Mc Culloch and Brown BB Gas Dragster
By noderel:
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McCulloch and Brown BB Gas Dragster By Dave Brackett, with Larry McCulloch |
 Dave |
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Glenn McCulloch was one of those present in Southern California in 1952 when drag racing started, check out his story, "Glenn McCulloch, Drag Racer, Friend". In 1965, Glenn and partner Leon Fitzgerald, had a speed shop called Anaheim Speed Engineers. They were both heavily involved in drag racing with small block Chevys. Glenn was a common sight at the races, mostly around the popular fuel altereds of the day. |
Anaheim Speed Engineers |
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Around this time, Glenn met Bob Brown, an aerospace mathematical engineer. They decided to build a blown gas dragster, and Bob would drive. Of course, the power was a small block Chevy. Glenn was well known for his expertise on small block Chevy motors. He loved small block Chevys so much, he somehow got General Motors to sell him 100 small block Chevy bare blocks with four bolt mains. Needless to say , Glenn was popular with the Southern California drag racers. Glenn started collecting parts, but had a somewhat limited budget. He built some nasty small block Chevys, so the engine was no problem. He got local chassis builder Jack Eskelson to build a chassis. He then enlisted my help building a front end and making billet lightweight front spindles at the college machine shop. Weight was very important in gas dragsters, as they could not create the overwhelming power produced with fuel. Glenn started with a 327, 4 bolt main, small block Chevy, I am not sure how big the motor was, but knowing Glenn, he probably did not stroke the crank. I know he used Mickey Thompson forged pistons. He concentrated on the valve train and breathing. He generally put in very oversized exhaust valves, ported the exhaust ports into the water jackets and welded them up and ported again, continuing till the exhaust ports were huge. We discovered that round exhaust ports were much better than the square Chevy ports. We welded up the header bolt holes and moved them out and I made new header flanges with 1 3/4 dia. holes in them. Glenn helped and was helped by friends like Chet Herbert, George Bolthoff and other small block Chevy specialists. Dick Harryman of Mechanical Research Development built his blowers and Glenn spun them fast. He used spark advances as much as 65 degrees, to help create horsepower. |
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The first run on the car was at Bakersfield, March 5,1964. It ran 8.96 with 170.77 mph. He was successful with the car, winning many meets. Bob Brown drove well, considering he never drag raced before. They consistently ran in the 8.50's and the high 170's mph. This was quite good, you have to remember how hard the tires were back then. Glenn kept meticulous records from each run, and was constantly changing plugs, injector pills, blower drives, cam timing, valve lash and advance, to run better. He broke lots of parts, but was very competitive. |
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The McCulloch and Brown BB Gas Dragster was a force to be reckoned with inthe mid 1960's in Southern California. The car was retired for financial reasons, and I believe was later sold to Danny Collins, who ran an injected small block Chevy in the car. Glenn had shown what could be done with a small motor, light car and concentrating on making the motor breathe, three keys to successful drag racing. |
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The McCulloch and Brown BB Gas Dragster |
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