Shop Tour - Hardcore Drag Racing

     * Street Freaks   * What is a Street Freak?  It's a street driven Drag Strip dropout, de-tuned for Sorta-Legal  on-road cruising. Take a fugitive funny car with a dynamite engine and jacked up suspension, add mufflers (rarely), lights and the biggest street tires (most only had slicks) and drive it on the street ! I grew up in North Jersey in the early 80's, reading every car magazine I could get my hands on. Yes, you could still hold something in your hands and read it !  I had a subscription to Hot Rod at 9-years old and renewed for at least 10 years, until it got over run with ads. I would also purchase  Car Craft, & now defunct Popular Hot Rodding & Cars Illustrated at the news stand / magazine store . This was my only education about Hot Rods or any cars for that matter, as I was the only one in my family who was interested in cars. And as luck would have it, my house was the only one on my street with out a driveway or garage...

This 1940 Willys is street driven in Colorado & features a 528 CI Mopar Hemi . It has an iron block with 8.7:1 custom JE pistons and Indy ported race heads. ARP studs keep it glued together. The 4150 steel crank swings Eagle H-Beam connecting rods and an ATI balancer keeps the big Hemi from shaking to bits . It was Dyno'd at 1031 Horsepower & 900 lb/ft of Torque . A complete MSD ignition system keeps the sparks flying under the boost pressure supplied by the polished 14-71 Hi-Helix supercharger by the Blower Shop. It's running a drive ratio of 1:1 giving it 14 Psi through the traps. A pair of Holley 800 CFM Double Pumpers mix the fumes and this healthy Hemi is topped off a vintage BDS scoop . The exhaust system features 2 1/8 custom Zoomies with ceramic a coating so they will look good for years . There are two sets of inserts to drive on the street,but it's still loud ! The 727 Torqueflite is equipped with 300M input/output shafts, manual valve body and a trans br...

  There are some things about Pre 1985 Funny Cars that I love , from the custom paint jobs to the full track burnouts . From 1960's to the early 1980's, Coast to Coast every Drag Strip on any given weekend had a huge match race style event . Some had a 32 car field , and as Match Racing hit it's peak tracks competed  against each other by bringing in even more cars,  some booked 64 or more just to boast that they had a bigger & better event .   The most funny Cars that I witnessed at one single event was when Englishtown had an event sponsored by K-Mart in the early 80's, they featured 32 Funny Cars and a couple of wheel standers, The Paddy Wagon, The little Red Wagon, and some VW pick up. The show lasted from 12 in the afternoon until after 9 PM .Those who know Raceway Park know that the lighting  was just over flashlight bright. But at night you could see header flames 4-feet in the air the full 1320. There were a lot of heavy hitters that followed th...