Today's picture of the car that ran the world'd first four-second quarter mile


FourFather

GT Owner
Mark II Lifetime
May 24, 2007
460
Wichita Falls, Texas 76306
Eddie the Texan Hill top fuel boats-











 

FourFather

GT Owner
Mark II Lifetime
May 24, 2007
460
Wichita Falls, Texas 76306
Another great day of top fuel dragboat racing-



And now on display at my Eddie Hill's dealership for Ariel Atom, Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha, Polaris, Victory, and Slingshot. In beautiful downtown Wichita Falls,Texas. Yeehaa!



 
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RALPHIE

GT Owner
Mar 1, 2007
7,278
Great Pictures, Eddie!! Thanks for sharing.

Is that a Crower mechanical fuel injection intake under the cover on the unblown fuel Kindsvater drag boat? I was able to pick up one of those and replaced the dual quads/tunnel ram on my Sanger. Never put zoomies on it yet, as they're outlawed when recreational boating. Some day though....
 

FourFather

GT Owner
Mark II Lifetime
May 24, 2007
460
Wichita Falls, Texas 76306
:biggrin:lol:rofl

So what´s the secret behind you and your team repeatedly being able to build engines - I would imagine - with more power than the competition.

Hope to see you at the upcoming Rally.

:cheers
Anders

There are different answers for different eras.

I built this car using the engine as a stressed member, with aluminum H-beams for the lower frame rails, and thin wall steel tubing for the upper rails, Cushman motorscooter front wheels, hubs and spindles, go-kart style steering with no steering gearbox, etc.,and even with the all iron Pontiac engine, the total weight was in the 1050-1100 pound range, and that gave me a pretty big advantage over the more conventional dragsters that were much heavier. So I did not need more horsepower than the others in the class, and still had the world's fastest and quickest unblown gasser.

 
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FourFather

GT Owner
Mark II Lifetime
May 24, 2007
460
Wichita Falls, Texas 76306
Another shot of the unblown gas dragster-

 

cobra498

GT Owner
Jul 14, 2010
310
Central Ca;ifornia
Damn you are one brave hombre, fuel boats before capsules, short wheel base gas dragsters, blown fuel front engine dragsters, and then top fuel rear engine with records in all! Bullet fiberglass ( dual prop guys) is right down the street from me and fabricated a front splitter for my GT. I grew up with friends that raced Sanger and Kindsvater boats but none with anywhere near your success.
 

FourFather

GT Owner
Mark II Lifetime
May 24, 2007
460
Wichita Falls, Texas 76306
Great Pictures, Eddie!! Thanks for sharing.

Is that a Crower mechanical fuel injection intake under the cover on the unblown fuel Kindsvater drag boat? I was able to pick up one of those and replaced the dual quads/tunnel ram on my Sanger. Never put zoomies on it yet, as they're outlawed when recreational boating. Some day though....

Yes that is a Crower mechanical fuel injection setup, and it worked great on 98% Nitro. With that much Nitro, fairly high compression, and not much flywheel at all with the Lenco clutch, the throttle response was unreal!

The blown fuel guys would all come down to my pits when I warmed up, just to hear me whack the throttle. The rpm was up and then back down so quick, it sounded more like an explosion, than an engine revving up! :biggrin
 

Sinovac

GT Owner
Mark II Lifetime
Jul 18, 2006
5,832
Largo, Florida
Great thread and pictures Eddie. Long live Big Hair Blondes.
 

STORMCAT

GT
Mark IV Lifetime
Le Mans 2010 Supporter
May 25, 2006
7,549
Ft. Lauderdale
I just looked up " king of the adrenalin junkies " and your photo is there too !!:biggrin:biggrin Congrats on all your accomplishments !! :thumbsup:thumbsup
 

FourFather

GT Owner
Mark II Lifetime
May 24, 2007
460
Wichita Falls, Texas 76306
Damn you are one brave hombre, fuel boats before capsules, short wheel base gas dragsters, blown fuel front engine dragsters, and then top fuel rear engine with records in all! Bullet fiberglass ( dual prop guys) is right down the street from me and fabricated a front splitter for my GT. I grew up with friends that raced Sanger and Kindsvater boats but none with anywhere near your success.

Thanks for the thought cobra 498, but it was/is not really brave, just a powerful hunger for Gee-
 

twobjshelbys

GT Owner
Jul 26, 2010
6,053
Las Vegas, NV
Thanks for the thought cobra 498, but it was/is not really brave, just a powerful hunger for Gee-


It seems like this applies in spades:


“Faster, Faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death.”

― Hunter S. Thompson
 

FourFather

GT Owner
Mark II Lifetime
May 24, 2007
460
Wichita Falls, Texas 76306
Great thread and pictures Eddie. Long live Big Hair Blondes.

Thank you Sinovac, for the thread/picture comment.

And BabyCakes and I both thank you for the long life wishes! :thumbsup
 

FourFather

GT Owner
Mark II Lifetime
May 24, 2007
460
Wichita Falls, Texas 76306
I just looked up " king of the adrenalin junkies " and your photo is there too !!:biggrin:biggrin Congrats on all your accomplishments !! :thumbsup:thumbsup

Thanks, STORMCAT. it's been big fun so far!
 

FourFather

GT Owner
Mark II Lifetime
May 24, 2007
460
Wichita Falls, Texas 76306
It seems like this applies in spades:

“Faster, Faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death.”


That is a pretty accurate way to put it--:wink
 

FourFather

GT Owner
Mark II Lifetime
May 24, 2007
460
Wichita Falls, Texas 76306
Some more of my unblown fuel hydro, by taking pictures of old photographs in my scrapbook-







 

RALPHIE

GT Owner
Mar 1, 2007
7,278
This picture is so HOTTTTT, Eddie!! YOu must have had some very tall gears in your Casale!

Great graphics on the picklefork!!

View attachment 37936
 

FourFather

GT Owner
Mark II Lifetime
May 24, 2007
460
Wichita Falls, Texas 76306
RALPHIE, the gears were 1.63, and the tattle-tale tach showed 8650 on the NDBA record run, with a 11 1/8 x 20 Menkens prop.

I used 96% Nitro that day, with no alcohol in the mix.

She rode plenty free, as you can see in the pictures.
 

RALPHIE

GT Owner
Mar 1, 2007
7,278
Those are some VERY serious numbers - you really had to have the horses in that engine to pull that prop and ratio! I run a Precision 11¼ x 17 on my Sanger which will only top out at around 125 mph or so if I could get the motor to achieve 7,000 rpm, using 1.25 gears in the Casale. I've only had it up to around 100-105, and that's damn exciting to me!

Back in 2005, I went over to a Sanger boat reunion where there were quite a few pickleforks and shovelnoses. On that day, the Sanger factory trailered over a newly splashed version of "Climax" (they have kept the original molds) which I'm sure you ran up against over the years.

View attachment 37948

In fact, you probably knew and raced against the guys that drove it. When I was getting my boat operational (I found it in a field outside of Ramona, CA), Greg Shoemaker gave me a lot of help - boat guys are like car guys, I guess - nice to be around, friendly and helpful.

View attachment 37953

I didn't get my boat until 1998, when I was 56, so the thought of competition never entered my head - but I can understand the thrill of pushing these machines to their limits. Here are a few pictures of some of the hotter boats that were at the reunion - I found it interesting though that I was the only one to put mine in the lake that morning and make some noise!

View attachment 37950
View attachment 37951
View attachment 37952
 
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FourFather

GT Owner
Mark II Lifetime
May 24, 2007
460
Wichita Falls, Texas 76306
Very cool pictures. I'll bet that was a great day. I never tire of looking at well built high performance machinery.

Good on you for getting her wet and making noise--after all, that's kinda the whole point!