We took delivery of Drag Pak #24 Sept 30, 2009, after all of the chassis work was completed we brought the car back to Barberton on November 20.

We have stripped the car of all insulation and sound deadening (Dodge said it came without that stuff, but we tooks out between 10 and 14 lbs of it) Painted the roll cage, interior, trunk, underside, engine compartment, and hood. Now we are getting ready to begin assembly later this week... We made a lot of different choices than most other Drag Pak owners, but we are far more weight conscious than others... any if you are looking for some Drag Pak info, we have a daily blog started and as you will see we enjoy ourselves as we are getting this car ready. The car is mine, and my son is crew chief, and doing a fine job of it. You will see him in most of the pictures, since while he is working I have time to photograph. http://newhemiracing.blogspot.com

Living in the Akron Ohio area had benefits. In the "old days" I had Arlen Vanke do my engine work and watched as closely as I could, and I often stopped by Art Arfons shop just to be close to the action. Now we have folks dropping by our shop for the same reason. Funny how life goes in cycles...

David

Welcome to the Moparts! By the way nice car!

Looks good David and welcome to Moparts.


btw...Can I get one those DP Key Chains?? haha

Congratulations. In your honor, NHRA just added 5 HP to the 5.7L engine in stock with an automatic. Merry Christmas from NHRA!

http://www.nhra.net/content/sportsman_news.asp?articleid=39428&zoneid=85

I don't see anything for the Ford CJ Moosetangs.

Ok every body in n.e.ohio lets go visit lol

I am wondering how we have never been by your shop or seen your car.
i think we need to all stop by like theraif said!

No problem guys come on over.... Plenty of work to be done, and we can always use some extra help...

On Barber Road, In Barberton Ohio near Fred Martin SuperStore. See our web site http://www.newhemiracing.com for address and phone. Between now and Christmas, we will be working 12 hour days...

We truly expect to have the fastest 09 Drag Pak and after we get our feet wet in A/SA we will drop in a 5.7 that we are building (which doesnt yet have the extra hp added to it, but will after we show what we can make one of these new hemis do... ) and run in some lower classes.

Thanks for the encouragement too guys... It has already been a long haul as we had this car on order for 14 months, planning without enough specifics and then finding out almost all of our expections were wrong. So we started once we got the car and really appreciate all of the help from Mike at MPR Racing, who built the prototypes and has the rear end and roll cage, and everything else down to a science. We are still getting the last few items into the shop, have some special parts being fabricated right now, and our custom (but legal) ECU is nearly finished and will set some of the big name ecu folks on their ear. We promised our ECU guys we wouldnt let cat out of the bag until we are running strong, but the have had my 2008 SRT8 running with the drag pack manifold and injectors for a week already. After Christmas, we will head there and fit everything onto the Drag Pak car. Still a lot to do though, and I left my son and another one of our shop guys still working there at 7:30 as I had to take an emergency shipment to UPS, but we are fininish rubbing out the paint and will start putting it back together tomorrow, but I guess I don't need to tell you that, you can read the blog..

David

Welcome David. How about bringing it to our Moparts party at B E and A Feb 20th in Medina?? It would be great to meet you and check out the car..

https://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/show...part=1&vc=1

Stock style Ford 9"

Sorry, would love to bring it out and show it off, and especially to meet you guys, but the car will be in Pomona, Ca for the WinterNationals and then to Vegas, and Texas, and Gainesville Fla. So it will be a while before we get back to Ohio with the car.

But we won't be leaving until right after Christmas, so come on by and touch and feel it. We are putting back together right now, will measure for our driveshaft, and then pull the engine to tear it down and make our final mods.

Other questions asked were: 1: What tranny and rear end? 2: And did we do class racing before?

We are running a 904 with some sweet internals by Paul at Trans Action. A lot of folks think a 727 Pro Trans is the way to go, but our 904 is in a truck case with extra ribbing and reinforcment that nobody knew existed until we found it wil hold up to the strain. We are also using a chrysler 8 3/4 rear end with lightened Richmond Pro Gears and gun drilled axles.

In both cases, we opted for lighter units than 727 and Dana 60, with a good understanding that we will be every bit as strong as the other guys in the classes we run. If we were all out in Super Stock class, we probably would have gone ProTrans, and Dand 60.

2. As for class racing before this.. Not since the 60's and it was all different then. I drove C/MP Ford Falcon and a 56 Chevy whose class I can't recall. But now that I am retired (atually have lung cancer from Asbestos) and had a few extra dollars I decided this is what I wanted to do. But we have two different National Class Winners in foot braking classes ready to drive for us, until we either get our points accumulated, or determine that they really are better drivers than we are.

David

mopar 8-3/4"

Hotrod/ stock style 9"

Correct, the Challengers can use a 9" housing w the third member pattern of an 8 3/4 third member. NHRA has blessed this.

How does that benefit the 8-3/4??

The rule was amended as the 8 3/4 housings are "hard to find".My understanding is the Moser housing is also legal to use.

It is a moser housing, no fab stuff though.

I ddn't say that the Pro Trans cases broke, or at least I didnt mean to say that. We hear they are good, but heavy so that is why we went to a stout 904.

We have the Moser 8 3/4 which I hear is a really 9" Ford with a mopar flange but NHRA approved.

Protrans' come either way 904 or 727 case, we run both, no difference between the two. Mike

Went to your site. Interesting build you have going on there, but whats this about the pistons.

Got some other goodies ordered and learned some interesting info out, some good some bad, the piston issue still has me a bit wound up.

someone was worried that they had illegal pistons, because the numbers weren't stamped on the top

Chris (drooze) posted the info here (ooops he will post here..) on the issues with pistons..... He has been talking to Bruce B at NHRA and knows the issues involved. It is not just an issue of a stamping a "magic number" on the pistons.

David

The Problem is not the Piston markings, that was dealth with weeks ago. There are other issues. For those who really want to know call me at 330-808-8487

Chris

Lol...I did a double take on that pics for a second, my first reaction was OH CRAP Someone has been in our shop and took a pic ! Oh....that was me, and you just posted it for clarity, but it threw me.

The ProTrans, and I did talk to Dave directly a couple times, the real issue for us wasnt the quality or the cost, but turnaround time and our availability of spares in a bind. His lead time on it was greater than our pretty agressive schedule. Were talking about tracking the car 45 days from the time we got it back to our shop. So we opted for a lightened 904 alloy except the sunshell, and we have 2 of those coming, they just take a while to make. Should have it by Pomona....well see....noone is sure how one will hold up in this application so Im a little leary to run it there on the 6.1 Nothing bad about em, I even forgot until today why we didnt go with one.....our 904 in a auto car should be fine. And it was set up by the guy who built our valve body so I know its right for that and there are some tranny mods needed done for that. But also costing , the ProTrans is worth it but for 5k and some change I can carry 2 904's and have a hot spare.

The 8 3/4 well with the Moser case its a bit beefier, well a lot beefier, it actually cost $200 more than a 60 from Mike with moly tubes.....it will weigh about 15 pounds less at a minimum than an aftermarket 60 with moly tubes. With an aftermarket 489 nodular case we have, 35 spline axles, and an alloy strange spool (we bought the last 2 they made well over a year ago....dont know if theyre going to produce more or not but we bought the last 2 they had, lightened 4.86 pro gears, on this we can carry a spare chunk with a 2 tenths variance 4.88 in a treated gear. Its got billet caps and adjusters, dosent scare me in an auto car in the least, its very very nice. An 8 3/4 is MUCH easier to fix fast trackside with a spare chunk, than a 60 at least for me.

Im not worried about the rear end or the trans. are they BULLETPROOF ? No....not by any stretch, are they light, hell yes, are they adequate ? I hope so, granted a ProTrans is probably a couple hundreths faster, and stronger, and....heavier, not much but these cars are fat as it is. So everything counts. We could build it bulletproof and heavier, and slower and never break a thing, or we could run it light and fast and expect breakage, but we expect it are prepared for it and hope to run fast because of it. (the old man just chimed in not the breakage of course The weight

Cheers

Chris

Good Luck

After the phone bills of the last 3 months I cant imagine wed notice.....500$ a MONTH, all the distance calls on the car parts this and that related....ouch.....

Itll be back to normal soon....lol.

3800 in PHONE BILLS ?!?!?!?!?! Multiple lines/business account ?

Wow....no matter how horrible you think something is it can always be worse.....ugh

Ouch......all I can say is.....Ouch......I once had a car burn......its been 20 years and it still makes me sick......

And yeah 3 months of that Coin and I could finsh ALL my other projects

Ouch....

Chris, I just finished reading your daily blog. BTW, Thanks for all your helpfull tips yesterday. You and your Dad are the best.

Well, after a variety of "not fun" experiences, like roaching a motor, and following that up with an exhaust valve tapping a piston, and fluids leaking from everywhere that there were fluids, we finally got the car all buttoned up and took Drag Pak #24 down the strip..

A strong shakedown cruise with no ET slip. That was interntional as we didn't want to set any expectations on the run. And we had our shift point low, and really wanted to make sure that it would go fast and stop fast. Task accomplished!

It runs good, and stops fine. Nothing leaked and nothing broke.

Now on to Atlanta (which is were we were last Saturday for our first run) and I will be driving it in A/SA God willing...

Drooze will be wrenching and I will be driving at Atlanta. This is based on two facts of life. One, he is better than I am on mechanical side. This is partly because I am old and frail and can't get enough leverage to even torque the heads. (Or at least that is what I tell Drooze. I am 64 and have wrenched enough cars, having started when I was 8, so although I can't say it isn't fun, it isn't as much fun as it used to be.) and I can still cut a pretty good light.

So, we will be at the track on Thursday, and finally put this puppy through it's paces.

Oh, and if you want to see what it looks like now with our wrap, check the blog at http://newhemiracing.blogspot.com

David
The New Hemi Guy