Competition Components
 
Home Blog Terms View Cart
  Search Store:  

Archive for February, 2010

John Csordas JR’s Supercharged Buick

Sunday, February 7th, 2010

John Csordas Jr is a Buick guy through and through. Attend just about any Buick event and John and his family will be there with one of their several Buicks. Our favorite ride of theirs right now is the 71 Skylark street car.  Not your common street car, this 71 has a full 25.5 certified chassis from NRC motorsports and is set up to run a drag radial. The car sees some street duty, and is raced in full street trim.  One thing a lot of guys fail to realize is that most of these Buicks are heavy. Like really heavy.  Junior’s car makes the scales whimper, weighing in just a couple of doughnuts short of 4000 lbs.  To run bottom 9’s at 150mph like it does (yeah, you read that right) it has to be making somewhere over 1,000 HP, probably closer to 1100.

Power comes from a stock stroke 455 Buick built by Scotty’s Engine Technology in Florida. The internals are smart, but straightforward. Stock crank, R&R aluminum rods and Wiseco pistons round out the rotating assembly, which is held in check with a Rob Giroux (Precision Billet Designs) halo girdle. The short block is topped off with TA Stage 3 heads and intake. The custom flat tappet camshaft is from Scott Brown at Competition Components, and is around 260@ .050, with .600 lift.  A Procharger F1R making 12lbs of boost and blowing through a Quick Fuel 850, is what makes this combo really hum. All brackets for the Procharger were designed by Cliff Gilman, and fabricated by Precision Billet Design.  A custom 3500 Converter from Lenny at Ultimate converters transfers power to the Mark Deconti Turbo 400 that shifts on its own with the governor set at 6000RPM. So far, the ten bolt with 3.73 gears has managed to hold up under all that power and weight. So far, the car has run a best of 9.12 @ 150 with 12 psi of boost. Hopefully spring of 2010 will show us even more.

Junior  made sure to thank Scott Brown at Competition Components, Bobb and Geoff at Finishline, Precision Billet Design,  TA Performance, Scotty’s racing technology, Deconti Transmission, and Lenny at Ultimate Converters.

Here is a video of John running in the 9.70’s in 2009.

Phil Rowe’s Old School Nova

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

Some guys have a lot of money to spend on their toys. Other guys have to be more budget concious.  Aftermarket blocks, high dollar heads, roller cams, yeah, who doesn’t dream about that stuff? Sometimes it just isn’t in the cards.

Phil doesn’t have a ton of extra dough, like most of us.  But he does want to go racing! So you have to be smart about the dollars you have available. The car, a 1972 Nova, weighs in at about 3500lbs. It’s a basic street/strip type of set up. Mini tubs, 10 point cage with swing out bars, Jaz poly seats, make for an all business approach. The outside of the body is stock and all steel other than the fiberglass cowl hood and front bumper both from Harwood. Slicks are 30X9, and front runners round out the package.

The engine is equally no frills, but just as smart. Stock block and 063 oval port heads are the core to the combo. The stock GM steel crank is.010/.010 and slings GM rods with 7/16 ARP bolts and TRW domed pistons. All business, no flash. Cam is a flat tappet form Competition Components 256/266 with .636 lift. EDM constant oiling lifters make sure the cam and lifters get plenty of lube. Comp Stainless rockers and .080 pushrods make sure that all of the lift the flat tappet can produce gets to the valve. The Beehive springs and retainers keep the heavy valvetrain in check. An 850 Quick Fuel carb sits on top of an unmodified Team G from Weiand. The 8″ converter is from Transmission Specialties, and the transmission is a bullet proof  ‘glide from Hutch’s transmission in Canada.

The old girl has done right by Phil so far, it’s been a best of 10.88 at almost 123 MPH with the old 4500 converter. The new 8″ converter should help launch the car a bit harder, so hopefully ET’s will improve a little. At this weight, a 3 speed would probably help some too, but that is just on the wish list for right now.