Racing FCs?

[frank]

Spoke to a mechanic today (a guy who loves all things ol' Holden) that there were a small number of FCs made for the track and amongst other things, had mods such as thicker sills and a torque strap attached to the gearbox ... factory or dealer fitted I know not.  First time I've heard this ... can anyone shed any light on this?

[RET]

First time for me too, Frank.  Doesn't seem all that likely, but then again, I've always wondered whether the Canadian Hell Drivers' vehicles could really have been bog-standard and survived the thrashing they got.

You would think that any strengthening that proved itself would have found its way onto FBs and EKs, since they share the same floor and subframe.

Straps on race motors are nothing new - in fact we were talking about this at the NSW Club meeting the other night, not so much ones fitted for torque correction but from engine to firewall to limit forward movement of the motor under braking.  This came up in the context of a club-member whose fairly fine-tolerance red motor with grey radiator combination suffered a fan through the radiator whilst some doofus mechanic was performing a brake test...

No charge for that pink slip, sir, sorry about the radiator...

cheers
RET

[normd]

Hey Ret
 Yep , the two previous owners of my car had a small chain from the g/box-bellhousing bolt to the body with a "turnbuckle" in the middle to hold the motor back under braking . I never replaced it & think it was just luck I never gave the radiator "a trim" , because there's not much gap in there , less than 3/4" I reckon.



Norm  

[customFC]

Here's some info on this subject that was sent to me by a buddy. It's from a 1967 Custom Rodder article about fitting a 179 + box into an early Holden.

Regards
Alex