I'm really a road runner at heart, unfortunately we do not have any road racing venues anywhere in Hawaii.
There are two car racing events on Maui, used to be some good ones on Oahu, but the property owner over there decided developing the property into town houses and condos was more valuable than car or cart or motorcycle racing was.
On Maui we have a private club operated NHRA certified 1/4 mile track. We've run as fast at 220 mph here, and that driver says "no more", as our runout room is a little limited for those kind of speeds. Up to 180 seems to be good though, and most of our fastest cars fall into that bracket.
There's also a 1/8 mile mud "roundy-round", mostly dominated by front wheel drive imports. It's really a "destruction derby" kind of event, but it is fun and I've thought about fixing up an old import and entering it, but those guys take a beating, not too sure this old body is up to that any more....
My '58 502 daily driver truck is a solid mid twelves, and I just kinda got bored with driving that bracket, so built the '55 gasser to run in the 10's. The chassis is certified to way, way faster than I'd ever want to go, and I did once during test and tune run a 11.17, so am almost there. Better tires and some more tuning, probably more rear gear. But I was having a heck of a time being real consistent with a line lock, foot clutching a stick shift, and hitting my gears exactly the same each time. My competition in the eleven and ten second brackets are all running powerglides and computer controls, the good drivers are hitting it so close, the win/lose differential if often in the thousandths of a second! Give me some low 11 second gear slammer cars with no computers and let's go have some fun, but there's just nobody over here running stuff like that any more!
And I've had my run-ins with the track manager and his folks, long story, not going there, but the result is I have mostly lost interest down there and just don't want to go anymore, other than to help out some of my buddies....
I have a '70 Buick Skylark I put a full cage in, did a back half with a parallel four link, was going to race it, with the Buick 455 and the TH400, both built, of course! That was about when I ran across the '55 four door, and the poor ol' Skylark got sidelined while I built the gasser. Still have it though....
more pix
And more pix
Getting back to the road running, I do know the roads over here pretty well, and there are some narrow twisty ones where, if I an careful, I can get away with some "hot rodding", and I love it! In an old jazzed up hot rod, I like a solid sway bar up front, really good shocks, dropped suspension without compromising the steering/suspension geometry in any way, and improving it wherever I can, like adding more caster and using dropped spindles to get down while keeping the geometry correct.
In back I've had my best success with a rear axle that can articulate and keep both tires firmly planted on the pavement! Coil overs and a triangulated four link works real well, but leaf springs, deleafed down to one or two, with coil-overs, caltraks, and a good panhard bar have also worked real well for me in the past. No sway bar, and no parallel four links, they work against planting both tires down firmly on the pavement. And of course a really good posi. I've kinda drifted to the Detroit Lockers, just cause I can't break 'em, but they certainly have their own peculiarities !! For open road fast work, I like the positraction better.
While the HT frame is out, I'll weld in a rear shock mount bar, deleaf the springs probably down to 2, install the best QA-1's I can afford, install the caltraks I have on the shelf, and put the longest panhard bar I can fit, parallel to the ground. Only going for 2-3" lower than stock. That lowering block in back is coming out. And the slappers. I had that car on the street in '01 with a wheezy, leaky 350/350 combo, did the minitub back then with the springs relocated as you see now.
I once did a rear suspension for a buddy, wish I could find the pix, where we kept the leaf springs under a severely slammed 55 Ford pickup. Did a frame clip up front to get that end low, and hung the rear axle above the springs with heavy duty shackles, put in ladder bars and a long panhard bar (keeps the arc of movement pretty flat), and rigged a horizontal shock setup not too unlike the ones in the Harley softtails. I think they copied us !!! Had to do a lot of work on the frame to give the axle room to move. It handled quite well in the twisties.
I'm convinced the handling of this car when it's done will be right up there with some of the exotic stuff !
Guess we'll see....
Aloha,
Willy
