Quote:
Originally Posted by wdfifteen
When Don Garlits switched from the old 392 Hemi to the new 426 block he couldn't get enough power out of it. Out of frustration he started advancing the timing and it got better and better, he finally finally settled on somewhere around 50 degrees. He said he wondered what would have happened to the 392 if he had had the courage to crank up the advance.
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I'm sure you remember the Donovan 417, his aluminum heads on the 392 block. That was what this team was running. Back then, a lot of teams still felt the 392 block was better suited to nitro.
Interestingly, the ring leader of this little gang of n'er-do-wells, one Crowell Jewell, developed his own proprietary design of three valve heads for 392 based fuel motors. One intake and two exhaust. He just machined them on a Bridgeport out of a chunk of 6061. I've long since lost it, but I had a copy of
National Dragster with his smiling face on the cover, holding one of his heads. They (I wasn't there with them) set the funny car mph record in Denver one year when running those heads. They never took off, "Rocky" (as he liked to be called) and the team soon ran out of money, and that was that. Fun while it lasted, though.