daniel77350

Well today I forced my dad into telling me EXACTLY what has been done to the car since 1980(when bought got it from "some kid"). He tells me his buddies and him droped in a 400ci small block, and some tranny(he can't remember which one), but he said they had to change it because he thought the 400 sb was to much for the TH350. Anyway, he told me they got the car down into the mid to low 11's..he can't rememeber exactly, but he said they where kicked off the track for lack of safty equiptment, so I assumed its mid 11's(because of 11.99 cutoff thing). Anyway, shortly after that his friends blew the 400 up while he was in cali. They apparently replaced it with a sb 350, but he doesn't know what componants they put in it. He can't even remember if they put the TH350 back in.

My question is, how do I find out its componants? I want to know:

1) Whats in the engine(pistons, rods, heads) is there a way to figure this out without tearing it apart?
2) What tranny is it? He says he remembers paying for a TH350 to be rebuilt with a shift kit and ss pistons(whatever that is)...so I think I have the TH350 with B&M shift kit(cool)
3) Is there a way to tell the rear end gears without opening it and counting teeth?

Perhaps someone remembers common "hot rod" styles of the mid mid to early 80's, and can give me some advice as to what components where popular that MIGHT be in the engine. Or you can tell me what it would take to get a vette into the 11's, giving me an idea as to what might have been modified, and might still be there.

Thanks guys, I wish my dad remembered more. The guy that did all the work on it turned out to be a...well thats a whole nother story...

Daniel

daniel77350

PS. the car was raced in texas, I don't know what part though. Maybe that will influence common "drag race" practices.

Daniel

Stingy74

Figuring out your gear ratio is easy. Mark your tire with chalk, preferably at the very top. Start rotating the tire, and at the same time, count how many times the driveshaft turns right up until the point where the tire has made one full rotation and the chalk mark is back where it was. It the driveshaft turns about 3 times you probably have 3.08 gears. If it turns just over 4 times you probably have 4.11's etc...

Also, you can pull one of the valve covers off and find the casting numbers. That should tell you what heads they are, as some books/websites have cross references that you could refer to.

The transmission is identifiable by the shape of the pan. Look in a Haynes or Chilton manual for pictures that you could look at to help you find out what it is. Check some websites too.


[Modified by Stingy74, 9:31 PM 12/5/2001]


[Modified by Stingy74, 9:36 PM 12/5/2001]