[BaadAssGremlins] How I caught the bug?.Fast, fun, reliable and cheap(Davis' article)

["Davis" <martin-davis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 Hello,
 My name is Davis martin. I got into amc's when I was just barely 
18. My girlfriends dad, Bill, had a gremlin he raced once apon a 
time and he told me if I found a gremlin he would build a drag car 
with me. About 2 months later I found a gremlin for 40 bucks, drove 
it to his house swapped the 6 for a 360 and I was hooked!! That car 
eventually turned into a low 10 sec race car. That was 18 years ago. 
I sold my ½ of the car to his brother some years ago and moved to 
CT. 
 I somehow never lost my love of AMC's  When I got married and 
bought a house that happened to have 6 garage bays I just had to get 
another gremlin!!! So I did just that. It was a v-8 conversion 
missing the motor. My  friend Bill and I made the 2200 mile round 
trip to pick it up in Benton, KY
 I spent the next year cleaning and modifying it. I stripped out the 
heater core, carpet, rear seat, pass seat, and welded in frame 
connectors, and a full 8 pt roll cage. Then I went to work on the 
rear. I tossed the stock 6 cyl peg leg rear in favor of a ford 9" 
rear from a 70 mustang  at a local yard for 100 bucks. Sandblasted 
and painted the rear added 4:56 gears, a minispool, and new brakes 
for another 300 dollars. I replaced the crusty leaf springs with new 
heavy duty 5 leaf units from ESPO for $160  and used their poly 
bushings which were an extra 50 bucks. To tame the axelwrap I went 
with competition engineering's 70 mustang bolt on traction bars $150.
   I removed the gastank , cleaned it sanded the rust off and 
painted it. I added my own home made 1/2 " fuel pickup to the tank 
and reinstalled the tank. I plummed the ½" line to a holley black 
fuel pump, a Barry Grant filter, holley pressure regulator. 
 Front end was redone with new stock bushings, new ball joints, new 
steering components, new 90/10 shocks, new heavy duty v-8 cooil 
springs, and a complete new disk brake setup from an 82 concord. 
This was all at an estimated cost of about 450 dollars.
  Now on to the engine 
 I got the idea that I wanted to see if I could get into the mid 
12's as cheap as possible with a 360 with stock lower end. I bought 
the 360 complete out of a 78 waggoneer at the local junk yard for 
100 bucks. Removed everything except for the rotating assembly. Even 
with 140K miles the crank and rod bearings were in acceptable 
condition so on to the build I went. Meticulously cleaned the block, 
new freezeplugs, new paint seymore EN-66. I had a small issue as the 
stock 8:1 compression just wasn't gonna do. I found ROL made head 
gaskets that were .036 thick as opposed to the stock .045 that 
helped. I was also lucky enough that Bill was switching to aluminum 
heads and sold me his ported heavily modified iron heads with 50cc 
combustion chambers. They came with hardened push rods, push rod 
guide plates, and comp cams roller rockers. The heads and gaskets 
brought the compression closer to 10:1 
 Now for a cam. I called around and not many cam manufactures had 
interest in AMC. I finally talked to Ron Iskyderian at Isky cams and 
explained my goal. I was able to give him the required info on my 
combination and hea didn't have a cam for my application. He said 
they would have to custom grind me a cam. 140.00 later I had a nice 
cam 236 duration @ .050 540 lift. I went with summit lifters 48.00 
and summit roller timming set 42.00. Bill helped me degree in the 
cam set at 4 degrees advanced.  The engine was to breathe thru a 
holley 650 DP I got for 50.00 and rebuilt by Bill with a 60.00 kit. 
This sat atop a 1" open spacer and a torker intake. The ignition was 
taken to task via an msd 7 al2 thanks again to Bill!! To an msd pro 
coil 90.00 and n MSD billit electronic distributor 219.00 summit 
racing. 

 The oiling was improved via a new pump Bill had designed some 15 
years ago. This oil pump is made of aluminum and I knew I had to 
have it. Bill only had 1 spare set for his race car so I decided 
with his help that I would get them reproduced again. We have been 
selling them for 2 years now and have helped many amc'ers solve 
their low oil pressure issues.  I used the race kit along with a 
Milodon deep sump pan and pickup 340.00 
 The tranny I got from ebay 300.00 freshly rebuilt TF727. I got a 
used reverse pattern man valve body with trans brake 100.00 and an 
unknown namebrand 4000 stall converter.
 Shifting is done by way of B&M pro stick that was donated.  The 
last thing was the drive shaft and safety loop, Again Bill to the 
rescue. He donated a custom made aluminum loop and helped me shorten 
the driveshaft in his workshop.  Wheels were 195/75/14's in front 
and 28X9X15 M/T slicks in the rear. 
 The car was completed still needed some minor body work and a paint 
job but it was ready to race. We took it to  Bristol dyno and tuned 
the combo. We eventually got 296 HP to the rear wheels!! 
 Off to Lebenon Valley Dragway for Mopar/AMC day.  I was verry rusty 
on my first run and miss shifted and was late at the lights but was 
solidly in the 12's with a 12.89 !!
 I made a best run so far of 12.60 @ 107MPH and I was even told that 
daylight was seen under the front tires on one of my launches which 
had a best short time of 1.8 sec. 
 So it can be done completely stock cast rods unpreped, stock 
rodbolts, stock unpreped cast crank, stock cast pistons all with 
140K miles on them surviving to 6500 rpm's with Bill's race oil pump 
kit. 
 I want to thank my wife Lisa for putting up with all the nights I 
spent out in the garage and for taking care of our son Aran. 
 Now what can I do to get into the 10's  What a disease dragracing 
is and couple that with the addiction I call AMC's  It never ends!! 
 Davis Martin 
 Amc Team 
 






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