That goes back to something Luther was saying about high RPMs and the right clearance.Als cars were always good at high RPM and high speed which made them very tuff in the High Grove.

There are alot of good sportsman in Tulsa but there are some there that didnt take getting beat by outsiders very well. I remember alot of things that were said.They really didnt like getting beat if they could not figure out why, Your right it made for some great rivilries.And it added to the fun for some of them.I even remember things being said about Harold Leep in 69 when he put a woppin on them, but that was a Tulsa own car,some off the local bad mounthed the owner because he went with an outsider.And there were things said about Belk and Shoddox in 71 when they were leading there.. that of corse after Howerton left who would have won that year.I believe he went o USAC....Them were some great days in Racing.

Win as if you are use to it.And lose as if you enjoyed 
it for a change.Its hard to get to the top and alot 
harder to stay there.

Luther, I think that you were there when Mike blew the engines in the 71. Most of the time it was a very tacky track in the heat races, coming off turn 2 or 4 and he was geared higher than our other cars.

David you are right about the Ocra inspecter, I was in a funny positon, I lived in Tulsa but helped with cars that were from Kansas. No mater how many times that we were protested or denied it some the other racers were sure that we were cheating. The only thing that was illegal on Norman's cars was that the right front brake was blocked off. Iknow of one of our competiters car that ran a direct drive from the crank, with only high gear in the transmission, he would put it in gear hit the starter it would take off and the engine would start. I didn't see the need to say any thing we always out ran him and I did not want to be called a cry baby.

Ray

I guess when they're complaining and they can't stop ya from winning, you must be doing something right.

DGM,...I did not win Knoxville Nationals. I sold the car in late June & the new owner won Knoxville about 6 weeks later !

Ray, I ran the pits for Greg Weld at I-70 Speedway for the 84 season. After warm ups and each event, I had the push trucks run a few laps counterclockwise on the top half of the track to take the heavy surface off. I don't think we lost an engine all season. I was thinking of the days when I was running a car. You can have real good races if you can produce a track that is not heavy or on the extreme, not dry slick to the point of dusty and be easy on engines.

I addition to bearing clearance, I ran piston clearance of .005 to .008 inch, depending wheather the pistons were solid skirt or slotted. I only ran one flat tappet cam (it had a radius surface & required wire clips installed that ran in a groove on the side of the lifter) & it was the first year in the flat head Ford. I ran Isky rollers in cars #2, #3, & #4. I ran Crower rollers in all after that. I ran carbs on cars #1, #2, & #3. I ran Hilborn Injectors with (I think) 1 7/8 stacks on all after that.. I tried a set of cower but could not get them tuned in so removed them. I also torqued the rods, mains & heads +5 lbs of factory specs.

The problem with telling all you guys this is you probaby don't believe me ! Nobody ever did when I told the truth......Luther

Hey Brian,,that picture you have with your post of the ol Caddy,that reminds me of something.

I was about 6 years old riding with Al Weiand in his Caddy pulling the race car to Tulsa on the 2 lane roads of Kansas ,my Dad Jack Belk was following with my mother and Als wife Gladis.We could not pass this truck to much traiffic we were running late to the races. Finallly Al looked ahead and wiped it out on a hill to pass the truck. We got about half way and another truck poped the hill coming right at use.

I am glad that Al tuned that caddy.he was aleardy in the back barrowls of the carb. Al was a man of fews word. When he seen that truck coming he said O MY God, jurked it down a gear. That carb sounded like a 2000 cfm on a jet. the truck beside use was braking hard. But the Caddy never missed a lick.

Al wiped it over in front of the truck we looked at each other not a word was said. We stoped a few miles down the road.My Dad looked at me and could tell i had the pop scared out f me.

My dad looked at Al ,,Al said just put that carb on here last week she had just enough . I road the rest of the way with Al towing the car. My dad then went in front of use signaling Al when he could pass. Every Hill we were looking for another truck.

Win as if you are use to it.And lose as if you enjoyed 
it for a change.Its hard to get to the top and alot 
harder to stay there.

Luther, your record speaks for itself, what is the old saying "Truth is stranger than fiction" What did you say to the new owner of your car that won the Nationals? Was that the year that Thad Dosher won? I rember back when we were running good the more that I denied that we were cheating, the more that the other racers were sure that we were cheating. I bet it is hard to get a track that is good in the heats, but not to dry for the feature, or to the exact opposite.

Ray

Ray,...Thad did win the 67 Nationals in the car & I congradulated the owner, Jack Cunningham. My wife was mad, mad ,mad. When I sold that car (the T Coupe) my wife & two daughters cried all night. I didn't know they were so attached to it. Turned out, they were right. The daughters still talk about. The youngest was 6 years old when I sold it. She used to come out in the garage (at home) and ask if she could help me. I had her run wrenches. She knew 1/2 in box end, open end, ratchet and all the popular sizes I used. In her senior year high school aptitude test, she scored higher than any of the boys on mechanics. She still laughs about that. I was proud of her. In fact, she is the one that told me about this web site, "Racinjg From The Past". She saw a picture of our pickup with the T Coupe on the trailer sitting at the pit gate in Knoxville & told me about it.

There was some satisfaction in seeing the car win even after I sold it. Jack Cunningham put Bob Williams in it & he was unbeatable.

Some tracks turn to wet slick instead of dry slick. Turn black & very smooth. Black gumbo dirt usually does that. Most tracks near a river are like that.....Luther

Luther, I was looking at "High Plains Thunder" and notice a picture of Dale McDaniels on page 19 racing in the KC area in 1959. There is another picture of him at Joplin on page 91 in1969. As far as I can rember 1969 was the only year that he raced in the Tulsa area, he had a pretty good year in 1969 at the old Tulsa race track, he finished in the top 10 and won 1 or 2 features. That was the " LEEP" year and Harold did not leave a lot af races for the other competiters. Where did Dale race at between 1959 and 1969 and where did he race at after 1969? I don't rember him coming to Tulsa after 1969. His son Larry raced late models and worked at the "Nance" shop. I like the picture of you and your daughter on page 28 in High Plans Thunder.

Ray