Posted by Brian in Oregon on Wednesday, July 17, 2002 at 9:40PM :
In Reply to: My favorite race era, 1969 Ford Cobra/Talladega vs Winged MOPARS posted by Brian in Oregon on Tuesday, July 16, 2002 at 9:38PM :
The 69 Talladegas held a 5 mph advantage over the 68 & 69 fastback (Ford called them a "Sportsroof") Fairlanes/Torinos/Cobras (basically the same car). This was due to the concave grill design that trapped air. The Talladega had an extended nose with a flush grille, the front bumper was actually a sectioned rear bumper and acted as an air dam and the top lip of the hood swooped gently down for more downforce. Again, this was good for 5 mph. The Talladegas were used on long tracks where they could make the most of the aerodynamics. The older design was used on the short tracks, where the Talladegas nose held little advantage.
Notice that 5 mph difference between the Talladega and the Fairlane/Torino/Cobra. The Talladega held a slight advantage over the MOPAR Winged Warriers, which in turn held a slight advantage over the Fairland/Torino/Cobra. Shows just how narrow the margin of victory was.
BTW, the Talladegas had two different engines. In 1969 they usually ran the Ford 427 Tunnel Port. So named because instead of the pushrods being located on either side of a rectangular port like on the Medium Riser heads, the pushrods ran through a tube (tunnel) that in turn ran through the middle of a honkin' huge round port. A few Medium Risers were also run, but usually not in the Talladgas. In 1970, Ford homologated the Boss 429 by stuffing 500 of them into Mustangs. This made the engine legal for NASCAR. (The Talladega was made legal with a run of 748 in 69, the only year they were built.) The BOSS 429 was Ford's answer the the 426 Hemi. It had a Semi-Hemi combustion chamber, which was a hemisphere with the edges trimmed on opposite sides (imagine taking an orange half, putting it cut part down, then trimming a bit off one side and then the opposite side). This gave it a quench area, which the Hemi lacked. The result was a Hemi design that was less prone to detonation. For full race applications, the heads could be machined to a true hemi, and Ford had full hemi race pistons available. The spark plugs also went theough the valve cover. The Boss 429 was killed off by NASCAR, but a lot of drag racers used them in the early to mid 1970's with good to excellent results.
The mid 1970's was another exciting NASCAR era, but one that few really took notice of. The Bud Moore pattern 351C engines were facing off with the 340TA engines. Both were seriously overlooked by muscle car enthusiasts because they both came along as that era was winding down. Yet both engines won many, many races in cars that had the aerodynamics of a brick. In some cases, a few of these cars could have competed against the big block aerodynamic cars of 69-70.