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The Powerglide trials and tribulations:
Forced to give up on the Ford C-4 due to no available transbrakes at the time, Dave's next choice was a GM Powerglide but the biggest problem was who the hell were we going to find that was willing to work with us on a Glide and torque converter set up behind a VW engine, turbo or no turbo. All we got were snickers and "I don't think so's" from all of the hotdog, competitive V8 transmission builders, Nationwide I might add. A friend, Larry Winters who was running a Thompson glide and that worked at Aeroquip in Costa Mesa, CA, kept telling us to keep ragging on Bobby Thompson of Thompson Transmission who at that time was in Fullerton, CA. Most all competitive, winning V8 automatic equipped drag cars at that time were running Thompson Transmission glides. Yeah right, like he is going to work with us ? But Bobby finally did agree, maybe he was bored ? maybe he got tired of Dave bugging him ? who knows, but Bobby did finally agree to work with us. And thus started seven months of torque converter trial and error, mostly error. The main problem was no one in the V8 world could comprehend the power and torque a turbocharged, alcohol injected Volkswagen engine was capable of making. Marv Hillard of I/G Little Boozer fame got us in with Chris at Continental Converter in Inglewood, CA. Bless his heart, Chris cut our converter open more than he probably ever imagined he would cut any converter open. The deal was that a V8 makes more torque idling than a VW does so we had to have a converter that was super loose below 3000 rpm and relatively tight after that, easier said than done as there was no benchmark for Chris to go by at that time, other than our car and Dave's persistence. And that's why pioneers get arrows in their ass, Bobby, Chris and Dave got way too many arrows, but they finally hit the combination.
Still wanting to use a VW auto stick bellhousing to keep the package small and also to be able to use a VW starter, the Glide's bellhousing was cut off and the case and pump were highly modified to make room for the VW starter. Most of this came about as the frame rails were not wide enough and were low never anticipating plopping a Powerglide in there and the car could not accomodate a Powerglide bellhousing. Back halfing the car was not an option as none of us knew if this was even going to work, We used a Halibrand quick change with the Ford C-4 as no one knew what the final drive could or should be but now with some insight into final drive gearing for the 1/4 mile, a third member with less drag was the next step while Bobby Thompson was finishing up the Powerglide and poor Chris was taking his best educated guess at building us a converter. Talking and yakking with those with much more experienced than us, a Chrysler 8 3/4 was chosen. We found one in National Dragster in Simi Valley, CA. It had been built for a B alcohol funny car with the desired 742 housing, Summers Bros. axles and wheel studs, SPE full floaters, Lamb JFZ caliphers and a Richmond ring and pinion and best of all, it had a hub to hub distance that would fit in our car, we jumped on it. 8 3/4 in, Powerglide and converter done and in and off to Orange County International Raceway we went. It was just Dave, John Smith and myself by this time. Deano was off on a new adventure as Editor on the brand new Three Wheeling magazine that Wright Publishing was starting, plus I think he was getting a little bored with our shenanigans and breakage ? Spirits high, we unloaded at OCIR only to find out that the converter wasn't convertin'. Back to the shop, back to Continental Converter , etc., etc., etc. This went on for months until the final engine and converter stall combination was found. Now that we had a reliable drivetrain, Dave could move on to working  Check out the DDS Valve Covers and S/F cylinder heads, at Ken and Dean's request we did R & D on their new cylinder So who knew we were going to have this much fun ? Seemed like some good ideas to all of us at the time, I think....
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