At the same place of business - one of our steady visitors was a Doctor  - who owned a supercharged Avanti 327? (normally driven by his wife). She was constantly getting into trouble with the local cops - more than any of us - and the guy woulkd remove the belts to slow her down.....whereupon she would show up at the station with $10 (+belts) and smile sweetly.......Pretty soon (sometime the next week) a redfaced Doc would jump out of his Caddy and threaten anyone handy within an inch of their life - if they ever put the belts back on the Stude.

 [/quote]

    Steve, Probably was a 289 Studebaker engine. The 327 was the Rambler/AMC motor. Completely different. Friend of Hoosiers has a versions of this motor in a Lark called the red Tomato, runs 12's @ 110 mph, pure stock.

Frank/Rebop

Bristol, In ( by Elkhart) 

Yeah - I'm sure it was just plain old rubbing alcohol - we didn't have access to anything that ressembled methanol or ethanol. I'm sure the mist works if you "science it out" - we didn't.....maybe once in a while it just "worked out " for us...

At the same place of business - one of our steady visitors was a Doctor  - who owned a supercharged Avanti 327? (normally driven by his wife). She was constantly getting into trouble with the local cops - more than any of us - and the guy woulkd remove the belts to slow her down.....whereupon she would show up at the station with $10 (+belts) and smile sweetly.......Pretty soon (sometime the next week) a redfaced Doc would jump out of his Caddy and threaten anyone handy within an inch of their life - if they ever put the belts back on the Stude.

 

 
 Steve Metzger       Tucson, Arizona

Steve, do you mean isopropyl alcohol, or rubbing alcohol? Which is, if I remember correctly, is a derivative of propane and water. We used to run isopropyl alcohol/water injection along with two three barrel Webers in the Corvair Corsa (sorry, but at least not a SBC) we raced to cool it so we could use higher compression and more advance.

BOB

Back when trucks were way under powered truck drivers used to throw moth balls in the fuel tank, both gas and Diesel and it gave them noticeably more power. Since I grew up around trucks I tried it my my 50 GMC was well as my 56 Ford sedan. I don't know what it did, but it helped. And it would throw real pretty flames out of the exhaust especially when I had the cutouts open. I tried them a few times in a 220 Cummins. The truck would pull a gear higher, but the pyrometer would jump up to the red line in a hurry. Instead of the normal foot long flame out of the stack, I would have a 2 foot flame. Beings we were gasoline distributors and I hauled gas out of the Big Spring, TX refinery, I had access to avgas with lead which I think was 130 octane. I had to bump up my timing to get the full benefit out of that.

Kenneth

Fredricksburg, Texas

As far as old school tricks, I have my 86 volvo rigged with a piece of bailing wire so that when I hit the gas, it turns the throttle and hits the choke a little. The computer should be smart enough to do that on it's own, but...



hehehe...when I was in the 8th grade me and a friend moved some cones so that if you wanted to go to the airport you had to take the long way around the school. DOT wouldn't move the cones because they thought it was a school thing, and the school thought it was a DOT thing. It was funny for about a week, and then we moved them because it was getting to be a little annoying...



Mothballs? Ha! I've run my volvo on a mixture of 30% acetone! It seems to make the car more powerful, but your gas mileage goes straight down the john. Like, less than a mile a gallon.

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People should not be afraid of their government, a government should be afraid of the people.

--Alan Moore

Not sure what the active ingredient is (naphtha?). Could be a car-culture "old wives' tale", but if it ever DID work, it was likely back in olden days when pump fuel was pretty tame, and most anything flammable was an improvement.

6 VOLTS/POS. GRD. NW INDIANA

When I was a young guy and my job at the station was pumping gas, checking oil and wiping windows - we had a mechanic who drove a little Oldsmobile ('63?) with an aluminum V8, turbocharger and side draft carb. It used a little tank of "go juice" (factory part I think) that was injected into the air stream when the boost came on. He never used the Oldsmobile recommended stuff - instead there was a kerosene can of "homebrew" on the back bench. This was rumored to be a mixture of moonshine and carburetor cleaner. i don't think the magic ingredient was 'shine - the station owner...and the mechanic would have used that for other purposes.......

This little car was very quick (especially from a rolling start) and the local hot shots soon learned to fear the little grey car - Corvettes, Mopars and especially.....the knuckleheads at the Fina station across the street ('57 chebbie)....got a lesson in being humble. So....my buddy Brad Davis and I decided to try our own version of the "magic chemical" in the Davis family Poncho. This involved a windshield washer from the salvage yard - and numerous concoctions we dreamed up to try. Isophryl alchohol and water seemed to work the best - but our seat of the pants dynamometer was probably less than calibrated. At any rate - the Davis Pontiac must have had the cleanest spark plugs in southern Missouri.    

 
 Steve Metzger       Tucson, Arizona

ok, enlighten us "young guys"...

mothballs in the gas tank??!!

Mark

"God Bless Texas"location: Houston,TX

In 1957 there were no paved roads near my home, but there

was a timber bridge over prarion bayou just wide enough for

two cars. Only about 100 yards long, but we made do. One of

the guys had a 57 fairlane with 312 tbird special engine (4 bbl) , and another had a 56 with a 312. Some how the 56

always got to the end of the bridge first. Asking him years

later, he said he used to put rosin on that plank deck on his side of the bridge. Don't know if true. I was driving my dad's

53 f100 with it's flathead. Did'nt race it though. My driving

privileges were too precarious to risk.

I

55f100

West Monroe,La.

I had a push pull switch on the dash of my ’56 Customline Victoria that was placed on the lower face of the dash just in front of the shifter so my knuckles would push it in upon shifting to third gear.  At this point the car had a top loader four speed with a T handled Hurst shifter.  This would shut off one set of points in the dual point distributor and retard the timing.  This allowed more ignition timing for the launch and then the ignition retard was good for mph at the end of the track.  It took MSD quite awhile to add that retard feature back into their boxes so I could do the same thing again with an electronic ignition.

 

This just went along with side gapping and indexing the spark plugs.  Although each little trick didn’t accomplish much individually, together they made a big difference.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)