Bob/Ohio
Senior Member
I found a copy of Science and Mechanics dated December 1952 at a flea market. I bought it because of the great color cover, which had 2 flathead powered hot-rods on it. The article about the hot-rods was titled "Drag Racing Tests". This article explained the fine points of this new thing, especially popular in Southern California, called "Drag Racing". The best part of the story gave the specs of the Hayward-Hedrich-Peery drag job, which are as follows: '' The engine is based on a Mercury 59A V8 block, easily the hot-rod favorite. As a beginning the cylinders were bored out 3/8" and the crankshaft was worked over to give a 3/8" longer piston stroke. Rough surfaces inside the intake ports were polished to a glossy finish so there would be no conflicting gas currents setup when the fuel is sucked in. The intake valve seats were enlarged 1/8" in diameter,and a special Howards M-14 camshaft lifts the intake valves extra high, and leaves them open as long as possible. The four carbs let lots of fuel inside,and the rugged flex-pipe exhausts empty the cylinders fast. A magneto produces a hot spark at high speeds. The engine uses a combination of nitro-methane and straight methanol in a ratio of 15 to 85. Compression is low at 6:1. The theory is to get lots of fuel in and let the nitro take care of the extra sock, rather than squeezing a slower burning mixture harder. Fuel economy isn't a factor in drag machine design, upwards of 1 gallon of fuel is consumed each run".
Still great reading 61 years later!
Still great reading 61 years later!
