Ken Lowe B Fuel Dragster

Ken's C/Dragster on the lawn at school.jpg (18961 bytes)
October 70 Photo of my C/Dragster 288 cid, roller cam, professionally ported camel hump heads, 13-1 cr, Hilborn, Vertex and a two speed trans made by myself. Painted my favorite race car color - black, too bad black makes such a poor photo.
Actually the negative of this photo was developed as you can see the drag link really goes down the left side of the car not the right.

C/D 288 cid Hilborn, Vertex, Crane Cams.jpg (18178 bytes)
Photo inside the rented garage near the university. Note the early Hilborn and the zoomie pipes. If you look close you can see the engine front side mounts are just saddles and not welded on. Trick ramps hey!!

My second trailer.jpg (19724 bytes)
My second race car trailer, this one has springs. It was an old boat trailer I purchased for $100 dollars and the guy gave me $25 dollars for the rollers the boat used to sit on. I welded on some outriggers and some 3" channel for the front wheels to roll in and filled the middle with plywood to help keep dirt off the car. The bar that went in the front of the push car is carried in its holder in the back. I made the trailer into a tilt model with some cylinders off a convertible, you can see them on the front. I later added another axle and enclosed the trailer. Bad idea. Chassis was never strong enough and the chassis would flex and it was impossible to keep aluminum on the sides of the trailer.

3210 C/D Aug 71- 310 cid.jpg (20531 bytes)
By late 71 I realize I need a three speed trans and my old two speed just was not quick enough so over the winter I purchased and installed a clutchflite 3 speed trans. It was a 727 Torqueflite with a special input shaft to go into a clutch and the low gear pack bolted together. To start the car with a push (normal the time) you would push the car in second gear and once the rear pump in the transmission would make enough pressure it would activate the trans and start turning the engine. Lenco's were about to make their debut on the market soon but were not available at the time.

The date on the left side of the photo says Aug 72. This photo was taken at the workshop I rented near where I went to university. I would work on the car between classes and work at night to pay the bills. 355 cubic inches of small block Chevy on injected gasoline. This is the workshop that flooded once and I found my race car with nothing but the top of the roll cage sticking out of the water. Not a great day!! Note: My ramps are now improved.

"Wild Thing".jpg (12131 bytes)
This was early 72. Note the lack of wheele bars. The new 3 speed trans sure made the car quicker!! Wheele bars were just becoming popular then and I did not have a set yet. I had just put the collector headers on the car. I had borrowed them from Bill Canter from Louisville. I did not realize that on his car they went up and back. On my car they cleared the ground this way but still were slightly below the chassis rails. The car liked the collector headers and as a result on the next pass I almost turned the car over backwards (the parachute pack rubbed the track surface) as it was coming down I tried to ease some throttle back into it but not enough and it came down fairly easy but the headers still banged the ground. They were nicely chromed before and now they had a big flat ground spot. Billy needed them back for this car and I had to give them back to him before they could be repaired. I told him to get them fixed and let me know how much it costs and I'd pay for it. At the next race he needed a set of Hilborn nozzles so I gave them to him. I did not see him again until next year and saw him at the Gatornationals. His car sported new chrome headers (up the other way) and so I asked him how much I owed him. He laughed and said "Nothing". When I asked why he told me the story. Because on his car the pipes went up the other way and the mark was obvious it had been scraped on concrete or asphalt he told everyone that he had rolled his car and that was the only place it hit. He said he got so much fun out of that story it was worth it.

Bowling Green, Ky 1972.jpg (12375 bytes)
Bowling Green Ky I liked the collector headers so much I got a set for myself. Notice I have stepped up with the new bigger Hilborn injector.

Shit!!!.jpg (20331 bytes)
I was racing every Saturday night and Sunday afternoon after working 40 hours a week at my job at nights and carrying 12 credit hours at school. The hardest part was the first and last of the race season because of the schedule conflict with school. This is at the end of the season and I should have maintenance the engine more but there just was no time. Two weeks before I had won both Saturday and Sunday. The week before this photo I had won Saturday and Sunday was a rain out. This happened on Saturday night and the photo was taken on a Sunday afternoon after I got the engine apart. Shit!!

No money and very little time. Gordon Campbell approached me and wanted to know if I wanted to go racing with him. He would supply the short block and heads and I would supply the car and truck and trailer. I would drive. A partnership was born.

Gatornationals 1974 motel parking lot.jpg (16500 bytes)
Gordon Campbell and I teamed up after I lost my engine at the end of 72. University had financially drained me and I could not rebuild. Gordon paid the bills on the new engine. It had great parts and the best cylinder heads I had ever had. We had only one conflict and that was about how much rod bearing clearance we needed. I said the bearings were too tight and he wanted them the way you see the engine here. Our first qualifying pass put us in the Gatornationals field at 6 or 7 and since it was the first pass the engine had ever made we decided to look at bearings before another pass. I did the clutch and trans and Gordon did the bearings. On the next pass we burnt a bearing and kicked a rod. Guess who was right.
The photo is from the Gatornationals 1973, this was back in the days when we took the race car back to the motel each night and worked on it there. Check out the clear plastic valve covers and the extra long collectors. This was a trip from hell. We blew four tires on the trailer, one at a time. This made us have to purchase new tires on the road. We blew a lot of stuff on this trip... mostly money. About the only thing we saved from the engine was the cylinder heads and they had to be welded. Gordon sold them to me cheap and they wound up on the B/Fuel car in 74

wpe59.jpg (14349 bytes)
After Gainesville 73 I had no engine so I borrowed a friends big block Chevy and stuck a tunnel ram on it with carbs. My first big block, my first tunnel ram and my first carb. I liked everything but the carbs. Don't ya love the scoop. How about the headers.?? I did not run this much this year as I spent the year building a house with my bare hands. Once never again, I'll stick to cars.

In late 73 NHRA announced the new eliminator called Pro Comp. The fuel classes used to be part of Comp Eliminator and I had already decided to give fuel a go and now NHRA has make it a separate eliminator. All I have to do is take my C/Dragster step up the 355 Small block Chevy and "tip the can". I sold the Clutchflite and purchased a B&J transmission

wpe60.jpg (19270 bytes)
Have you ever seen a fuel car with collector headers? I figured they helped on the gasoline engine so they should help on the nitro engine. I'll tell you here and now the nitro doesn't need that type of help. This was a 355 inch small block Chevy with a 11" twin disk slider Hayes clutch and a two speed B&J trans.

Roell paint job.jpg (46203 bytes)
I finally broke down and got a "Roell" paint job. If you have ever been frustrated with a race car trying to get it to perform where you want it to you will understand the name on the car.

wpe55.jpg (30078 bytes)
Staging lanes US Nationals (Indy) 1974. This was the first year of Pro Comp and I have 98% in the tank. The guy on the right is an Australian (Roly Leahy) I just had met the day before. Little did I know how much that day would change my life.

David Hawke, Roly Leahy sitting in the car and Ken on the clutch board.jpg (22834 bytes)
Roly Leahy sitting my car, David Hawke kneeling on the tire and me leaning on the clutch board. See the green hoses going from the race car engine back to the push truck? We were pumping hot water from the truck to the engine to warm the engine so the 98% would light off a Vertex mag.

I have more as soon as I locate the photos I will post them.

Next car here