In the family since 1969

I just found this fourm today and joined. When my son turned 15 I bought the family wagon from mom, a 1969 Kingswood Estate. My son and I, with help from a number of local Mechanics and one very good painter have keep the beast going and keep on trying to make it go faster. I'll post some pics later but for now we call it Blue Thunder, it's fastest times are 11.58sec/116mph 1/4 mile last year and 8.19 sec/86 mph 1/8 mile this year after a few upgrades. The car is down right now as we broke the rear end last weekend so have new 9 in on order. Looking forward to checking out his fourm and sharing what we are doing.

 

Sounds cool. Looking forward to some launch photos.

 

Welcome to the forum, Gsevelle.Looking forward to seeing more pics of that nice Kingswood.

My question is.....where do you find a 1/4 mile strip down there. Do you drive all the way up to L.A. County raceway?

(For those unfamiliar with the Southern California area, AFAIK, right now the only 1/4 mile strip anywhere around there is near Lancaster - about a 70 mile drive from downtown L.A.) The old Orange County International Raceway closed years ago - it's a bus yard now. Lions is gone. Maybe Carlsbad Raceway in north San Diego County?

Marshall

 

Welcome to the forum sir!! Sounds like a very cool and very fast wagon.

 

The quarter mile was at Fontana last November. They had apparently moved the track from the middle of the facility to the back side and did not build the sound wall they had promissed. Some neighbor complained and they were shut down in March of this year. The 1/8 is now at Berona outside San Diego on the Indian reservation. BTW Pomona is running on the 16 - 18 of August with various classes. We are registered in the nostalga class for the weekend so looking forward to that. New rear end from Moser should be here late next week then installed the following week. Car should be back up and running by the 4th.

LA in Lancaster is closed,
Willowsprings is only 1000 ft
Carlsbad has been converted to a vacant office campus (ran there on the last weekend it was open)
Closest 1/4 mile track is now Bakersfield or Las Vages

 

Welcome. Very impressive times from your wagon.

 

Welcome to the madness gsevelle! Did you say you were getting 11 sec times with a stock 307 under the hood?

 

No I did not say I was getting 11 sec with stock. Stock went by the wayside a number of years ago. The original drive train was a 350/300 with a 350 Turboglide and 3:23:1 (or something near this) rear end. It is now a gen2 530/650hp with a 4L80E running a 3:73:1 gear with 31 spline axels. That rear end broke last week something to do with 250 shot of NOS and a transbreak with a 3500 stall hitting it all at once. It was the last stock component in the drive train. Have a Moser 9 in on order with 4:88:1 for the track and a second carriage for the street with 3:50:1. Seems Moser did not recommend we run their prostreet gears with this much power and weight.

Here is a quick video at a New years day burn out party this year with the above mentioned engine minus the transbreak. We broke the 4L80E the next month and found Hughes Transmissions would build us a race version with transbreak which is now in the car.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzOSpeogqMA

 

Wow! That is quite a change from the stocker it was born with! Would love to see the video, but linky won't worky!

 

Can you say FAST , Wanna see it on "Pass Time " Go Man's.

 

to the wagon train, g. Yup...that's fast!

 

Try it again. The original link somehow got crossed with my e-mail provider. or just copy and paste it into a new window.

 

Cool! Works good now, that's a great looking, albeit smokey, Kingswood in the LeMans blue that has been voted on as being everyone's favorite color for the Chevy wagons from that era.

Hmm, burnout video is pretty unique for an opening thread.........what the heck! for opening post rating!

 

That was sweet ! Me Like the video !

 

That was pretty cool...no pics but a very nice video. abooard Ges.