Re: [BaadAssGremlins] How I caught the bug….Fast, fun, reliable and chea

AMC74HORNET@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

You got it bad Davis. I have had my AMC addiction for 40 years now.
"Doc"

------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page
http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/YtqqlB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BaadAssGremlins/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
BaadAssGremlins-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

To: BaadAssGremlins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: "Davis" <martin-davis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 18:37:50 -0000
Subject: [BaadAssGremlins] How I caught the bug?.Fast,
fun, reliable and cheap(Davis' article)

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

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