Thursday, June 1, 2006

Check it out, less than one month between blog updates! I’m getting’ good at this.  Well, now prospects for Bonneville are lining up nicely. Bill Mitchell of World Products is on board to sponsor the motor for the Thacker and Shine Roadster. If you recall he set us up with the 427 small block that we drove to Bonneville and ran 182-mph 3 years ago. This motor however will be 8-71 blown.

The last couple of months I’ve spent a lot of time improving the Thacker and Shine roadster. So far the car has a new hood and sides, 5” headlights mounted to the grille shell, no front brakes with streamlining discs on the inside of the wheels, raised the Tonneu cover to the top of the cowl, fabricated a wooden buck and a formed Lexan windshield to fit around the roll cage.  The zoomie exhaust that we ran before is no longer S.C.T.A. legal for the class, so I built collected headers that hug the side of the body. So like I say I have been busy, and if all goes well I’d like to do a shakedown run or two at El Mirage at the July Meet.

Shop wise, I’m still working on the Haas '57 Chevy gasser. The chassis is in the final assembly stage, and should be a roller by the end of next week. John Beck at Pro Machine did the engine build, 327c.i. .060 over, gear drive 11:0:1 mild head work. we broke the motor in on the Dyno with a 750 Holley then bolted on the 6 pot manifold. Unbelievably the multiple carbs outran the 750 with no problem.  It made 397 hp and 404 lbs. of torque @ 6500 RPM. Now put that up against an M-21 Muncie backed up with pie crust slicks in a straight axle 57. I’m probably gonna get hurt and go straight to hell! I’ll save you a seat.

That’s enuff fer now, but stay tuned because some really good things are about to happen soon!

Later,
Jimmy Shine