We went from zero to 100 and stopped all within a quarter mile. My wife told me to sell the ’57 and buy a street rod – unthinkable! A buddy took me for a ride in his Z06 Corvette with 405 hp, 6 speed, 3.42 gears and 355 street tires, shifting at 6200 rpm. I’d always wanted a hot rod to drive on the street and take to the drags and race. But with me having it set up for racing (solid motor mounts, 5.86 rear gear with a spool) it is not street friendly. My ’57 has all the original chrome and it is just my clean daily driver/racer.
The car has the original paint and interior except for carpet, and I had the front seat recovered in the original style material. In 2007 I won the Texas Muscle Car Club Challenge event in the King Muscle class at Texas Raceway in Kennedale. Extreme Horsepower rebuilt the motor and now the car has run a best of 7.51 in the eighth mile with 1.60 sixty-foot time. Still, I had oil pressure issues – so I pulled the motor and found the bearings had too much clearance from the builder. On the chassis dyno it clocked 383 rear wheel horsepower. One year after that, I had Extreme Horsepower (Arvil Fowler) put in a larger Comp cam, Stage 2 heads, larger injectors, and a 90 mm throttle body. So, I got a Lingenfelter long-block, forged rods and pistons, ARP bolts and had it balanced. The motor must have run upside down in the wrecked Corvette I got it from, starving the bearings. The car ran 8.03 the first time out and finally I got it down into the 7.90s, after tuning on a dyno.Īfter about a year, the oil pressure showed 0 at idle and about 25 at maximum.
The quickest I had gone with the 355 small-block (4-speed, 5.86 gears) was 7.64 in the eighth mile and 11.59 in the quarter mile. I thought I would be satisfied with 7.90 times in the eighth mile. That aluminum motor was paired with a 4L60E tranny, rack and pinion power steering, power disc brakes, tilt steering, 12 gallon fuel cell, Aeromotive fuel pump, long tube stainless steel headers, a Comp cam, ported heads, Cal Trac traction bars, an Eaton Posi unit with 3.73 gears and Moser axles, Mickey Thompson street radials, 2 transmission oil coolers and twin K&N air filters. Then in September 2004, I had LNJ Street Rods (Larry Sanders) put in a ’99 LS1 from a wrecked Corvette. I ran 27-32 times a year through 1995, then I parked the car for 10 years – when electronics took over drag racing. I raced the car at long closed drag strips in the North Texas area like Richland Hills Drag Strip, Forest Hills Drag Strip, Green Valley Raceway, Temple Drag Strip and Cedar Hill Drag Strip. When the 283 threw a rod, it was replaced with a 292 cubic-inch motor, then a 327, then a 355. First came headers, then a cam, floor shifter, 4.56 gears, etc. The ’57 was raced often, and as I could save money, I bought speed parts for it. This was our family car until 1960, then we purchased a 1959 station wagon. The car ran 16 seconds flat at 90 mph crossing the finish line in second gear. This was in February of ’57, and the only drag strip open that time of the year was Yello Belly Drag Strip in Grand Prairie, Texas. Black with a black/silver interior along with a 270 horse, 2x4 barrel set up, 3-speed tranny and a 3.55 single track rear end. If DMC seems familiar that's because it's the same shop that rebuilt the Murder Nova.In 1957 I traded a ’54 Ford Crestliner and $1200 for this ’57 Bel Air 2-door hardtop. The "glass" will all be lightweight stuff from Optic Armor. As DMC's MacPherson stated, "Having the donor car helped a ton so we could use the body for chassis dimensions and fit everything around the windshield frame." The new '57 Chevy is incorporating more than a few wild changes that nobody has tried on a '57 before, and while the '57 is a real-deal car a lot of it is being done in composites and carbon from VFN. The donor car was shipped to DMC's facility in Massachusetts in September and the team started stitching together the 25.3 SFI-certified chassis. After searching around Lutz was able to find a rusted-out donor Bel Air that had just what he needed, including a VIN. Lutz was also impressed with the outpouring of support from fans, one of them even offering up a clean roof for the new build. Danchuk Manufacturing, a longtime Lutz sponsor, rushed him the needed Tri-Five parts such as body panels, quarters, and all the chrome bits for the new car.
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