I never had a 68 roadrunner get by my 58 Fury 350 with 3.36 gears from a
rolling start in 1968 or ever. Too much carburetion for a standing start.
There is a 56 300 B in the Garlits museum that ruled the stock class
in central New York in the early 60's. It ran mostly at Fonda Drag strip 1/8
mile, yes the same one that Cha Cha ran on. The 300 had a wicked set of gears, I
don't know the ratio, but he did a lot of shifting in the 1/8th. The car ran
D/stock. At the time I had a 58 plaza 2 door with a 350 golden commando and
stick shift with 4.10 gears and I could not come close to him.
David Wallace
39 year 58 Fury owner
Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2007 9:52 AM
Subject: [FWDLK] "What's New" For 68
I'm with Dave, Place a 56 Dodge D500-1 next to a 68 Road Runner and
what are the major differences.... not much. It was not too difficult for a 383
Roadrunner to run in the 14 sec range with the right combo no hemi was needed. I
helped a friend tune his fairly vanilla 327 66 Chevelle to the low 15s in the
mid 80s, I never thought that car was all that, and remember this is all at 6000
feet. If you are dedicated and test and tune this is not a difficult
accomplishment. These cars are not rocket science guys, still don't expect a car
meant for the street to go out and turn record times. You have just got to ask
yourself what was considered stock. If you take a nice small hemi of any type
put all the performance upgrades big cam, valves, compression, manifolding and
on and on you are going to have a screener. The 56 NHRA D Gas Coupe record
holder for 56 was using a bored 55 270 Dodge hemi in a stock 53
Dodge body and running over 100 mph. What could he possibly be doing to a
270 Hemi to reach such speed in a door slammer, there is a picture of his
car showing that it is full bodied, sorry Neil as usual no ET was given. I
too owned a 89 5.0 GT Mustang and it had the highway gears as well, it was
fast but it didn't pan out well in the quarter mile. Now someone please explain
to me what I am missing here on these later car comparisons, point out the
vastly superior technologies being utilized in 1968, to me it looks like by
going to the wedge they needed 60 more cubic inches to produce about the
same HP. I know some of you will go right to the tire thing, that's a no no
Dodge was putting very large tires on the D500-1 and I'm told they were making
sticky tires in 56 just not at the corner tire store. The mid 50s just
happens to be the time when the gap between stock cars and racecars
narrowed to a slim margin, in effect a stock car could also be a racecar. I know
there is a inherent reluctance to deal with it but a 56 Dodge Race Hemi was
a factory product. Tim in Golden
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