[Chrysler300] re 355HP race car horsepowers?

[christopher beilby <thelastbestgenius@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Another longish post follows - key point in it is apparently Factory Mercury Race Car 300Bs put out 355bhp on dynos - hit delete button if you do not wish to read how this supposed fact came up recently - longer version starts below:
 
 
 
In trying to find out more about my supercharged 300C's early days in Fond Du Lac where it's owners lived, upon realising that this was the same smallish US town as Mercury Outboards were based, it stunned me that of all the places in America, that the apparently only supercharged new 300C, and the Mercury Chrysler 300 Race Team owners, Mercury, came from the same town !!!  (Others may think the odds on that not so interesting, but what I want to know is did they know Carl K, and if so what was the relationship? - on his offer at Daytona,their 300C was set up correctly after Daytona on Briggs Cunningham's dyno facility he had from his Chrysler hemi Le Mans Sports Car Race attempts, and he told them it was putting out 550bhp, so I think odds are if a factory red 300C with 550 bhp lived/drove in same town as Mr K, he would have seen/known it/them ??!)
Anyhow just recently, I spoke with an ex employee of Cark K's Race Team - it was a too short overseas (from here) first phone call that lasted maybe 30-45 mins, and we talked mainly about his times with the Team, Mr K. He drove one of the trucks, race vans, and seemed to be the sort of person that because of this, knew more about many things, than maybe a guy who just worked in his own speciality with the Team.  He also mentioned he was fired three times, but always rehired by Mr K - so maybe Mr K thought he hard to replace ??!
 
Anyhow (again?!) - I asked what horsepower did they get out of the race engines. He straight up said the 355s put out 355bhp, that was the figures they got on the dyne, no higher.  I did not ask if that was the lower comp ones, versus the now mentioned later higher comp. It seemed a low figure for all the Teams's expertise, resources, so I queried it again, but his answer was the same.
 
Somebody over there in the US should chase down every ex Race Team employee that seems credible, and record their experiences, knowledge, before it is totally lost.  I know the difficulty of me trying to find out my cars 'amateur days vs Mercury Racing', but to me that the car ran 1957 Daytona Flying Mile in non Factory to just under 150 mph in rushed not fully sorted form (in a year when sand conditions so bad, virtually no factory/many cars got near this), then was run undefeated for some time after at eastern states local drag meets, is still worth trying to find out and write down as much as possible so when I am gone, it can go with the car. (And re the car, it's owners, never mind, before finding a Chrysler Dealer to be involved with them at Daytona, they had calculated they needed 535 bhp to run 150mph on beach, and decided supercharging was how to get it!!? - they seemed pretty clever/knowledgeable?! )
 
And hopefully, every 300 owner will try to keep and pass on the future owners what they know of their 300, and 'non race history; stuff is just as important if the car is a good oriiginal 300  - they can be more than lumps of metal? They will be here (most hopefully), after we are gone - lets pass on some stories, history, with them too.
 
Christopher in Australia    


To: wgraefen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx; Chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; us@xxxxxxxxxxxx: us@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx: obiwan10@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx: Thu, 8 May 2008 14:24:26 -0700Subject: Re: [Chrysler300] Re: AMAs, 355HP, Manual C300, et.al.




In all of these dyno runs, are there any reports of findings that anyone has access to? Would be interesting to find what factory stock engines and those that were used by Kiekhaefer and others may produced. Also if the racers did produce substantially higher outputs, what modifications or special tuning was used to accomplish. Someone certainly has some or much of this data squirreled away somewhere. Perhaps one day someone will write book of those days and some of the stories. I myself would find such a book very interesting, and even more so if it were to include the big Lincolns and Pan American races. There is a local car that I have seen at a couple of Concours that looks a dead on copy of a 53 Lincoln with all the decals and painting. Extremely nice car and quite a sight to behold. I did recently pick up the DVD set of stock car racing from the late 50's. Costco has them at about 12.00. Have not viewed it yet.Incidentally Amazon has a 4 DVD set of the original Route 66 series. I had really forgotten just how well these segments were produced. I would say that the story lines and acting was equivalent of Hitchcock Presents or the Twilight Zone programs. Many of our later to be famous actors appear in these old 66 segments just as in Hitchcock or Twilight.http://www.amazon.com/Route-66-Season-Vol-1/dp/B000TV1SSSRoger Schaaf----- Original Message ----- From: Dan Elliott To: Wayne Graefen ; Intl 300 Cc: us@xxxxxxxxxx Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2008 11:19 AMSubject: RE: [Chrysler300] Re: AMAs, 355HP, Manual C300, et.al.Unfortunately, much of our discussion on this issue is subjective, includingthecomments in the post to which I am responding. Over several years now,I've spoken at length to Kiekhaefer pit crewfellows, as I suspect you have too, Wayne. In the absence of hard evidence,i.e. Kiekhaeferdocumentation or NASCAR, the comments of these people are the best we have.I've seemsome of Karl P's documentation, and I can't conclude that any 1955 cars wererebodied into1956 models. They may have been, but it is really not that important.During the course of the twoseasons, the cars were so extensively modified both mechanically every weekand in the constant body panelreplacement and repainting, that to conclude that any particular car atseason's end was serial number xxxjust as it started the season would be incorrect. I believe that Fonty andhis brother Tim, both raced manualtransmission cars at the same races during the 1955 season, as well asothers. During 1955, the rules didn'trequire a manual trans factory option, as they did in 1956. There are otheranomolies as well. Some NASCARprograms in 1955 (see the mid season program for the 100 Mile race atCharlotte) list Tim Flock as the owner ofChrysler 300 #300 and Fonty as the owner of Chrysler 300 #301. I believethat is part of the genesis of the arguementthat the one remaining Kiekhaefer race car currently owned by the Henry Fordmuseum was actually Tim's car from1955. When Tim was alive, it is said that he held that opinion. Hence therumor over rebodying of the 1955 cars.By the way, Fonty was first in that race and Tim was second; Fonty's cardefinately would have been slower if hehad a powerflite.One pit crew member told me that they stopped ata Chrylser dealership on the way to a race because they didn't have whatthey considered to be the propergear ratio. A brand new car at the dealership had the correct ratio; theteam purchased the third member from of the carand installed it in the race car. They did whatever they had to do to win,just as every other team did, especiallythe Ford and Chevy backed teams. Carl and team were constantlyexperimenting with every sort of combinationof Chrysler, Dodge, Ford and Chevy application in 1955 and especially 1956.He ran engines on his dyno at fullthrottle just to see how much time it would take to make them blow up. Heordered from Chrysler a 300B convertedto a convertible to see if it would be useful on the convertible circuitnewly created in 1956 (it was not, in his opinion,and he sent it back to Chrysler).Anyhow, won't it be great if we ever get the real documentation? A coupleof yearsago, Kiekhaefer pit crew members were working with some documentation in thecontext of opening a museum, butthat effort was shelved due to some "corporate difficulties" that manifestedthemselves in the various transfers ofcorporate ownership of Mercury Marine over the years. The building becameunavailable, even though Carl hadseen the need for a museum before he died.I can't speak to the 1957 cars, I'll take your word for it. A three speedtorque flite was available in 1956 too, butI've never seen any evidence that Carl used them in the 300B. However,this is an open question as far as I amconcerned, because about 30 300B's were produced with torque flites.Perhaps Gil has a good feel for where thetorque flite cars went; I'm sure Carl must have at least tested thistransmission for use in 1956 NASCAR.Dan-----Original Message-----From: Chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:Chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]OnBehalf Of Wayne GraefenSent: Thursday, May 08, 2008 10:30 AMTo: Intl 300Subject: [Chrysler300] Re: AMAs, 355HP, Manual C300, et.al.In any discussion of what the Kiekhaefer /Mercury Outboards race team didwith our beloved Chrysler 300s, let us always keep in mind that the dominantabilities of the '55-56 300 Letter Cars was NEVER tarnished by anythingfound illegal on any of his cars at any NASCAR or AAA race venue, nor wasany fine ever imposed for any illegality on any of his far more numerousrace boats. Carl had a reputation for total honesty with his racers and thatis something we as keepers of the Letter Cars can be very proud of. Now, therule book of the day was truly extremely brief and there was a great deal ofgray area that was addressed continually resulting in the encyclopedia ofrules for racing today. No racer won who didn't work extensively in the graybut it was all legal and it was intended to promote development throughexperimentation.I'd also like to comment on the postulating about stick shift cars. Therewas only ever one C300 stick car built at the factory and it was becauseKiekhaefer's driver demanded it. None of the other C300s raced as stickshift cars. Now some of the '55 chassis were rebodied as '56 cars and weknow there were both manual shift 340HP and 355HP 300Bs built so some '55chassis may have raced in '56 after conversion to stick.But what was Carl's preference? He liked the automatics. In '57 when heordered three 300C hardtops with thoughts of going NASCAR road racing (aseries that was cancelled early summer of '57) the three cars were allautomatics and this despite the fact there was the 390HP manual transpackage available from the factory.The first car ordered was just experimental and was rather quickly sold.The next two were special orders of hardtops with convertible frames withImperial hubs and drums with the 390HP engine and TORQUEFLITES. These arecalled Road America competition models in his correspondence with thefactory indicating he at least intended to compete at the race scheduled forthe Elkhart Lake Road America course near his corporate plants.I own the Charcoal Gray 300C Road America.Wayne G[Non-text portions of this message have been removed][Non-text portions of this message have been removed][Non-text portions of this message have been removed] 






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