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Back in the days of front engine dragsters, what was the common between-round maintenance for nitro motors?
Front engines covered a lot of time.
In the early days on gas, a guy would own a junkyard or have access to one. They'd pull every late model engine like whatever they were running & fill it full of cement, take the intake & cam out & stuff it in the trailer.
They had a good cam/lifters & blower setup. They'd make a pass & if it blew up they'd swap longblocks. Guys would have 2 or 3 in the trailer.
Later on as it got more "professional", they would look at the plugs & pull the pan to ck the bearings... If everything looked good they'd button it up.... If not they'd replace the engine if they had one.
LOTSA guys didn't & I saw some crazy repairs on wounded shit get run. Some of it hauled ass too.:smt082
Yep. Or some sort of racing or team Tees. Every pic I saw of my uncle with his 77? Corvette nitro funny car or fuel dragster had him and 1 or 2 other guys always working on the car. I don't remember ever asking him specifically who went or what all they did. Haven't spoken to him in a few years and back then, I wasn't as into racing as I am now. So I've got all kinds of stuff I'd like to talk with him about. These days, he travels the world by sailboat and doesn't have Internet access very often, so I'm still waiting to hear back from him.Good question
I don't know much about the cars that ran nitro back then but I do recall seeing pictures of these cars with their engines pulled part way down with pit areas no different than what the current local weekend warrior has today. No big pit crews, no big fancy trailers and the 2 or 3 people associated with the car usually were wearing greasy white T-shirts and Levis.
..... on a number and diggin' on the radio.Probably tokin' ^^^^ LOL
Sometime in the 90s, he was head mechanic for the Miss Budweiser unlimited hydroplane, also. I forgot all about that until last night when someone else brought it up...... on a number and diggin' on the radio.![]()