Going through a box of old pictures

[Jim Ratto]

Thought some of you might enjoy looking at some horror stories from last 30 years of being involved with these cars.

Below is my '59 pickup, powered by 94 x 74 with 44 Webers and some nice Denham heads. Still had swingaxle and reduction boxes. In the bed was a month of recycling during junior college.

2nd pick is SODA's car, when it had stock motor in it. We were tuning it early Sunday morning at Sac, prior to his blistering 19 sec pass.

[Jim Ratto]

the engine here was 94 x 74 with Super Flo 1 heads, FK87 big Chevy springs and my first crack at 48 IDA's, this was taken in 1991

[Jim Ratto]

VW Jamboree 1990, Costa Mesa CA

[WCB Hitler's Hot Rod]

Nice shot of the Berglar in its glory. Damn that car was fast!

[Jim Ratto]

some us in a '65 T2 deep in the middle of nowhere, on our way to The Racetrack in Death Valley, around midnight. Nov 1995

[Jim Ratto]

Bug Bash 1990 Pleasanton CA

[Jim Ratto]

Pete Staat's ARPM 2332 street car circa 1989 or so

[Jim Ratto]

Pete's car

[Tony Wilkie]

The 90's...my recycle bin was full of weinhards...I think it was SUPER cheap?
My 1st employee...SODA...thanks "Mr 48 IDA" for telling me after I hired him, what soda stood for (insert rolling eyes here)

tw

[Jim Ratto]

TW's super fast street car 2165, low 12's

and the red '67 is Sheep's car that ran the 1915 with Pauter heads, 48 Webers and K8. Seen here with stock wheels and bumpers back on. Freshly dug out of snow. A year before this it wore widened early Bug wheels and T bars,

[Tony Wilkie]

Hi Jim

LOL

[Jim Ratto]

1990 and 1994

[BeetleBug]

Fantastic! Thank you sharing Jim. Ramones! Rock on

-BB-

[jamiep_jamiep]

This is great Jim keep it coming,

[Jim Ratto]

2276 from around 1996, I'm guessing, K10 cam, "black" Street Eliminator heads, not sure why carbs are on it here.

[Jim Ratto]

High school drags Sundays @ Sears Point 1995-96

[Jim Ratto]

real dumb move here.
This was a nice street motor, 94 x 74 @ 8.8:1, Pauter 40 x 35 heads, 44IDF's, and it ran an Engle W125. It was a daily driver.
I, being stupid and, well... stupid, scanned the Engle cam sheet, and thought to myself "I want the biggest cam they make without having to buy ratio rockers"
So I took it apart, pulled the W125 out and stuck in a VZ35.
It was in the engine 1 week.

After a drive from Bay Area to Ventura CA one weekend, with the VZ cam, it was enough. I got home, pulled motor and admitted defeat.

[henk]

2276 from around 1996, I'm guessing, K10 cam, "black" Street Eliminator heads, not sure why carbs are on it here.

Carbs are on it to make it look cool.
Keep them coming those pictures,they are great.

Henk!!!

[j-f]

That's always great to read such stories 

What make the engine this bad with a VZ35?

[modnrod]

Probably the same reasons that I had a FK87 in a centremount 1641...........for about a week!
 

Good fun when it all worked LOUD for that barely-1500rpm rev range though, and the idle creep did set off car alarms in underground carparks too, so it wasn't all bad.
 

[Zach Gomulka]

Carbs are on it to make it look cool.

Absolutely! I know I have an old picture or two like that somewhere.

[Jim Ratto]

That's always great to read such stories 

What make the engine this bad with a VZ35?

Number one was my inexperience and lack of understanding of why it was never going to work. But I didn't need all the know how and theory once I got behind the wheel and tried driving it. It idled horribly, at 1400 rpm. Then it was very lurchy, for lack of a better word, until 3800 rpm, then it fell on its face, but if you kept your foot down, it would shake itself off and clear out, then rev, slowy to 6000, then it would zip to 7000. Every time I would accelerate, in any gear, this is what it did. The higher the gear, the worse. I also remember the rumors of the valvetrain sounding like a mob armed with jackhammers, all the time. I hate to think what would have happened had I let it run longer than the week it was in there.
I was just 20 yr old and had no idea you had to check and do things like shim springs, grind keepers, check for coil bind, look to see if adjusting screws were going past what they could do, etc. I had no idea how emulsion tubes related to cam timing. I looked at the Johnny's S & C catalog and saw big numbers, with no need for expensive rockers and called Rick Sadler and ordered it.

Those last 1000 rpm were kind of fun.

[Jim Ratto]

October 1991, I had just built the 2054 with Super Flow 1 heads and FK87  and I had just bought my 48 Webers from Mike Collins for $400.00
this was day of Berkeley Hills wildfire, in N. California you can see sky is discolored. Car ran well at 4000+ revs. I ended up using the heads on a 2276 a year later with Berg 311 cam, which had a nice wide power band with Super Flows, it just ran hot and the cam went flat.

[2manytoys]

Jim,

thanks for posting. love seeing the old pics from the Pleasanton, searspoint, bayland days....man that was a long long long time ago. But looking at the pics, it feels like only yesterday.

P-

[Jim Ratto]

business card 1990

[Jim Ratto]

December 1989. That was my basset hound. My '67 had just been painted Porsche Adriatic Blue

[Jim Ratto]

this is a better picture from the day of the wildfires.

[Jim Ratto]

I think this was Darren K. car at classic 1999 (?)

[Jim Ratto]

Greg Brinton's car in 1991, still had 1915cc in it.

[jpperf]

"Sales Technician"?? Well at least you sold us what we wanted! Jerry would just say " what do you want that for?" and walk away.  Cool old pics, Jim.  Yeah, back then it seemed like you changed cams as much as your underwear! You gotta have some pics of all the cars parked up and down Mission around BH.

Jim,

thanks for posting. love seeing the old pics from the Pleasanton, searspoint, bayland days....man that was a long long long time ago. But looking at the pics, it feels like only yesterday.

P-

Speaking of the old days, how about a few pics of Pat in 105 degree Sacramento weather wearing a Ti jacket and beanie!  Dude how could you stand the heat???

JP