Just this past weekend i've decided enough with circle track and figure 8 racing and time to build a bracket car. I had two to choose from one being 64' studebaker daytona 2door hard top 4 speed 289 stude. v-8, or 74' maverick grabber both sitting in my back yard rotting away which enough is enough of the abuse to the cars. By looking at them im definatly going to choose the mav. its started on the rot probably been sitting 10 years or so. I acquired this car from my father. The car has 302 in it out of mustang not sure on year 68 69ish. has holly 600 double pumper, edle. aluminum intake, headers, erson covers so im real excited to see what the internals are. the engine i had running in about 30 mins cleaned points dumped some fuel in carb and gave it a charge and vrooom. found freeze plugs have rusted out and valve seals look to be leaking which is expected for time spent sitting. So now im going to be pulling the engine and refreshing it. which i will probably just drop right back in after i clean engine compartment up. Basically all it boils down to Im going to refresh the engine I assume its a ford 7.5 so probably take center out weld it up take gear out of 4cyl conver mustang i think has 3.73 ish . and put back it put the car in primer and slowly start working to a restoration of a cool car. any advice would be greatly appreicated. I have became good friends with a fella who was doing my carb work for my figure 8 car ( which is unbelivable with carbs crazy crazy stuff) he has finallly talked me into it so i shall begin soon
probably an 8 inch in the back....unless someone swapped it. are you 1/8 or 1/4? *Is this going to be a strickly drag car? Good luck.
Glad to hear you're coming on board in both straight-line racing and with a Maverick. There are plenty of champions on here to help get your car to be consistent - I know that YOU know you should dump the points and go to either a Pertronix or Duraspark ignition. Good luck in your endeavor and keep us posted.
The Mav is the more practical car from a budget standpoint..(easier to get parts for)...at this point knowing what you want the car to do performance wise will dictate what your course of action will be....there is a wealth of info to be had on this board, any questions just ask, keep us posted on the progress. just an FYI..the 74 Mav came with an 8" rear end 5 lug drum brake setup...put a full spool in it and run it till it breaks.. Oh...and welcome to the board.
yep, the mav is an 8". do not weld the gears up. that is illegal in drag racing. first thing i would do is determine what class you want to run in. then decide what to do. find out what the rules are for that track and class. good luck.
well thx for the support might just go find a ford 8.8 or take a 9 out of one of my old latemodels. whoever said hard to get studebaker parts is greatly mistaken in southbend theirs unbelivable amouts of NOS parts for many years only thing about the studes is engine parts are prob about 2-3 times more expensive than ford stuff. def am happy about making this move ill take some pics before long before and after progress pics. its a terrible ugly green color right now. Im glad i have had acess to this car i had a 92 5.0 stang and i like having things different and those are not different everyone and their mom has one (happy mothers day lol). But im not sure on tech. terms on drag but im just wanting to do 1/8 mile bracket if theirs more please add. but would like help on what gearing i should do and if i should keep the auto it has floor auto shift which looks like its been cut out not sure.
That 8" is good for close to 500HP, why swap it out? Like riporter said, drop a spool in it ($60 Auburn mini spool) and take off. Go higher gears, like 3.80 (still decent on the highway). Those rears are pretty much indestructible behind a smallblock (within reason, of course ).
you definitely want the c-4 automatic. that's the only way to go in bracket racing. i run 1/4 mile and use 4:33 gears in the rear. you'll probably want to go lower if it's a track only car.
right now i'm going throught the traps at 6200 rpm at 102.50. with the other engine i was going through at 7200 rpm at about 115.
