Did you ever hear the story of Tom Ruddy of Beverly Hills?  here it is as I read in the 1952 edition of Hop-Up magazine, he had a 1950 Plymouth business coupe with a reputation, he created a real dent in  Southern California racing circles , in close conjunction with Engles Machine Shop, to get maximum performance from his engine, the car was used for personal transportation and raced weekly at the local dragstrips. No lower end troubles developed even after a solid year of racing. Toms car was equipped with a specially adapted manifold using two Stromberg 81s .080" mill on a 1950 head giving well over 8:1 compression, and a reworked stock  ignition. This amount of mill required flycutting the head to clear the valves. Cam was a 3/4 Engle "Special" grind. Gear ratio was 3.54:1 [stock]. A run at one Russetta Timing Lakes Meet in 1951 showed a true top speed of 103 mph  the results attained by Toms car shows what can be done to your Plymouth to make it really perform.  

I haven't Charleyd, but thanks for sharing the story. Sounds like he put the 3:54 gears out of a Chrysler in the car, which is an easy upgrade. The rest of the upgrades, not quite as easy.

You don't happen to still have that magazine ? 

oh tim please do storys on Al and Gene. Ive seen no. 554 34 ford coupe flying down the track and have met Gene Mooneyham and Al Sharp.  Both those good old boys didn't take **** from anyone, didn't kiss asses, didn't care about anything beyond eating drinking showering and likely shitting performance. Als hemi heads were just the best on the strip and Genes blower and ability to get off the line better than anyone just made for one incredible pair of true drag racing legends. Im on the other end of the country but Als legend was coast to coast. He also seemed like quite a business guy and likely the fenton pattern purchase and producing stuff like flathead ford v8 items helped pay for his other passions. if Al had designed the intake it would be top shelf stuff however just using using a pattern would be more to sell product with out the need to develop. cant blame him for that.

I am sure if I had lived on the left coast I would know more about both. if you can put together blogs on them it sure would be fun to turn back the clock and learn more than the information that got passed the country on them during their campaign days. thanks tim. great stuff

Well as it turns out I do have some more information on both Gene and Al, so I will certainly add it to my list , lol although its definitely getting a bit away from the flathead vien.. The 554 Coupe has changed hands and colors a few times,  but you might be pleased to know it is alive, well and restored and sitting in

Big Daddy Don Garlits  Museum of Drag Racing

http://www.garlits.com/

So I may as well add Don Garlits to that grouping as well, as all three of those gentlemen are intertwined and there is a connection to the Kingsbury family there !