Indy was boring - no tech/ no ahfs

[Jeff Niceswanger]

Originally Posted by Bryan Worner

Mike, the L98 hasn’t been run with aftermarket heads for 10 years. The racer or racers that ran it in its early years ran the oem heads. If you ask them they will tell you they were not that good. When the dart heads were approved, it became a stout combo. But thanks to smart racers, the hp has remained the same in SS and only got dinged a little in GT (dish motor).
I would like to know the hp history on the 318 that you run. What hp did it start at, what is it now and how did it get to its current hp?
If you’re so envious of the L98, you can buy mine at the end of the year!

I can shed a little light on this. We had one of the first L-98 083 original head combo's rated at 265HP . Gulius ran it with a carburetor because at that point it was hard to find dyno shops, or people that were well versed enough to run and break them in on Fuel Injection. With his dyno Quadrajet, John got 635 HP out of that engine. It made almost as much as his 041's. In his words, it was "nasty". At the time we did not realize that the little 48 mm throttle body was going to take 15-20 HP out of that number. But that's another story. Problem was, every 10 runs it was springing a water leak. They leaked everywhere, combustion chamber, runners, and bowls, they were just a junk scalloped head casting. Dave Layer and myself looked over available heads from Eldebrock, GM, and Dart. We came up with the 070 Dart as being our candidate. We hollered out to the ranks and several of us wrote letters to NHRA, along with Dave being on an every week chat line with Bruce. Eventually Bruce agreed to allow the head. Dave Layer made 4 sets, and three of those leaked almost immediately. So we reached back out to Bruce and ask if we could "Trade Up" to another casting. We choose the Dart 010 as it was thicker than the 070, and with SS being filled back up to the allowed spec's anyway, could he possibly allow it. He wanted to see it, and I drove a bare 010 Dart out to Indianapolis so Bruce could have a look at it. I awaited off to the side while he looked, measured, and thought. He agreed and we then built new Dart 010 heads. I don't think originally those 070's, or 010's made any faster ET's as the OEM 083 because of the 50 lbs. you had to put with them. But currently they are faster because of the relentless push from guys like Lincoln, among several others...