![]() "I don't think the nitrous cars coming in was a political thing," said Yeoman. The good thing about that is the guys didn't lose anything, like the truck guys did."įormer IHRA Pro Stock competitor Jerry Yeoman joined the AHRA program late in the game. In 1981, I won the championship with a small motor and nitrous and that's the only way to make one competitive then. "The small blocks and nitrous gave the racers a transition period. "I think it was a great place to race and I think AHRA was a great place for the racers," Haas said. It was a great place for us because it allowed us to showcase our product."įormer champion Jerry Haas loved the AHRA format. The AHRA was soft in some areas and they ran on some poor tracks. "I don't think it was ever a class that was dying,” Thermos said. There was some politics that went on behind the scenes, and I'll be honest AHRA was notorious for changing the rules to fit the situation. We tried everywhere, and finally AHRA relented and let us put nitrous on the small motors. "I always felt that drag racing was where nitrous should be. "We always wanted to get nitrous out there on a professional level," said Thermos. Naturally, Thermos lobbied hard for the inclusion of nitrous into the class. You can't feel that way when you're a racer. "I even wrote letters to the AHRA against it and then I ended up sponsored by NOS. The irony of it is that I was initially against the nitrous cars coming in the class. ![]() It was going to be a 600-inch mountain motor. At the time when (NOS founder) Mike called me about that, in the winter of 80-81, I had already started a deal on building a big block Ford with Jack Roush. "In fact, both Dave Smith and I had the first professional cars sponsored by Nitrous Oxide Systems (NOS). We were the original nitrous doorslammers, there's no doubt about that," said Feurer. There were rules put in place to deduct pounds or implement penalties for using certain accessories. Allowing the small block cars to run with nitrous oxide would make them competitive with the Mountain Motor-equipped machines.Ī quick perusal of the rulebook revealed the following base weights: Unlimited cubic inches - 2350 lbs, and small block 2150 lbs. The class was full of small block-powered cars and they had to find a way for racers to make the transition to the big-inch powerplants without making their equipment obsolete. The organization decided that implementing a Mountain Motor format was the best way to give the class the publicity it deserved, and inject new life into it. The 1980 AHRA Pro Stock season had gotten off to a lackluster start, but that was soon to change. To their credit, those in charge of the AHRA recognized the quandary they were in, and they reacted accordingly, making sweeping rules changes. So where does AHRA Pro Stock fit into the equation? At the start of the 1980 season, the AHRA was deep in the same quagmire as the NHRA, struggling to maintain a level playing field through the use of a cumbersome rules package. As a result, the first Pro Stock car to break into the seven-second zone was racing under IHRA sanction The IHRA took advantage of their rival’s complicated and rather unpopular structure and countered with a simplified unlimited cubic-inch format. ![]() On the National Hot Rod Association side, Pro Stock cars were running on a pounds-per-cubic-inch basis with special weight breaks and/or handicaps based on the make of car. The only real difference in the 255 hp and 300 hp 350s are the heads.ports and valves are the same, just the combustion chambers on the 300 hp heads are smaller which gives about a point more compression which might make 15 hp.Īlso, just a fyi, the 441 heads that were found on the 250 and 255 hp engines are thinner castings, more prone to cracking.just don't get them hot.In 1980, Pro Stock was a class in transition. Simply put, by putting the factory 4 barrel intake and carb on your 250hp engine you will have a carbon copy of the 255 hp 350 engine. The cam profiles in the 255hp, the 250 hp, and 300 hp were also the same, same carbs too. The intake manifold used on the 300hp and 255hp 350's were the same casting. The 300 hp version of the 350 came with small chamber 1.94 intake valve heads.castings were 186, 462, 291, 041.take note that some of those heads, perhaps only the 186 heads found on Z-28 engines, had 2.02 intake valves and HD springs, some had factory screw in studs iirc. The 250 and 255 hp versions were the same except for the intake manifold and carb.both the 250 and 255 hp engines came with 441 casting heads which are 1.94 intake valve with large chambers (78 cc iirc). Click to expand.The 350/300 hp engine came with different heads than what the 250 hp version came with.
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