SAAC Forum

When I am pouring in 19.00 dollar a gallon high test, I often think my baby is swilling CRYSTAL to get its groove on.

VAN -Many of those places have been mentioned on here and I occasionally go by some of them late at night like I did so many years ago, and can still see and here the Ghosts or memories of those VERY impressionable times of youth. It was the sights and sounds, the chicks, the friends, the fights, the betting, the pride of competition and being a winner in something you created, and sometimes people getting busted. AHH youth was crazy good times, most of the time!

Crossboss, thanks for your posting.  Agreed that we didn't help ourselves any with the photo van choice. 

I'd been street racing (nothing over $50...I wasn't big-time by any means...but $25-$50 was a lot to me back then) at Van Nuys since mid-70s.  I knew the basic rules, most the hangouts, a few of the people, etc. (Although most of the people were referred-to more by their cars than their names. "The dude with the Orange LS6 Chevelle", etc.)   Super Shops parking lot was our digs. 

My pal Phil and I, and a few others from Culver City, would be there most every Wednesday and Saturday night.  We would've liked to have been a few years older, in order to have been there in the true late-1960s heyday, but we still had fun.  Cruising for chicks was about half of our motive, followed by checking out other fast cars for speed equipment, and actual racing. 

With KMET and KLOS radio songs blasting out of just about every car around you, it made for good times.

   

The MIGHTY MET... KMET with Jeff Gonzer WOOOAHHH and Uncle Joe Benson over at KLOS  Good times fer sure! Dont forget Frazier Smith!!!

The difference today is Street racers have 3500 HP- 230mph Pro mods... back then The Fast guy was bottle BOB with his 69 Corvette ran 10 ohs. Different times fer sure, Like totally! Because I am a valley dude and thats the way it was!!!

Ted- I will start I have got many long term sitting projects up and running. I dont think you need to worry about valve stems breaking but rocker arm studs pulling out because the valves sticking in the guides. Pull the plugs out give a shot of Marvel Mystery oil in each cylinder and while your at it pull the valve covers off and lube up the rockers springs shafts and push rods with marvel. Let sit a couple hours then rotate engine by hand to make sure it rolls over freely without any strange noises before you crank it over with the starter but pull the coil lead off so it wont start and make sure you have oil pumping up to the top end. Make sure you have a mechanical oil pressure guage hooked up on first start up to make sure you have good oil pressure before running to long. You should be good to go... pay attention to strange noises -smoke or any other abnormalities. Good Luck!

Glidden- Jenkins- Landy... The best of Ford, Chevy, Mopar, all had cancer sticks hanging from their lips even while driving. A different time for sure, when real men would smoke , drink and curse. RIP

Congratulations on ownership. Many factors come into play for different engine combinations, most of the time over the last 55 years the valve guides have been changed out so you wont need leaded gas for your car. So now comes the need for higher octane to eliminate the dreaded pinging or rattling. Most vintage engines run in the 10 to 1 ratio so if you run premium gas with some auto part BOOSTER you should be good to go, if you run higher compression ratio you might need to run a mixture of race gas and regular pump gas. Your specific tune will dictate what your engine likes best, race gas is running around 17.50 to 19.00 dollars a gallon now, my cars get to play for 180.00 for around half an hour on HIGH TEST. A little experimenting will go along way on finding that sweet spot.