<VV> HP 2 - No Corvair, just horsepower!

[Tony Underwood]

At 08:55 hours 06/08/2005, Sethracer at aol.com wrote:
>
>
>
>In a message dated 6/8/2005 7:20:12 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
>tonyu at roava.net writes:
>
>I do  recall how the carb'ed cars didn't pull through the corners as well as
>the  FI cars, obviously the FI metered better in hi-g turns what with carb
>bowl  slosh etc.   But on the straights the carb'ed cars would wake back
>up.     Corners are where AFBs fall a bit flat unless you  get inside them
>and mortify a few things.  They were, however, king  on the streets for the
>"stoplight nationals" on  weekends.
>
>
>
>The non-FI Hi-Po Corvettes didn't run the AFB, though. My 1965 327/365 came
>with a Holley list 2818.


Nope.    Back When, (before the Camaro) my brother had a 327-365 car and it 
sported the Holley with the infamous "double-hump" (love that name) heads.

I *was* however talking about the AFB for dragracing and how it was fine 
there but not so fine for going around corners...  thus the commentary 
concerning street racing and how the AFB was a shoe-in.   My brother 
"upgraded" to a 780 Holley on his, bought into the hype that the "780 was 
the best Holley ever"...   yeah right.

Before it was over, THAT carb was replaced by...     a 750 Comp series 
AFB.    ;)    Later on, when my  brother became ill and sold the 'Vette, he 
bought the cheapo Camaro 6 banger since he couldn't get medical aid through 
the cancer research society because his insurance was limited to what they 
could do, and he (with the wife) owned two cars, one an unnecessary "sports 
car" which meant he wouldn't be able to claim poverty what with chemo 
treatments costing him 600 bucks a shot and his insurance had long since 
given up following two surgeries and 6 months of expensive treatments etc 
ad nauseam.   He got bad enough that he wasn't able to go out and hawk the 
car to prospective buyers, so I took it around and finally sold it for what 
he wanted out of it, whereupon his wife had already sold *her* late model 
car and they  bought the 600 buck stripper Camaro...  and the cancer people 
finally agreed to subsidize his medical treatments following his 
"contributing" some additional cash up-front.   He always resented the fact 
that he had to sell his Corvette in order for the cancer society to agree 
to help him with treatment...   But I guess money remains money no matter 
who you are or why you need it.   Can't complain too much...  the 
treatments led to some new approaches which in the end gave him a year more 
than the doctors had said he'd last so I guess it was certainly worth it.

I'd ride a 6 banger frost green Camaro for an extra year, rather than 
resort to sitting in the livingroom sniffing O2 through a tube, too weak to 
get up off the couch without help so I could struggle to the window and 
look in the driveway at the shiny white Vette I wasn't able to drive anyway.

Heh...  I still remember coming back to his place late that evening 
*without* the Vette, (caught a ride back with the fellow who turned me on 
to the guy who bought the Vette) went inside and he was sitting on the 
couch without a shirt... or hair...  looking for all the world  like a 
concentration camp inmate... looked at me with a scowl and said "I didn't 
hear the sidepipes come up the driveway!   Did you Wreck My Car!?"  (he 
worried about that Vette)

I just grinned and handed him the check and he looked at it twice... 
smiled, and said "Huummm, OH yeah.  You did good, bro."

He did get an extra year, actually got better following a new chemo 
treatment, put some weight back on, drove that Camaro, even scrounged 
around and bought a small 185cc Suzuki dirt bike and rode it for about 6 
months before the cold weather came and he sold it (knowing he'd not be 
around come spring)...   and when the end came it was pretty quick, 
downhill fast and didn't suffer for very long.  So, in a manner of 
speaking, that Corvette bought him that extra year.

Through it all, he always revered that Corvette, kept photos of it around 
the house.   The fellow I sold it to was all fired up about it, drove it 
for a couple of years and decided that since it had been customized (flared 
fenders, aftermarket sidepipes, front turn signal/parking light bosses 
"sloped" and replaced with lights in the corners of the grill, interior 
redone etc.) that the car wasn't likely to increase in value as much as an 
unmodified car, so he turned it into a modified production dragrace 
car.   He ran it successfully for a few years and then he himself was done 
in by a freak accident during a storm when a large tree fell across the 
narrow road he was driving his new Mustang GT convertible on, crushed the 
car, he and female companion were killed.    The Corvette stayed in his 
immediate family for a year or so and then was sold to someone in the local 
area chapter Corvette club and it's still being raced today.


>It still had side pivot floats. I ran mid-low 13's at
>  Southwest Dragway in Lawton, OK,


Lawton...   ahhh...   smell the beer souring in the gutters...


>(shifting the sucker at 6800RPM) in
>absolutely bone stock on recap tires (I was young and foolish in 1968- 
>now, no
>longer young). The AFB was only used on the 300 HP and the 250HP motors, 
>at  least
>by 1965.

And it worked out nicely on the street.   But the long (wide) float bowl 
with tanks on each side were miserable for cornering.   People wanting to 
take a brisk tour through the mountain road S's quickly went looking for 
center pivot Holleys.


>Perhaps the older non-FI Hi-Po used an AFB - That would have been
>the 340HP motor in 62-64. Oh yes and, with the Holley, I took Fast time of 
>day
>at the Comanche Touring Society Autocross at Ft. Sill at about the same time.
>  Boy, did I piss off some MG owners, most of whom were officers!  <grin>  -
>Seth (Spec4 at the  time!)


I did notice that Ft Sill seemed to collect some muscular cars in the late 
60s-early '70s.   One of the (civilian) cooks at the mess hall was a buddy, 
had a '68 Charger that was oft-times taken on night-time rides through 
downtown and along the roads outside post.   We'd head out on a weekend 
evening, cruising downtown and (usually) finding no chicks worth the visit 
to the clinic the following Monday, so we'd just head out and go cruisin' 
the plains highways, take a break from OD green and talk about cars and 
stuff to do to them to make them run better etc.

I also noted that there was that little "Arvin" on post, always wearing a 
very well fitted South Vietnam Army uniform and clean as a whistle, owned a 
'64 metallic red Monza ragtop which also was kept clean as a whistle and 
maintained regularly.    Spoke good English and I'd on occasion talk to him 
about his Vair.    Several months at Sill, then off to Europe where I never 
saw a single Corvair the entire time I was there.


tony..