This reminds me of more from the 60's;
A friend had a SBC or SBF powered Bugeye too. It was not much of a Bugeye
anymore. It had no traction, no balance, and usually no rear tires. It did have
cardboard fender flares after the police found fault with the way the Mustang
[?] rear end fit.... Our Bugeyed Datsun worked much better. Monster Miata
stories apply here...
Also, both front and rear ends broke easily. The rear axles were awfully weak
but the road racers had already broken enough so that aftermarket ones made of
real steel were available. These are still out there and work really well. I
don't remember breaking any of the good ones, but we ran the wrecking yards out
of stockers first. They all broke out board of the wheel bearings so the wheels
came off.....
The front spindles were a problem, We made custom wheels using Corvair rims on
Sprite centers, 13x6". These were enough to break a spindle every year or so.
We lost the wheel each time. We found no fix, but surely by now the Production
race crowd has someone making good metal replacements.
The second and third gen Sprites had a good set of disc brakes that were very
good and almost universally used. In those days it was fair game to use a late
Sprite as a donor organ source for a Bugeye. I imagine again that the Prod guys
now have very good Wilwood packages.
Dennis Hale
--- On Mon, 6/30/08, Chuck Wills <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> My Dad just got finished telling me about a Sprite that
> belonged to a
> good buddy of his - this was in Santa Barbara, about
> 1964.<br>
> He put a 283 chevy V8 in his Sprite - bored it out to a 301
> with a big
> cam and 4-barrel. the headers were routed through the
> fenders and a
> salvaged boat out-drive system was used to route the
> steering shaft
> between the header tubes.<br>
> He wanted to use a 4 speed, but couldn't because the
> tail section was
> past the rear axle (a narrowed chevy), so he used a 3 speed
> manual.
> With that setup the drive shaft was 12"
> long.<br>
> Other than that it was all 100% stock.<br>
> Performance was "blistering"... until one of the
> stock wheels sheered
> in half and sent the car into a tree. "Fun while
> it lasted" he said. :)<br>
> I can't imagine that level of power with stock Sprite
> brakes and
> wheels. Yikes!<br>
> <br>
> -Chuck<br>
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