The Origins of the Daytona Charger Thread

[nascarxx29]

Wonder if he kept records of VIN and other docs?? Wonder if he knows what happened to my buds 69 #144166 500?

Was that the one stolen in 82 from NY with side pipes

[XS29J8]

Wonder if he kept records of VIN and other docs?? Wonder if he knows what happened to my buds 69 #144166 500?

Was that the one stolen in 82 from NY with side pipes

Yes.......................

:/

http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,9741.60.html

[nascarxx29]

I do recall seeing that stolen 500 story on here on several posts .Ive seen alot of 500s from junkyards to cars shows and friends archive photos.When I saw it on here and read about it was new to me.The #88 story was reprinted in a Oct/Nov 1990 WW newsletter

[nascarxx29]

Im looking up various magazine road tests for 69 500


http://cgi.ebay.com/Hot-Rod-February-1969-Hemi-Charger-500-Sox-Martin_W0QQitemZ350296501517QQcategoryZ280QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp4340.m263QQ_trkparmsZalgo%3DSIC%26its%3DI%252BC%26itu%3DUCI%252BIA%252BUA%252BFICS%252BUFI%252BDDSIC%26otn%3D10%26ps%3D63


http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,59879.0.html

[nascarxx29]

Wonder if he kept records of VIN and other docs?? Wonder if he knows what happened to my buds 69 #144166 500?

Was that the one stolen in 82 from NY with side pipes

Yes.......................

:/

http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,9741.60.html

From what I had marked down the white car should be 210701 or 700 .Its close to another 500 I know from Houston TX T Mintz cars should be and as I recall where all project cars.And a 217 198 or 199 144170 or 171.The green 500 I got rescued from a NJ junkyard was 210549 or 749 but here is its picture

[Daytona Guy]

I don't know if I buy Chrysler's rationale about tire clearance.  It's possible that's the case, but why didn't they just put a bump in the fender?  It would have allowed the same tire movement.  I personally think there's a tie-in with the evacuation of air from the wheelwell that allows the front end of the car to be lower to the track.  The official "corporate" explanation is tire clearance though.

I agree. After you read Gary Romberg's (Chrysler engineer) comments about the aerodynamics of the Daytona you can see the need for the fender scoops. He talked about how a car by nature is not very aerodynamic. Among other things the airflow that comes into the engine bay (to cool the engine) that is traditionally evacuated underneath the car gets all "chewed up" causing turbulence. They chose to direct some of the air flow out the top of the car. The shape of the scoop actually helps to draw air out as well as giving an alternate evacuation point. One of the advantages of the Daytona was not just the aerodynamics that made the car go through air faster but it added to the handling of the car by how they used the dynamics of air flow, as they said, the car "rode on a rail in the corners."  

Remember that these cars did not have inner fender wells. If you look at the width of the tire and where the tire would end up even after the car was dropped down the tire would not hit where the hole is. The tires did rub but on the side of the fender – most of the fenders were flared to prevent this. Also, the suspension was designed to bottom out before the tire could get as far as the top of the fender. If the tire could travel that far it could be sliced up by the sharp opening in the top of the fender.

If you look at the Daytona test mule it proves the motive, or that the original intent was an alternate evacuation point of the engine bay air. It is hard to prove the holes are for tire clearance.

[Daytona Guy]

i read the same thing about them finding the spoiler was the same at 6inches high or 3 feet high, so they asked the high ups and he opened the truck and said right there.

thats what i had read, but that was along time ago and i cant remember where it was.

My personal opinion in studying some aerodynamics is that having the wing about 3 inches above the roof line of the car is to gain cleaner and consistent airflow across the wing; it is not as turbulent as the airflow that is closer to the body. Having the wing that high (25") would also create more drag, so the height of the wing is intentional for good reason. Engineers are not into aesthetics but efficiency. That is why architects and engineers do not get along.

[nascarxx29]

Wonder if he kept records of VIN and other docs?? Wonder if he knows what happened to my buds 69 #144166 500?

Was that the one stolen in 82 from NY with side pipes

Yes.......................

:/

http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,9741.60.html

Steve it doesnt appear you buddys missing 500 sold new in NJ .Though he lived in Clark N.J. .Do you know its prior origins before he owned it

COAST DODGE INC   1201 Main Street   Ashbury Park   NJ   XX29L9B152199       
ED VAN NESS MOTORS INC   770 Fairview Avenue   Fairview   NJ   XX29L9B210711       
FREEHOLD DODGE INC   Lakewood Road   Freehold   NJ   XX29L9B152198       
NEMITH CIRCLE DODGE INC   821 New Loudon Rd   Latham   NJ   XX29L9B199669       
NEWARK DODGE INC   11-21 Sussex Avenue   Newark   NJ   XX29L9B162292       
             XX29L9B21710       
NORTH PLAINFIELD DODGE INC   555 Somerset Street   North Plainfield   NJ   XX29L9B144160       
             XX29L9B146045       
             XX29L9B162291       
DE MAIO OODGE INC   36 Main Street   Orange   NJ   XX29L9B162292       
LABRIOLA MOTORS INC   120 E. Newman Springs Road   Red Bank   NJ   XX29L9B150548       
FOWLER MOTORS INC.   Route #15   Searta   NJ   XX29L9B144173       
RIDGE DODGE INC   85 Route #17   Woodridge   NJ   XX29L9B162294

[BROCK]

i read the same thing about them finding the spoiler was the same at 6inches high or 3 feet high, so they asked the high ups and he opened the truck and said right there.

thats what i had read, but that was along time ago and i cant remember where it was.

My personal opinion in studying some aerodynamics is that having the wing about 3 inches above the roof line of the car is to gain cleaner and consistent airflow across the wing; it is not as turbulent as the airflow that is closer to the body. Having the wing that high (25") would also create more drag, so the height of the wing is intentional for good reason. Engineers are not into aesthetics but efficiency. That is why architects and engineers do not get along.

Ah but there is another advantage to having the wing so high:
........as they said, the car "rode on a rail in the corners."  The vertical stabilizers!!!!!!!

[Tom Q]

Does  some one know how to contact Tom Hoover-you know the father of the hemi guy?

He talked about the wing height during a group healing session [NEHOA meet] in the early 90's but I can't remember what he said... Actually he gave a slide show and afterwords we had a q&a session and sat there spellbound with awe.  

[69_500]

I believe I have a paper around here somewhere explaining the wing height, and I'll see if I can find it but to sum it up it goes like this. The wing car effective at speeds but was just as effective when mounted only 5-6" higher than the deck lid. However when mounted there one could not open the trunk. So therefore they mounted it as high as they did purely to gain access into the trunk.

[hemigeno]

Another issue the engineers solved by putting the vertical stabilizers/uprights on top of the quarterpanels was how negative lift (downforce) transferred to the frame of the car.  Utilizing a short wing would have meant mounting it to the decklid just like they did in '70+ Go-Wings.  Fine for street, but at 200mph there was not going to be a way to adequately reinforce the decklid without making said decklid non-functional and also taking up space in the middle of the trunk compartment.  Quarterpanel mounting allowed them to put the bracing off to the side, keeping some semblance of a functional trunk.

[nascarxx29]

http://www.allpar.com/racing/200-mph-Daytona.html

http://www.allpar.com/corporate/chelsea-proving-grounds.html

When the crew left Talladega the whole racing world knew about the record. Eventually, #88 came back to Talladega, where it rests to the present day, on permanent display at the Talladega MotorSports Museum.
Not bad for a car that had been left a derelict on the mean streets of Los Angeles. Chrysler had sent a Dodge Charger Hemi out to California for testing by a major auto enthusiast magazine. It was stolen one night and was lost for quite a while. Finally, L.A. police found the stripped out derelict body on the mean streets of Watts. There wasn't much left except the body, which had been left sitting on cement blocks. The police hauled it into their impound lot. Notifications were made, of course. At first, nothing was going to happen. However it was the time of the Riverside race. One of the guys involved had taken a car out to Riverside to sell. His trailer was empty for the return trip, so he was asked to pick up the hulk from the L.A.P.D. lot.  He did so. That car became the #88 engineering mule and the 200 mile an hour record holder.

However it was the time of the Riverside race. One of the guys involved had taken a car out to Riverside to sell. His trailer was empty for the return trip, so he was asked to pick up the hulk from the L.A.P.D. lot.  He did so. That car became the #88 engineering mule and the 200 mile an hour record holder.

Wonder who the guy was that picked up the hulk.The now #88 daytona research car. Cotton Owens ? ?? Or

[nascarxx29]

There is still either a 68 charger controversy was converted to the #88 car or as this reads a 69 hemi charger 500
Second was the "high speed" car, which was phased into service as testing at racing speeds became necessary. This car reportedly began life as a '69 Hemi Dodge Charger 500, one which Chrysler loaned to a magazine for testing. The car was stolen while the magazine was using it, stripped and left on a Los Angeles street. Chrysler brought the shell back to Michigan and earmarked it for Proving Grounds use. Charlie Glotzbach and Buddy Baker were eventually chosen to drive the high speed car, as they were among the most experienced and winning drivers in the Dodge stable. The first high speed tests were conducted with the prototype Daytona on July 20, 1969 - the day of the first moon walk. Additional testing was conducted in August of 1969 at Daytona and Talladega, and also later in the year at Rockingham

[69_500]

I am not buying what that article says. The C500 that was stolen is still a HEMI C500 it is by no means the #88 car.

[Mike DC]

Fender scoops -

They've gotta be for air evacuation.  If they weren't, then any aero guy with half a brain would've tapered the rear of the bumps down in a fastback/teardrop style rather than leaving them to end in a vertical cutoff.  And like others have said, the front wheels never got stuffed far enough into the wheelwells to need a clearance hole on the top. 


Although I can't figure out all the cloak & dagger stuff with those things.  Why not just use normal vents on the fenders?  If NASCAR was gonna let that huge goofy-looking wing and nosecone through then I don't see why a few slatted vents on the fenders would have raised NASCAR's eyebrows any farther.   And there's no point in trying to keep their purpose a secret from the Ford guys very long.  As soon as they got a look at the Daytona they surely would have started experimenting with the same thing on a Torino and discovered the real purpose right off the bat.  It was only ever going to be an edge for the Dodge guys until Ford got its next aero model built (if that had gone on to happen.) 

If I was running the Daytona project I would have said screw the fender scoops, just modify the hood panels to have cutouts in the existing pair of indented scallops.     
   

[Aero426]

Regardless of what anyone thinks about the purpose or benefit of the fender scoops, one has to understand that their origin really goes back to the 1968 1/2 Charger race car where they WERE experiencing contact issues with the right front tire and fender when the suspension was loaded in the corner.   This all goes back to how they were detaching the body shell from the chassis and repositioning it where they wanted it.

[Ghoste]

I think perhaps an experiment to correct one issue exposed a benefit previously not expected.

[Mike DC]

If you buried the front tire far enough into the chassis to rub on the underside of the fender's top surface, then the lower edge of the fender (at the rocker panel height, down where the pentastar emblem would be) would be literally almost scraping the pavement.  Even on a chopped up & lowered NASCAR leaning in a turn, I'm not convinced they ever got that low.  We're talking about having the tire's whole sidewall buried up behind the fender's arch at the top of the wheel.





BTW:  This pic is interesting to me.  That fender must've been cut in two during the process of shaping it.  Looks like the cut would have been right there along the rear edge of the big "tire clearance" hole.  It was probably mostly about the fender flaring job, or maybe even a repair job at some point along the line.  But it might have been tempting to also cheat the size of the fender flare/hole in the process.  NASCAR would probably never have caught it at the time if they enlarged those scoops & smoothed them out more than stock.  We already know they grew the hole as big as they could get it underneath the scoops, and the scoops on a few of the racers don't look like the stock plastic items to me.  

 

[Aero426]

... We're talking about having the tire's whole sidewall buried up behind the fender's arch at the top of the wheel.

Kind of like this one...     This is the 1968 Isaac Firecracker 400 car,  better known as the 1968 1/2 chassis design (2 by 2 car).  Look how far that right front tire is sucked up inside the wheelwell at rest.  They have already flared the fender halfway up into the Goodyear decal.

This is the car that became the first Daytona at the proving grounds with the handmade nose and stilt rear wing.   This car was being discussed on the Baker Daytona thread.    

[Mike DC]

The 2+2 cars were the ones where the body was mounted 2" lower on the chassis at the rear end of the rockers, and 4" lower at the front end of the rockers, right?  



I never really understood that whole story about those cars.  

I know NASCAR outlawed them for being too low on the chassis, I've heard that part.  But every GN racecar in that era already looks several inches lowered on the chassis compared to a truly street-production unibody.  It looks to me like every racer on the track was 2"/4" lower at the very least, and the 2+2 cars were lowered even more than that.  



I mean, look at this pic (It's the debated #6 Canepa show car from the other thread):



Look at how the rear subframe rail is even-height with the rocker panel just outside of it.  The outer body is well below street height right there, and that chassis seems to be the standard NASCAR-legal Charger height for the era.  


 

[BROCK]

2 + 2 Was the standard.  It was the 2 + 4 that was caught & banned

[Mike DC]

 
So NASCAR let them drop the bodywork down 2" at both ends of the chassis, but cried foul when Cotton dropped it 2" in back and 4" in front?   Is that what happened? 


To be honest I'm surprised that the difference was achieved with only a 2" drop on the standard cars.  I would have guessed more like 3+ inches at least on the front end if not the back.   

[Ghoste]

I believe it was a Chrysler experiment not a Cotton innovation and they were all trying various things in NASCAR to lower the cars as much as they could without running afoul of tech.  Think of it as the NASCAR version of the altered wheelbase drag cars.
Stories abound of things like extending shocks and packing them in dry ice to have them raise the car for tech and thaw out to a race height by go time or wadding styrofoam into the top of the t-bar adjusters to let it get pounded out after a couple of laps.  There are more.

[Aero426]

 
So NASCAR let them drop the bodywork down 2" at both ends of the chassis, but cried foul when Cotton dropped it 2" in back and 4" in front?   Is that what happened?  


To be honest I'm surprised that the difference was achieved with only a 2" drop on the standard cars.  I would have guessed more like 3+ inches at least on the front end if not the back.    

Cotton had nothing to do with the 2 by 2 project.   It was an in-house job done at Nichels under the supervision of Larry Rathgeb.

My understanding is all the 1968 cars had a 2" modification to start with.   Then the 1968 1/2 car had an additional 2" modification in the front which was caught.    Now keep in mind that there was a fixed ground clearance.   But it was how they played with the body, and how they positioned it over the chassis that they got caught on.    On the 68 1/2 car, because the hood was now so low relative to the engine, Chrysler developed a special intake manifold that sunk the carb down a little bit more to gain some clearance.   Yes, they did that all for a couple of cars.  They put a lot of effort into those two particular cars for that one race. When they got caught, it was all for naught.