HOT ROD Drag Week, presented by Gear Vendors Under/Overdrive
Every one of our quartet of 1970-‘72 Monte owners at the 2016 Drag Week readily admit their cars are heavy pigs. Most tip the scales at over 4000-pounds. That’s not exactly what one looks for in a quick race car. Yet two of these Montes are in the rarified seven-second range and another is in the eights. So what’s up with the Montes? We talked to the four owners to see what they’re running, what their combos and strategy is, and what these four guys know that has escaped those of us who have grown up always told that weight is your enemy.
Mark Vinson
Street Race, Big Block, Power Adder
Best Drag Week ET so far: 8.54
Mark’s a Ford guy, so the mystery only deepens. He’s owned his Monte for nine years, acquiring it in lieu of money owed. It was a factory big block loaded car with air, which it still has along with power steering, brakes, and a nice audio system. He was going to make it fast and flip it, but the more he wrenched on it the more he liked the performance, and how it felt, and continued to improve it. At 4040-pounds it’s not a lightweight. This is Mark’s third Drag Week, and though he’s continued to go faster, the Monte is only certified to 8.50. At this point he’s on the brakes to keep it at that cap, as his best Drag Week times indicates. Why not certify it into the sevens? He wants to keep it“a fast street sleeper” because—guess what? He drives it all over—it’s a street car.
His brother Matt is a Pro Mod driver so they use full Racepak data acquisition to help monitor the car. He feels that a lot of the success, besides the 940hp quivering under the fiberglass hood, is the rear end setup. The bar angles, settings, and valving are all monitored, and he says are set to help launch well.
The 582ci engine is a Dart iron block with Dart Pro 1 355 T-6 heads massaged by Domhoff in Harmony, PA. A large Bullet Cam grind bumps the valves, and an Applied Nitrous 2-stage plate sprays the laughing gas. A Rossler 400 trans runs a Coan Racing Supermega 4200rpm converter, but Mark says it’s taken a lot of massaging the stators, plates, and variations on lockup to nail down launch and shift points in the quarter. It spins a Gear Vendors overdrive hooked to the 3.70:1 9-inch running drag radials.
Mark tries to make a single run, and then blows outta Dodge for the next track. He told us there is no secret to the Montes, it’s just circumstances that landed him with the car, and then a gradual progression to run quicker without defeating the street sleeper intent.
George Gallimore
Super Street, Big Block, Power Adder
Best Drag Week ET so far: 7.71
George was looking for something he could package some honkin’ turbos into without cutting up the car and getting into a lot of body and chassis mods. Look at the engine shots of any of our quartet of Montes and they look like they exhibit extreme engine setback—but that’s all stock. So there was a definite plan with George’s Monte madness. This is his 4th Drag Week with this car in Super Street.
A Dart iron block runs Diamond pistons and 555 Brodix Head Hunter heads. Among other fails George broke a pin boss on one of his pistons last year. He says Drag Week is so hard on the car that he rebuilds the engine after each year. Yeeoowww! He’s using new, larger Precision Pro Mod 94mm turbos running between 30-35psi of boost. He’s also running a larger intercooler which he says is helping.
A Rossler TH210 Turbo 400 trans is on its 3rd Drag Week. George feels his best times are by babying the car off of the line. In back a 3.25:1 9-inch rear with Mark Williams axles and third member spins the tires. He also runs a Gear Vendors overdrive.
Besides the larger turbos and intercooler, another change from last year is shedding 100-pounds from cutting off the frame ahead of the motor mounts, replacing it with lightweight tubing. Still, the Monte hits the scales at over 4000-pounds.
George likes to “one-and-done” Drag Week making a single run, turning in his slip, and then he’s off to the next track. As he says, “We take our time because anything can happen.” The car is certified to a 6.50 ET so his mid-7 times are well within the car’s potential limits—providing George can overcome the weight disadvantage. But the Montes seem to sparkle with magic fairy dust so who knows what we might see at Drag Week in the coming years from this Monte?
Jacob Foster
Street Race, Big Block, Naturally Aspirated
Best Drag Week ET so far: 10.85
This Monte is just about Jacob’s first car—he’s owned it since he was 17, so that’s why he’s ended up racing it at Drag Week. There was really no sinister race plan, other than he likes to go fast. Which means there may be more mods in the works down the road, as Jacob says he’s not shy about cutting the car up to get lower times. To this point it’s relatively slice-free.
Starting with a 4200-pound car he’s shaved it down to 3870-pounds, the lightest of our quartet. Fiberglass bumpers, some brackets removed, lightening holes in places like the core support, and a lighter gas tank are just some of the changes he’s made in the pursuit of poundage.
The car is in many ways like a bracket car it’s so consistent, so Jacob is also a “one-and-done” Drag Week racer. He’s retained the stock A-arms, with Moroso Trick springs. A manual box out of a 1970 Chevelle replaces the heavier and power-sapping power steering.
Jacob says, “Horsepower and cubic inches is how to go fast. I try to keep it a street car so it even runs the crash bars in the doors, and an 8-point cage that s tucked out of the way.”
The engine starts with a 540ci Dart iron Shafiroff Racing Ultrastreet big block. Brodix Race Rite heads run a hydraulic roller cam. Why hydraulic lifters? Jacob says for a maintenance free engine. CFM Performance in Indy ported and polished the heads, with a .650 lift on the cam. Brodix intake has been flow-matched to the heads. This all dynos at 950hp at the rear wheels. He’s got a spray plate for nitrous but runs in the naturally aspirated class so no spray allowed. Jacob’s plugged the nitrous, but running it he gets into the 9s.
A Coan 400 transmission with a pro brake but no Gear Vendors takes care of the shifts, and a 12-bolt takes up the rear. He says he likes the 12-bolt because bearings and seals can be found at any auto parts store—an important consideration for Drag Week.
Jacob says the magic of the Monte’s is there is no magic.
Mike Roy
Street Race, Big Block, Power Adder
Best Drag Week ET so far: 7.66
Mikes Monte is the quickest of our Monte quartet, which you would expect from someone that’s a staple of Drag Week wins. He’s owned the car 21 years, and it’s been a steady search for speed. He took us quickly through the stages of his Monte: Starting as a nice driver he says, “That lasted about a day and then I was bored.” With early mods he was hitting 13.20 ETs. Adding nitrous lowered times to 11.80. A larger big block yielded 10.80 ETs, then bolting on a Pro Charger supercharger got him into the mid-9s, before radically altering the car with a back-half in 2005. For 2011 Mike converted over to the twin-turbos, which he’s run in the last five Drag Weeks.
The iron Dart block is a 540ci, with a 4.5-inch bore and 4.25-inch stroke. The raw Edelbrock heads were machined and massaged by Curtis Boggs at RFD in Virginia Beach. A Sniper Profiler intake is fed by two Precision Turbo GT55 88mm snails set at 33-pounds of boost—though he tells the competition they’re set at 15-pounds just to mess around. A Coan Engineering 210 Turbo 400 combined with a Gear Vendors overdrive spins the Larson-fab’d 9-inch with a 3.70:1 gear. He relies on Big Stuff data, which he reviews at night.
To shed some heft the heavy hauler has a fiberglass front bumper, hood and trunk lid. Still, at 4085-pounds this is a fat cat that takes wheelie bars and a deft touch to hammer through the traps. The Monte is certified for a 7.50 ET, so Mike is close to the limits spec’d for this car.
See the Live Stream, Photo Galleries, Videos, and Event Coverage from Hot Rod Drag Week 2016 Here!
September 11 – Registration, Test and Tune
National Trail Raceway
2650 National Rd SW
Hebron, OH 43025
September 12 – Day One Racing
National Trail Raceway
2650 National Rd SW
Hebron, OH 43025
September 13 – Day Two Racing
Summit Motorsports Park
1300 OH-18
Norwalk, OH 44857
September 14 – Day Three Racing
US 131 Motorsports Park
1249 12th St
Martin, MI 49070
September 15 – Day Four Racing
Lucas Oil Raceway
10267 US-136
Indianapolis, IN 46234
September 16 – Final Day Racing
National Trail Raceway
2650 National Rd SW
Hebron, OH 43025
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