Just reading a write up in Doug Boyce's great book about Junior Stocks. "Tim Nega" ran a
55 Chev with a "STOCK: 265 , 162 HP ,2 barrel carb, and a 3 speed stick, A legal NHRA record holder .
Amazing that this car was running a 5:86 rear end, and the three speed stick trans low gear ratio was a 3:11.1 ,,,utilizing a ford transmission gear welded up and machined to fit in the GM trans case.
Record turning 14.0 times were common for this car that terrorized a number of tracks.
No mention of rear tire height, but with that rear end ratio wondering what RPM that engine was turning at the end of the 1/4 mile. ??
Ray, they were/ are quite the screamers. My buddy ran a 55 in Super Stock in the 90's. There is quite a bit of conversation on the HAMB about these cars, over 500 pages.
Thanks Dave, Jenkins had his fingers in both of these cars, and i believe the Monster Mash car also had that 3:11 Ford first gear in it's trans.
Jenkins built a lot of these trans, with modified syncro rings, and got so busy with requests for them that he turned the trans customers over to i think Jerry Stahl.
Amazing performance for the times, or any times actually, for the size of the engine , Jenkins was an inovator, and deep thinker.
As his competitors stated, you may end up getting one up on Bill by beating him , but you just knew that next week, he would be back with a bit more horsepower, to clean your clock.
I believe at one time he was running three cars with hired drivers, one of them i think was the talented "Larry Lombardo", also "Scott Shafiroff" of engine building fame , and "Ken Dondero".
The article i have shows Jenkins with 6 staff, but still , they must have had orders backed up at times.
Jenkins stated to Doug Boyce in the interviews that the favoutite car was the Camero, Jenkins stated he had a total of $8,000.00 in the car and had made $150,000 with it then sold it for an unknown sum.
Jenkins had to sleep racing at night, thinking and planning improvements that would gain another few horsepower.
Bill was definatly brilliant in making horsepower out ot the small block Chev. junior stock engine. His Canadian connection was with Bob Burch out of Sarnia. Burch ran a 55 Chev. sedan delivery n/sa 'Tuff e nuff' that ran on or below the nat.record. There were several other 'junior stocks' in Ontario at that time that were more than competative.
Bob, i remember Bob Burch, he had a reputation for tuning the old WCFB carbs for guys.
Another was Bill Morrison with the 283 57 chev, And another pair that always impressed was Bob Piper and Charley McGrath i think from Guelph, and of Course the two farmer brothers from Fisherville, Andy and Camille Thoreau. (Spelling may be off there.)
Trying to remember a few others, god it was like almost half a century AGO!!!! Lol
I was in Lance Hills shop, quite a place at times, full of work, and what i noticed was he was a very focused guy with whatever he was doing.
He used his distributor machine there checkin out my distributor advance.
