Project Junkyard Dog

[Joe Toller]

Great advice all of you, thanks.

If that Buick had been a complete runner it would have probably been racing by now. Painful mistake.

The Inline and V8 carb/dist. cars fortunately are plentiful here; being a rural-ish area with no salt and lots of 4x4s for winter rust is rarely a big issue, and as long as you don't mind a 4 door the cars are easy to come by.

I hauled two hulks off this afternoon and the yard will be hauling off the rest tomorrow. Then I am back at zero. After work tomorrow I will drag a battery and some fuel up and see about that Comet. If it starts, stops, and steers, it comes home. If not, I will wait until I find a car that does. I will keep only one car, and only parts for said car to avoid distractions, and will have to work really hard to stay focused.

[Dave Noll]

...

[Bob Shaw]

Joe,
Billy and Mark have given you excellent advice. I will add to their recommendations from my experience..
#1..Decide what class you want to run.
#2 Study the NHRA guides and Nitro Joe's stats and decide what car would be best for that class.
#3 Find that car and buy it.
#4 Change the cam, gears, and converter, maybe headers.
#5 Take it to the track and test it.
If it will run the index or close to it you can build it . If it won't run you can change it back to stock, sell it and start with something else.
I have built more than 20 stockers that I can remember and I never build an engine until I know the car is going to work.

[Joe Toller]

Good advice again. I kept starting with non-running projects, which, as I should know better, are impossible on a budget, they nickel and dime you to death, and if the missing parts are unique and/or rare, forget it.

This has been quite an education lol!

I am going to start from step one, using all of this advice.

Thank you all for your encouragement and advice!

[Paul Wong]

Originally Posted by Bob Shaw

Joe,
Billy and Mark have given you excellent advice. I will add to their recommendations from my experience..
#1..Decide what class you want to run.
#2 Study the NHRA guides and Nitro Joe's stats and decide what car would be best for that class.
#3 Find that car and buy it.
#4 Change the cam, gears, and converter, maybe headers.
#5 Take it to the track and test it.
If it will run the index or close to it you can build it . If it won't run you can change it back to stock, sell it and start with something else.
I have built more than 20 stockers that I can remember and I never build an engine until I know the car is going to work.

I can tell you one thing.....This is the best dime rocket advice your going to get. Your getting advice from some of the best mentors I've had in the "slow" class car circle.

[Joe Toller]

I am very fortunate for all the help, no doubt.

It would be a great idea to take all this advice and make one "sticky" thread...

[Joe Toller]

Question, would you just run it as is, off the street, or if you already had a cam, converter, and gear, go ahead and put them in first? Odds are (I will know in about 4hrs) if this Comet runs ok I will drive it home. But with the season over, it would be April before it would see a racetrack. I don't want to tear it apart if not necessary at first; I want to follow everyones advice and see what it will do for a baseline, I guess at minimum I could remove the unnecessary stuff and whatnot over the fall? I have a carport, so no winter tinkering if the weather is as usual...

I want to take everybodys advice, start at square one, and do it right. One car, one plan.

[Robert Swartz]

Originally Posted by iraceitall

Question, would you just run it as is, off the street, or if you already had a cam, converter, and gear, go ahead and put them in first? Odds are (I will know in about 4hrs) if this Comet runs ok I will drive it home. But with the season over, it would be April before it would see a racetrack. I don't want to tear it apart if not necessary at first; I want to follow everyones advice and see what it will do for a baseline, I guess at minimum I could remove the unnecessary stuff and whatnot over the fall? I have a carport, so no winter tinkering if the weather is as usual...

I want to take everybodys advice, start at square one, and do it right. One car, one plan.

I would say you're getting the holy grail of advice from some of the real heavies in this categorey.

I'm just going to go at this from my view. If you get your Comet, and it runs. What I would do, not change a thing, except get the car as close to class weight as you possibly can. Then take the car to a track, make some passes, record the information, baseline the car. See what kind of times you get. Just get a feel for the car. After this, I'd then take it as is, back to the track or maybe, depending on how far you are , go to a different track, see if you can repeat your results. Tracks can have different conditions, some tracks a car will go faster, others, they will slow down.

Then, if you have a choice of tracks, go to the one where the car performed best. Then start making your changes. Others here might have a differing opinion. The first thing I would do, give it a good tune up. Then, I would start with putting a gear in it and some slicks. Next, freshen the transmission, put your converter in. At this point, you would have a real good base on what the car is capable of. If the car gets into the range of the index, then I would start considering going into the engine.

Like Billy has said, if you don't have a wealth of experience, you can get the best advice there is but there will still be a learning curve. Good luck.