I like this forum the way it is, the H.A.M.B. is fun but it is mostly guys just BSn'. I think you get a little more Meat here and being a smaller group it's more of a community.

Just My thoughts

I read the first Karol Miller piece again but couldnt get the second one large enough to see.  It is a great story, but...10 years before my time.  I wasnt there, and have to admit a little difficulty in relating.  The story would make a fantastic screen play for movie, remindful of the Worlds Fastest Indian.  Maybe then it would sink in. 

I like this site just the way it is also.  It takes up way too much of my time, but I'm addicted.  While a little chat is OK, if I had to wade through a lot of BS, I probably wouldn't visit here as much.  All that from a guy who doesn't know when to stop writing.........

Like John, I also have some snail mail contact with him and as such, just didn’t feel the need to respond to the post.  Even before knowing him personally, I knew of him from the accounts written in the early Sixties.  He definitely set the bar back then and from the sounds of what he does now, is still continuing to reset the bar.  Excellent write up on the HAMB site though.

I recall Karol cut his teeth by beating one AJ Foyt's Olds in "top end" racing. I rember him replacing the stock exaust with the police (did not use the bumper outlet), exaust system with its larger diameter pipes, after the exaust hangers melted off during these races. Did the same on my 56 customline 272. That was a great car, I regret driving it so hard. That was the car I traded on my 61 Starliner,390/375. 

I like the Karol Miller story for the simplicity, low tech and low buck, he had to make do with what he had and fabricate everything.  The true Y-Block way. I am constantly telling people that what makes this sport fun is the hands on way we do things.  The scrub crowd has lost that because everything is "buy and bolt" most guys don't know what they are doing and just think that because some add tells them that they can get 10% more HP with this part and 15% more HP with that part and so on, so now they now have 1000 HP.  Truth is the thing runs like crap because of no research or knowledge. 

  Even before knowing him personally, I knew of him from the accounts written in the early Sixties.  He definitely set the bar back then and from the sounds of what he does now, is still continuing to reset the bar.  Excellent write up on the HAMB site though.[/quote]

   Bear in mind, that there were about 100 people working on small block scrubs, or Chrysler Hemis, or Flatheads. Then there was Karol, and Les Richter, by themselves, with no help from Ford, or Edelbrock, or Duntov, or anybody. Those guys did it alone, with fabricated parts and brains. Makes that 150 mph look even more impressive.

    We also have a fella in our midst who carried the torch for the Y's ALONE, or practically alone for 25 years. Long after the efforts of the F code race cars faded from NHRA competition, one continued, and continues to amaze people today. That'd be Hoosier Huricane. If you've never seen a genuine Super Stock F code '57 Ford run, do yourself a favor and make it to EXPO and watch him.  

Karol MAY have moved the heads up?  In one of my letters from him, he told me that he moved them up .100, could have moved them more.  Myself, I would get nervous about the gaskets sealing the water passages from the cylinders and the lower edge of the block.

In talking with a guy that showed some interest in making aluminum Y heads a few years ago (none of the ones discussed on this forum), I mentioned Karol's moving of the heads.  He laid a sample gasket on a sample head I had, and said, "there's at least 10 horsepower right there".  This guy makes aluminum heads for other makes, like 500 inch cadillacs and late buicks and olds, but never did anything with the Y.  He's not a threat to John Mummert's program in any way.

Thanks a lot.  I really wanted to read it.

I believe he was a tool pusher for his dads oil company. He drove the 56 on the job which entailed lots of miles. My dad was a tool pusher for an oil company during WWII. He wore out a 37 ford on that job, and had to overhaul it. due to wartime shortages he had to remachine non Ford pistons and adopt parts from other applications to get it going again.

I hope John Mummert is doing things like this on his new heads. Since John is no dummy either I suspect he is.