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Earl Edgerton in Hot Rod magazine


wilmot andy

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Its the March issue, black camaro on the cover. Cool story if you like Bonneville, its about a 4 cyl flatty that went for a record, almost got it.

Is this the car?

edgy01.jpg

I missed Speedweek last year, maybe he's running a different car... This one has (or had...) a one-off Chrysler long block six.

Pete

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Just got an e-mail out of the blue from Pete Hendrickson, says it's his coupe in the the issue of Hot Rod. Pete was on Earl's crew the first time I met them on the salt in '06.

Pete has his P15 for sale to invest in his race car if anyone here is interested... The P15 has a hopped up six with Edgy head. $15k or reasonable offer. His username here is moparmontana.

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Pete (BLUESKIES) suggested that you all might to hear more about our Dodge Brothers Bonneville project.

The March Hot Rod Magazine article does a pretty good job of telling the story.

As Pete says, the video

http://www.mo-pod.com/heritage.php or

is great but you have to excuse my sleep-deprived adrenalin-ridden first time ever down the salt state.

There is also a good article about Earl, this project, and my P15 which was once owned by Earl (the car that introduced us all to each other at Speedweek 2005), in the Sept/Oct 2008 issue of MOPAR magazine (this is the Corporate magazine available at dealerships).

Earl did not bring his car to Bonneville this year, and did not attend Speedweek, although he was a part of the project. He cast our one-off cylinder head and ground our cam. He is also particularly notorious in that he instigated the bet at a bar in Bonneville in 2007 that resulted me and a few buddies building a Bonneville racer in 10 months~ DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME.

The Montana Dodge Boys Fast Four Special is a rare 1928 Dodge Victory Six roadster equipped with a 212" Dodge Fast Four engine. This engine was only produced from August '27 to April '28, as it was discontinued when Chrysler purchased Dodge Brothers, and Chrysler began putting their sixes in the Dodge bodies (thus the Victory Six designation).

The car runs in the V4F/STR (vintage four flathead/street roadster) class, one that has historically been dominated by the Ford Banger motors.

I found the engine(s) that September and the rusty body in October (an Ebay purchase that resulted in driving from Montana to Minnesota and back TWICE in five days after the seller no-showed). We put the entire project together in less than 10 months. Crazy, insane, expensive, and a in hind sight, a bit ridiculous (especially for a $100 bet). I started the by purchasing three SCTA rule books and keeping one in the bathroom, one in the garage, and one next to my bed.

To make a long story short~

Final assembly of the engine occurred six days before we loaded the car on the trailer. The body, engine and chassis, which were being worked on independently in friends garages across the state, came together for the first time exactly one week before we rolled the car onto the salt. The engine fired for the first time 72 hours before that. We set a record (108 vs. 96 mph) on my first-ever drive, and backed it up the next morning on 45 minutes of sleep. An amazing whirlwind.

Our jubilation as Bonneville record holders and Hop Up Magazine 100 mph club inductees lasted just over a day. Our new record was broken by .8 mph (yes, that's point eight mph) the very next day.

Anyway, we're going hog wild on the motor this Winter hoping to go 120+ in 2009.

The is no "i" in team, and none of this could have happended without:

Tony Smith- Engine Builder

Chris King-Crew Chief (also Earl's Crew Chief)

J King- crew

EJ Engler- metal fabrication

Earl Edgerton- The Mopar inliner guru

Roger Meiners- media

Jeff Conger- photographer

Joni Evans- understanding girlfriend

"Bondo" Bob Basso- bondo craftsman

Stay tuned, and thanks for your interest.

Pete "Pedro" Hendrickson

Montana Dodge Boys

Fast Four Special

V4F/STR #60

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having watched the video, i would think that just providing a sealed air inlet to the carb (and subsequent rejetting) would get you the record back; running with the air running past the carb couldn't be working too well!

Marty

Hi Marty,

Yes, that is something that will be addressed. What the video doesn't show is that we had an air intake on the first run, but the stud broke off moments before our backup run and we had to run without. That's why I was nervously laughing about fuel spurting out in the video.

We did about about 10 dyno pulls at DynoJet here in Bozeman in September to ready the car for the World Finals in October (which were unfortunately rained out). We found about 7 HP and 10 FT/LB. That, coupled with a gear change, should THEORECTICALLY get us to 122 MPH.

Thanks for your interest,

Pete "Pedro" Hendrickson

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I had noticed the little scoop in the beginning.

I've said before that Bonneville is really the worlds longest dragstrip; I hope you have a gearbox that has the two highest gears close enough together to optimize acceleration.

Marty

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We didn't bring enough gear with us. We were done accelerating at the one mile.

Our goal for the year was to simply have a car on the salt. We had absolutely no expectations to be running for a record.

Heck, I was just happy the damn thing ran!

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I was lucky enough to grow up in Indianapolis and have a dad who worked for Detroit Diesel Allison. I've been to 22 Indy 500's, 3 USGP's, 14 US Nationals, every dirt event (stock car and motorcycle) held at Indiana Fair Grounds between 1969 and 1988, every SCCA Sports Car race at IRP, 4 Monterey Historic races, and now 5 Bonneville Speedweeks...

NOTHING COMPARES TO BONNEVILLE. STOP SAYING "SOME DAY" AND GO.

SALT FEVER... CATCH IT!

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I was lucky enough to grow up in Indianapolis and have a dad who worked for Detroit Diesel Allison. I've been to 22 Indy 500's, 3 USGP's, 14 US Nationals, every dirt event (stock car and motorcycle) held at Indiana Fair Grounds between 1969 and 1988, every SCCA Sports Car race at IRP, 4 Monterey Historic races, and now 5 Bonneville Speedweeks...

NOTHING COMPARES TO BONNEVILLE. STOP SAYING "SOME DAY" AND GO.

SALT FEVER... CATCH IT!

Yeah, it's definitely an acquired taste! I went with my mechanic, who had been an old funny car pilot and drag racer, and I had crewed for him for years. He built the roll cage for the car we went with.

So the driver makes the first qualifying pass and reports that the 6 cylinder went to 5 cylinders about half way through the first mile. Cecil and I whip off the valve cover, find a broken spring, start taking apart the valvetrain to fix it, then we look around and EVERYONE ELSE ON THE CREW IS GONE!

This all happened at 10 AM, and Cecil and I were used to thrashing to make the next (dragracing) round in half an hour or so. The rest of the crew were Bonneville veterans, so they knew that we wouldn't be able to run the car again until the next day, so they took off to visit friends, look at cars, whatever, then they came back for lunch, THEN they set to work to fix the motor. Had it fixed by 3 PM, buttoned it up, went visiting, left for dinner, qualified for a record run the next day, set a record the day after. It was HARD to slow down to that pace, but we managed!

Marty

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When you said you didn't bring enough gear, could you not use one of the tire size, gear ratio, egine rpm calulators to run a couple scenarios to decide which gear to run. Don't know how you would figure tire to ground friction and air resistance, but seems to me if you knew the other variables, you could solve for "X" which would be the record speed.

using this calculator, assuming a 29 inch tall tire, 1to1 top gear and 4200 rpm, speed would be 124 with a 2.92 final. I guess all that matters is if you can pull and maintain the final rpm through the distance.

http://www.4lo.com/calc/gearratio.htm

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When you said you didn't bring enough gear, could you not use one of the tire size, gear ratio, egine rpm calulators to run a couple scenarios to decide which gear to run. Don't know how you would figure tire to ground friction and air resistance, but seems to me if you knew the other variables, you could solve for "X" which would be the record speed.

using this calculator, assuming a 29 inch tall tire, 1to1 top gear and 4200 rpm, speed would be 124 with a 2.92 final. I guess all that matters is if you can pull and maintain the final rpm through the distance.

http://www.4lo.com/calc/gearratio.htm

The thing that most people forget is that to run (using your figures) 124 MPH at 4200 RPM, you have to be able to run 103 MPH at 3500 RPM, assuming that you don't have a real close ratio transmission installed. If you don't make enough horsepower at 3500 RPM to run 103, it won't ever accelerate to the theoretical 124 MPH top speed. You'd be surprised at how many cars run into this problem!

Marty

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Thats probably where the ground friction and air resistance comes in. I know a lot of early foreign 4 cylinders would run faster in 4th than in 5th cause they couldn't get past the wall in the taller gear. But the calc will give you a good starting point for what you could do if it can do it.

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You are absolutely right We calculated 5000 RPM with 27" tires and 3.50 gears for a speed of 114.749 MPH. The problem is that the engine would only turn 4800 RPM, even after we switched to 3.70s. Think about this~ This engine is basically the same displacement as a Mopar L-head six... with two less cylinders and a 180 degree (vs. 120 degree) crank. Think about the crazy stuff happening to that spindly 80-year-old crank with a 4.520" stroke! Remember, it's taken 60 years to get the V4F record to 110. There's a reason for that. Things get exponentially more complicated on the Salt...

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Unfortunately, there is no flathead specific inline catagory. You'd have to run in 'XO' which includes 'overhead valve and flathead inline as well as flathead V8 (except Ford and Mercury) and flathead v-12, 1959 or earlier design, up to 325 CI'.

So, you'd have to run your Mopar flathead against the OHV GM motors which are STRONG performers. From what I understand (and I may be mistaken), if there are at least three competitors looking to create specific class (say, flathead inline sixes), they can petition the SCTA for a new class.

Sounds like a good topic of discussion on this site, eh?

Lets get some more old Mopars on the Salt!

All classes and catagories can be found on the SCTA site at

www.scta-bni.org

Have a great day, and thanks for the support!

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