This coming Saturday at Willow Springs

[65RoadRacer]

If anyone is in the area and wants to see the Belvedere run, I'm planning Willow Springs this coming Saturday, Oct. 7th. I'm driving up early, was hoping to find someone to come along and carry all my tools, race wheels/tires, but that's a lot to ask on short notice. I'll have to add a trailer hitch and pull my utility trailer next time! I believe it's $10 to get in, you can't miss this old Mopar up there. If anything changes between now and then, I'll post a reply... but at this point, I'm going!

If anyone is going and could shoot some pics of the car out on the track, that would be awesome! Thanks
**I have installed one of Roland Osborne's Super Poly Pac intake manifolds and I'm doing this for an article because I know Roland was fond of my car and racing the Poly at Willow Springs. He would have wanted to come see me race, and while he was in the hospital he called me and through a very struggled voice he said he hoped I could get another run out at Willow before he passes, not knowing how much time he had left.

As you know, he passed away in April of this year, and I'm heading out there "Racing for Roland" and putting his Poly Intake Manifold on the track. Thank you.

 

[moparnation74]

Roland was a true Mopar guy and had a good heart....Talked to him many times....I always regret not visiting him out in Quinlan....

Great to see you given him recognition my friend...

Have to say this again....BEAUTIFUL CAR!

 

[Riverdawg]

Have fun out there. Wish I was closer, I'd love to tag along. I did the same kind of stuff helping my brother at the Roadkill nights drag racing on Woodward earlier this year. Good luck and like moparnation74 says "BEAUTIFUL CAR!"

 

[65RoadRacer]

Thanks guys... It will be a fun day for sure. By the way, here's the Poly Super Pac in all its glory!

 

[Riverdawg]

Thanks guys... It will be a fun day for sure. By the way, here's the Poly Super Pac in all its glory!
View attachment 521866

Looking good.

 

[cryplydog]

Wish I were closer. Hope you smoke some euro trash.

 

[GTXperience]

I didn't know Roland passed. We had some great times at Fremont/Baylands Dragstrip when we used to run out there and then go to Roland Merman's house to BBQ afterwards. This was in the San Francisco East Bay. That was right around the time when Roland M bought Tach Mooney's 68 blown/tubbed hemi Dart GTS vert (which was quoted by Car Craft as the first Pro Street car). I still have all of my Chrysler Power Mags that Roland O put out and have the one featuring the Dart framed. We lost touch a bit when he moved to PA. Although again, those were great times. RIP Roland.

Best of luck at Willow. Would have loved to have been there.

 

[6-david-5]

My family is coming in from out-of-state!



Otherwise, I would BE THERE!!!

 

[65RoadRacer]

My family is coming in from out-of-state!



Otherwise, I would BE THERE!!!

ROAD TRIP! LOL

 

[65RoadRacer]

Well, the car did well and I improved my lap time by almost two seconds, dropping down to about 148.8 seconds from 150.3. Still not great, but I'm learning that having a large gap between 2nd and 3rd gear is a little bit of a deficit. Bringing the lap times down shoes that the new suspension and wheel/tire combo was a good thing. I had some mechanical issues, and a little bit of a coolant leak on the new intake, so I didn't want to push things too hard since I had to drive home (two hours and some change). But I'm happy with how it feels, and the next mod to the trans is either a Tremec 5 speed or maybe I'll try out a close ratio planetary gear set for the 4L60E. A new engine with more power is already in the works... LA stroker and can't give much more detail than that but it's going to be pretty cool.

Here are some pics below. I was not in the group I should have been in; since I wasn't sure how well I had the suspension set up going into it, I didn't want to hold up other people in a faster group (the one I usually run) and therefore I was lapping everyone in this group. Still, pretty good for a 50 year old car to lap Vipers, Camaros, Corvettes, and even Porsches!

 

[ckessel]

I'm interested in seeing how well the CF suspension you put in holds up with repeated outings to Willow and street driving. The CF seems to be a much better built and thought out unit than the others on the market. I'll keep watching for your updates.

 

[65RoadRacer]

I'm interested in seeing how well the CF suspension you put in holds up with repeated outings to Willow and street driving. The CF seems to be a much better built and thought out unit than the others on the market. I'll keep watching for your updates.

When I spoke to Al at CFS, the one thing he was adamant about was providing a kit to a car that actually races, rather than just driving to car shows. He designed and built this kit for road racing, so he was very interested in the Plymouth for that reason. It's a sturdy kit, and the components are made well. I've heard a lot of grumbling about how he "copied" other kits, and to that I say BS. I've looked at other kits and while the concept of a fabricated K-member isn't new, he put some effort into his design. There are two types of tubing: square and round. That doesn't make one a copy of another simply because the tubing has a particular shape. It does make it very tight in the rear to run an exhaust pipe, I'll have to see if we can manage to get a TTI Exhaust system routed in place.

 

[ckessel]

For sure its not a me too copy like a lot of the others. Look at the lower control arm for example. Double shear mounting for the arm pivots as opposed to a 12" long bolt going through all which has minimal support. There is a guy I met, here and then in person, that lives here in Ramona that was asking me for input and I told him about you and the CF system. Keep pounding on that thing and lets see how it does for longevity and performance.