2000 Racetech Bracket Dragster - the beginning

This is a 2000 Racetech rear-engine dragster that has eventually ended up with most of the good stuff. We ordered the car as a basic bare chassis with tin-work and the rear end assembly completed. Pretty much like putting a model car kit together, but without the instructions. I spent a lot of time looking at other dragsters, taking pictures and just plain trying to figure out some items that have to go on a car of this sort. We finally finished the car last summer, but suffered a serious setback with engine bearing damage. We have not come to any conclusion yet as to what happened, but believe it might have been a cheap harmonic balancer that hurt us the most.

Update - August 2005

We are still looking to get our engine block and other parts back from the machine shop, so progress has been seriously slowed and we are starting to doubt if we will have the chance to get to the track this year with the car. We have made some definite choices about the car for future project information. The car will be repainted in the off-season as the current paint job has never measured up to our standards, our fault for going with a normal body shop to do this type of work, the price was right but the results were not. We are switching to a different hoodscoop arrangement going with a GOZA pan to tunnel the air to the carburetor. There is also some discussion about switching over to running alcohol which is something that we would really like to do to keep the heat down in the engine. Other upgrades are minor, some changes in the MSD modules to help us fine tune the engine and the addition of a relay between the shifter and delay box to prevent any meltdowns. We also replaced the solenoid on the shifter as the original one would never shift the transmission on a consistent basis and in bracket racing, consistency is what it is all about.

We will actually start this project off with the build up of the 509 cubic inch big block and along the way back-track a bit on some of the other things on the car that have been completed.

Update - June 2006

It is a bit hard to believe that it has been almost a year since the last update on the this project, but that's how time can get away from you. We just talked to our machine shop and the motor pieces are now ready to be picked up. A lot of changes have been made to our original intentions, but we think we have put together a combination that we will be happy with and one that will be quick.

We also took the chassis down to VMP in the spring and got it certified for NHRA competition so that's one item that we are done with. A new competition license will have to be obtained for NHRA and then we can get on with the work of getting the car dialed in and consistent.

Update - March 2007

Okay, so updates on this have been a bit slow. The engine was assembled late summer during the middle of building Project Camaro. We took the car to a test and tune session only to discover that the ATI transmission (brand new, less than 5 runs at this point) had simply quit functioning due to the length of time it sat while the new engine was put together. So, out came the 'glide, a quick touchup on the valvebody and front pump and it was back together. Out of the box now in March, we broke a couple of two dollar parts in the valve train, (once again, brand new parts!!) and will have to pull apart the engine to make sure that we don't have any other damage. In the meantime, here's a few shots of the dragster.