new to Club HotRod

Hi all,

I was browsing the 'net', looking for info on a Carter WCFB carb and was directed to this site. I read several posts in the Ford Flathead forum and decided that several of the guys there really are a great source of mostly forgotten hotrodding trickery. There was a jpeg of Ardun heads that I wanted to see, but I couldn't since I wasn't a member; so, I joined just to see a picture of those heads. I did not know that Arduns were hemispherical, although I had known something about them for more than 25 years (like they were made by Zora Arkus-Duntov, but not much else).

Anyway, I've been nothing but a lawless, stinkin', hotrodder since I first laid eyes on a car, way before I was able to drive. I've hotrodded bicycles, minibikes, motorcycles, lawnmowers, and plenty of automobiles. My dad had a '56 Chevy 210 4dr with a 265 PowerPack, Powerglide, and twin pipes. He used to hotrod quite a bit himself (while I was in the car) so I came by it naturally I guess.

My first car was a '70 Chevelle SS 396 with a Turbo 400 with a Cowl Induction hood. Quite a hot ride for a 17 year old! My dad bought it for me in mid-March of '72 and made me sell it in mid-April of the same year. I think after he drove it a few times he figured I'd kill myself or someone else if I continued to drive it. I still miss that car badly; it was some kind of street terror for a factory production automobile. It was stone cold stock, no modifications whatsoever, not even glasspacks. It would run a quarter mile at 15.2 sec @ 104 mph. Not too bad, huh?

My next car was (and I still have this one, and it's in very good running order) a '67 Nova SS that my dad bought for me in Dallas, Texas in July of '72 to kinda make up for the Chevelle. The car had and still has a 327, 4spd, and a 12-bolt PosiTrac. The car has no options so to speak of above and beyond the standard SS equipment. It does have a clock, but that may have been standard with the SS package. I was the fourth owner (the poor car was only 5 years old at the time) and the original valve covers, carburetor, and air cleaner were gone, and the single exhaust had been converted to dual glasspacks. The original wheels and hubcaps were also gone, but the original spare wheel and tire were (and still are) in the trunk.

I swapped the Saginaw 4spd for a Muncie sometime in '74, and replaced the original 327/275 with a new 327/350 (L-79) in Feb. of '75. I kept the original 327, and still have good intentions of rebuilding it since it is only bored .020 over, and has plenty of room for the rebore it needs. I swapped my 3.08 gears for 3.73s in late '75 so I could kick some local MoPar butt. The car has had a Holley on it since I've owned it, and several sets of Hooker competition headers since '72. My best time with street tires and open headers was a little over 13.5sec @ 114. I'm sure big sticky tires could help a lot, but I was all about street racing, not full out competition on a strip. This car was more or less king of the hill in the little town where I lived during the mid-70s (Allen, Oklahoma), and caused some serious grief to the street racer types in Oklahoma City in the late '70s until I finally stopped abusing (street racing) it. The car now spends most of its time in a garage where the weather can't get to it and age it further. Now I wish that I'd kept it in a garage from the day that I got it. I can't believe that I thrashed it as badly as I did, and never really broke it, or wrecked it.

I have a bunch of other cars and trucks (17 at last count) all Chevys and Fords in various states of repair or disrepair. I'm really fond of my '68 Mercury Montego. It has a 302 and a C4 automatic. Its a 2dr hardtop with power and air, and it runs better than most 351Ws I've ever driven. A very quick car, burns rubber with ease at the slightest application of the throttle. I don't know how quick it is, or how fast, and I may never try to find out. It's a great car and the epitome of a sleeper. It's a lot of fun to bust those truck guys at a stoplight; they just can't understand how an old car with nothing more than a set of mags and white letter tires can wax their new ride so easily.

You may wonder how a guy can have both Chevys and Fords and sleep at night; but it's pretty easy. I'd have MoPars, Buicks (I really love Buicks), Olds, and Pontiacs if I could have found them at the right price at the right time. I simply love the old cars from the 50s, 60s, and 70s (very early 70s), and if they have a hot engine under the hood, so much the better. One of my current projects is transplanting a Y-code 390 from a '69 LTD into a '68 F100 with a 360. The Y-code 390 isn't a hotty by any stretch of the imagination, but it makes a crapload of torque, and it only has 92,000 tender miles on it. I'd always wanted to swap a 428 into a '67 - 72 F100, but I found a good 390 instead of a 428, so that's the way this story goes. I've got a Performer RPM and a 700 cfm Holley double-pumper that will go onto the 390, along with a set of Hookers. I think I will have a pretty stout hauler when I'm finished, and I'm prepared to cam it if it needs it. I would say that I like Fords as well as Chevys, even though they cost a little more to hotrod. There is some sweet satisfaction in being a guy who knows how to tweek a Ford when there are so many Chevy fanatics and know-it-alls hanging out at every auto parts store you walk into.

Well, yak, yak, yak, this could go on for hours, hours which most of you don't have, so I'll stop here. As I've stated earlier, I love cars, and I would be happy to converse with anybody here about any aspect of their own automobile; or just to shoot the breeze about hotrodding in general.

Thanks for bearing with me,
Randy Callaway