Pelican Parts Forums - RIP Bill "Grumpy" Jenkins

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RIP Bill "Grumpy" Jenkins

81.

Did not win a lot of races but brought a lot of inovation to NHRA.

RIP

Grumpy's Toy(various incarnations) were always a mainstay of the drag features in all the car mags I read in the late 70's early 80's

He would have been less 'Grumpy' if he would have finally lit that cigar.

RIP Bill.

My childhood idol. RIP

The only thing faster than Grumpy in a Vega was rust.

Bummer.... RIP

See him run a few times at the local strip in the 70's in D/FW

Mike

He the first to:

1) Be competitive and successfull with small displacement engines when NHRA gave a weight break in the early 70's to the Pro-stock class

2) To have a real narrowed rear to get the rear tires up under the body for it sit lower for aerodynamics and improve handling.

3) To use round tube main frame rails to save weight, increase space and get the chassis lower to the ground

4) To use a pressure gauge mounted on the dash - routed to the front brake lines to hold the front brakes at a predetermined psi with the line-loc. This solved the problem of trying to hold the brake, feather the clutch and stab the throttle when trying to stage the car in the beams. (They were all stock case based 4-speeds then)

5) Realize that his high rpm engines liked slightly retarded ignition timing as he shifted into 4-th gear. So he used a toggle switch on the shifter to cut the circuit to the lead set of points in the dual point distributor. this picked up ET and MPH.

6) Used gear oil instead oif grease in his front wheel bearings (less rolling resistance)

7) The first to experiment with negative crank-case pressure by increasing the draw on the top end and reversing the rear main oil seal so air could be sucked by into the crank-case w/o dragging on the crank shaft.................

I could go on and on..............the guy was unbeliveable. A master of high performance engines

RIP Grumpy.
Awesome engine builder in the purest form of motor sport, Pro Stock.