"Shut Down" revisited

[William F.]

Re: "Shut Down" revisited

Dick,
You 'd man with stainless steel cajones to run 5 miles to top end! Respect your knowledge and experience and you may be right about long run to top end SB vs BB but how 'bout Stuart Fox's comments on driving by short grared BB's with his 3.36 SB? Also, question/post was about chances of hiperf SB beating a hiperf 396 Camaro in quarter mile drag race., not about longer race or top end.

[Dick W.]

Re: "Shut Down" revisited

Dick,
You 'd man with stainless steel cajones to run 5 miles to top end! Respect your knowledge and experience and you may be right about long run to top end SB vs BB but how 'bout Stuart Fox's comments on driving by short grared BB's with his 3.36 SB? Also, question/post was about chances of hiperf SB beating a hiperf 396 Camaro in quarter mile drag race., not about longer race or top end.

In my younger and dumber days we were not much into the drag strips. One of my favorite runs was a .7 mile crossing the start line at 100 mph. I did not do the five mile but twice, if you had a car that was stout it could get very hairy. To think we ran those speeds on the tires we had back then. Friend of mine had a '67 that he bought a crate '69 L/88, we did the heads, changed the cam, blueprinted, etc. With L-60's and a 3.36-1 gear, the car would get extremely light on the front end in third gear. I remember the comment Jr. Johnson made to Zora after a couple of laps at Daytona in a Grand Sport, " you mf sob's are crazy if you thing I am going to drive that thing". Jr. told me you could go down the back straight and turn the steering wheel lock to lock and it would not respond. They were trying to get airborne.

[Joe C.]

Re: "Shut Down" revisited

In my younger and dumber days we were not much into the drag strips. One of my favorite runs was a .7 mile crossing the start line at 100 mph. I did not do the five mile but twice, if you had a car that was stout it could get very hairy. To think we ran those speeds on the tires we had back then. Friend of mine had a '67 that he bought a crate '69 L/88, we did the heads, changed the cam, blueprinted, etc. With L-60's and a 3.36-1 gear, the car would get extremely light on the front end in third gear. I remember the comment Jr. Johnson made to Zora after a couple of laps at Daytona in a Grand Sport, " you mf sob's are crazy if you thing I am going to drive that thing". Jr. told me you could go down the back straight and turn the steering wheel lock to lock and it would not respond. They were trying to get airborne.

I did that intentionally at Mosport going around Clayton Corner.

I'm thinking that your friend bought the L88 because it represented the best porcupine headed engine available at the time. I can understand the porting of the heads, but how did you outdo the L88 cam?

[William C.]

Re: "Shut Down" revisited

The answer is Yes, at the Supercar Showdown about 10 yrs ago my '65 FI ran low 13times, Don't know if I still have the slips or not, this was on DOT "street" tires, essentially slicks with a small amount of tread on them.

[Dick W.]

Re: "Shut Down" revisited

I did that intentionally at Mosport going around Clayton Corner.

I'm thinking that your friend bought the L88 because it represented the best porcupine headed engine available at the time. I can understand the porting of the heads, but how did you outdo the L88 cam?

Best I remember we either called Crane or talked to Ed Iskenderian and they ground us a cam. I don't know where it peaked, but it would still pull strong way past the 6,500 on the tach. That motor is still in the car today, only it is trimmed out with the 435 intake and cast iron manifolds, the Kustom headers and side pipes are long gone.

[William F.]

Re: "Shut Down" revisited

There we go William C. David did beat Goliath! Good for you. Anybody else?

[William F.]

Re: "Shut Down" revisited

There we go William C. David did beat Goliath! Good for you. Anybody else?

[William C.]

Re: "Shut Down" revisited

No. didn't win, had to race a Buick Turbo, he went into the 12 second bracket....

[William C.]

Re: "Shut Down" revisited

Read my post above, was not a win!

[Richard K.]

Re: "Shut Down" revisited

The phrase in the record is "two cool SHARKS standing side by side. Also, to those who ate up 389/348 gtos,remember, that motor only had the advantage of cubes in a light (3300lb) car with a cool (197/213 degrees at 050.lift) cam-no where near the duration and lift of an 097 or a 30/30 duntov. Most guys, not all, were also pus*ys and would would short shift what ever engine they were running way below the top of the horsepower curve-or worse-miss the 2-3 shift. I started out in tripower goats (66s)with the early ram air 3 cam (224/236 degrees at 050.lift). Also had forged pistons, trick valvetrain and dyno tune (lived out in long Island in the 50s, 60s and early 70s-plenty of shops to tune my car-actually had it done at "Speedwin Automotive"-Joe Jills outfit out in the island. I had those same problems initially. I learned quick! I got to a point that I would be shifting my car at the high readline of 6 grand! I never missed a shift, practiced the 2-3 shift often. When I moved laterally to 65 327/365s vetts, I continued to unlike others, shift at the redline, in this case 6500. You had to be willing to take it to the max if you wanted to win- fortune favored the bold! Sadly, I went thru 1-2 clutches (pissed my mom off big time!)a year, plus ate valvesprings, the 365 car had 2 complete new sets plus a valve job(bent 2 intakes and burned an exhaust-that was an expensive year!) Gang, I wouldn't trade it for a million bucks. It cemented my love of corvetts, I've owned a bunch, currently own a mulsane blue 71 LS-6 vert AND a orbit orange 70 ram air 4, 4 spd GTO.

[William F.]

Re: "Shut Down" revisited

Richard,Enjoyed your post. Wasn't going to say anything at first about those who thought lyrics of "Shut Down" was two cool "shorts" but like you, knew it was sharks. Those who said "shorts" have dysfunctional lyrics disorder, you know, those who sing " Freak out in the garden", or "excuse me while I kiss this guy", or "there's a bathroom on the right."" sharks" still sounds like one of those words you never (hopefully) heard anyone say in real life, like "boss" or "bitchin."Back to cars, did you destroy those valve trains by just going to redline on tach, or did you go beyond or miss shifts? Wondering if it's OK to do "pulls" to 6500 redline, no powershifts, in my '62 340 hp or am I in danger of destroying its original motor? Think I'll forget about actual drag racing.

[Gene M.]

Re: "Shut Down" revisited

It has been very interesting reading all these little experiences and stories. But one thing is for sure if ya wanna go faster spend more money. Cubic inches is not always the answer but cubic dollars helps a lot........

[Michael J.]

Re: "Shut Down" revisited

Richard,Enjoyed your post. Wasn't going to say anything at first about those who thought lyrics of "Shut Down" was two cool "shorts" but like you, knew it was sharks. Those who said "shorts" have dysfunctional lyrics disorder, you know, those who sing " Freak out in the garden", or "excuse me while I kiss this guy", or "there's a bathroom on the right."" sharks" still sounds like one of those words you never (hopefully) heard anyone say in real life, like "boss" or "bitchin.".

If you Google "shut down beach boys lyrics" you will get many dozens of sites that most all indicate it is "shorts", only 1 or two that say "sharks". Having grown up with the song as a teenager when it was playing on the radio (AM, poor quality of course), and listened to it thousands of times, I was never sure what they were saying. I never really heard either slang word used to refer to cars, but there were many "pool sharks" I knew.

[Richard K.]

Re: "Shut Down" revisited

Will; winding a solid lifter small block chev to 6500 ain't a big deal, especially in first or second, I didn't run them that hard in 4th unless I absolutely had to, ie; money run on the connecting in Queens or some bar(alcohol) generated grudge run. I keep the last two items to a minimum. 67-69 DZ 302s and 70-72 LT-1s had no problem hitting 6500 as long as the springs were good and lash was properly set. Your 340s redline is approx 6300, with fresh springs, solid set you should be able to hit that number on a routine basis when needed not to worry about valve train damage. Use it! just don't abuse it! that 327/340 will take you a long way. The 389/400 pontiacs I owned were all high output or ramair units so they had factory upgraded valve trains and when properly adjusted, 6000 grand was no problem, lower end on the short stroke (3.75 inch) 389/400s were good to 6400 for an occasional burst of wide open throttle (15 seconds or less), however power peak with either of the best ram air cams (744 or 041 with 1.65 rockers) was approximately 54-5600rpm with 6000rpm as a maximum.

[Michael J.]

Re: "Shut Down" revisited

Here is a discussion of the song and term:

http://www.carlustblog.com/2010/04/great-cars-of-song-shut-down.html