"steve preston" <steve239dak@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:20020404035420.25523.qmail@web10907.mail.yahoo.com...
>
> I`m not sure,but I think they`re using the 360 right
> now. It`s destroked to bring it down to the right
> cubic inch,`swat I`m thinkin`. Don`t know about them
> outlawing Hemi`s,but didn`t they eliminate "winged
> cars" during the Superbird and Charger Daytona days?
> Think so. Steve P. ---
NASCAR outlawed the Hemi shortly after it was intro'd to racing in 1964,
simply because it was beating up every Ford and Chevy out there. The
problem was, the 426 Race Hemi was designed from the ground up to be a
racing engine, whereas the competition just had modded passenger car
engines. So, NASCAR ruled that approximately 500 cars (per model) needed to
be sold to the general public as passenger cars, thus making the Race Hemis
illegal. This was actually a blessing in disguise for non-racing
enthusiasts, because it forced Chrysler to bring out the Street Hemi (a
detuned Race Hemi) to be put into passenger car body styles that would also
be used in Winston Cup racing. The Street Hemi (425hp vs. 500hp of Race
Hemi) became available to the general public in 1966, thus making the Hemi
engine once again legal for Winston Cup racing. By this time, Ford had
their OHC 428(?) readied, and were more of a competition for Chrysler (thus
taking the pressure off of Winston Cup officials to try to even things out).
The 500-unit production rule remained in effect, and is why 500 of each of
the Superbird and Charger Daytona were supposed to have been made available
to the public. The actual number produced varied, but they got it past the
rules regardless.
AFAIK, the winged cars were never outlawed on the tracks. They did have
problems with excessive tire wear, however - seems the aerodynamics of the
cars placed tremendous pressures on the tires, and tire technology was such
at the time that the winged car drivers had to make more pit stops to change
out tires. Thus, their advantage in speed was lost out by spending more
time in the pits. As an interesting aside, the reason you see those fender
humps on a winged car, just over the front tires, is because the engineers
had to cut holes in the tops of the fenders. The downforce at speed on the
winged cars was so great that the front tires would come into contact with
the fender and shred the tires, so holes were cut to allow the tires
extension beyond the fenders. The little hump caps were there merely to
cover the holes, but they added an element of style to the street production
winged cars.
HTH
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