Injected funny car debut

Well I finished my nostalgiaVega funny car and took it down to the best place in the world to debut it, and being that this car has not been down any mainland USA tracks in over 36 years, what more better place to be with it than none other than the CALIFORNIA HOT ROD REUNION.
I absolutly had a blast. My brother Ron and his buddy Shaw drove down from Seattle tuesday night and we hooked my trailer up to Shaws truck and left by 11 am wednsday. We arrived at 4 am thursday morning and slept untill 8 am when it was time to roll in and get pitted.
we got everything unloaded and got the car out and I went to work finishing the cars last little details. We made it over to tech at 2:30 and everything passed on the car, and believe me they looked hard and long at it...while there
we weighed the car with me on the scales and 4 gallons of alky and it is a whopping 1875 lbs,..cool deal, so anyways
back to the pits and up on the jacks to fire the car up for the first time,.. ..yes the first time. after about three attemps and re setting the mag and barral valve the ol blue came to life,..she runs and sounds bitchin,..We woke Friday morning
to get ready to make the first pass in this car that hasnt been down the bakersfield track in 36 years, and also is my first ride in a funny car,.My plan was to make three test passes, one to the 330-400, then 660ft and then 800ft then a full pull,..so the first one the car fired right up, rolled the water box, smoked the tires, tried to stage and rolled the beams before i got it stopped, took the red light and charged it out to 330 felt really great, it left straight and steered excellent,..the next pass at noon did a way better burnout and the smoke coming in the cockpit and came to a stop out at 500 ft,..that was such a bitchin feeling and sence that it was a excellent burnout,..so i went to creep into the beams, and again rolled right threw them,..newbie yea yea yea
so again I took the red light and this time she hiked the wheels up about 7 or 8 inches and carried them out to what seemed about 70 ft or so, perfect feeling straight as an arrow she set the wheels back down and I shifted to second gear and she charged hard out to half track where I lifted as planned,..got back to the pits checked the plugs and it was looking perfect, other than it was idling to fast and that is why I was having trouble rolling the beams to stage the car.
So I made the adjustments to the butterflys and corrected the barrel valve,..now its saturday and I decide to warm it up and check the idle and temps,..long story short the battery was not being charged right and it was near dead,.and I wound up chunking the flex plate and breaking a starter, I was thinking damn the weekend is over but,..we found a new flexplate, and Greg Means had a new starter to throw at it, basicaly I spent saturday pulling the tranny and changing parts, and then finding that my fuel pump was not picking up the fuel, I had spike check it out, it didnt pump at all at first then he removed all the fittings off the inlet side and re assembled it and it worked fine, I get it back on the car and go to start it and it wont pump fuel up past the fuel shut off, this was getting old so I had several available pumps over to me and brought one back and installed it,..its now late in the day and chose not to start it thinking I would lose the battery again and have nothing for sunday,..my last attempt to make a full pull,..and only if two runs are allowed for us exhibition cars,..so its sunday the fuel cars are running and blowing up and oiling the track and time is passing rapidily, the word comes around that we will only get one more lap,..well my next lap is to the 800 ft,..and thats exactly what I stuck with,..we pulled to the line the car fired right up on the second attempt,..got off a good burn out, and this time was able to stage the car ,..took the green and it was an absolute pig,..uhhhh forgot to change the barral valve back and also the main jet,..The vega woke up a little bit after about ten ffet and I legged out first gear to far grabbing second,..made it pass half track got out to 800ft and lifted,.and then thinking to myself lets see if the chute deploys,..woops did it before the finishline and ran a 10.08 at 85 mph,..yes the chute deployed,.so anyways the motor was fat as a pig and a dog off the line crappy 60 ft and only managed to run 5.70@130 to half track,..and now I am thinking why didnt I run it out all the way,...dont know why,..guess I just had one plan to know if this car was going to be stable and straight,.and that was the 3 shakedowns and the 4 fouth run to be all the way out the back door,..guess I have to wait a while now to find out how well it does run.
It was a totally great weekend, even with the thrash on Saturday,..met several folks off the web boards and put many names now to the faces. thank you everyone who stopped by and said hello, or introduced yourself, Thank you Clint Thompson for all your contributed old school shelf parts, glad to have put them to use,..thanks Darr, Bob, Pete, Darrell, and James for the photo shoots, Cant wait to see the photos,.HOW ABOUT VIDEO, if anyone knows who has it id love to see it.
I will be heading up to Pacific Raceways this coming weekend to finish what I started, and make several full pulls, so if your in the kneck of the woods of Kent Washington come on out and say Hi. saturday and sunday
I am shooting for a low 8 if not in the sevin second range.

,...I finally drove my first funny car,..

thanks again,.. to all that had their part in my dream come true

Vic Miller

 

Great looking ride Vic!!!

Keep us posted on how you do when you take it out the "back door"

 

Very cool Vic! THanks for sharing your experiences and photos with us. I definately need to get to the CHRR one of these days. Its only 9 hours for me to drive over there

 

That is way cool. Glad to hear that you are getting seat time and figuring things out. Things get frustrating getting everything to work just right. But once you get the bugs worked out, it should be a great and consistant car.
I wish ours was that light. We had an old injected monza that the body weighed 1800 pounds by itself!

 

whos yo daddy

Rock on Weektor. Double thumbs up.

 

vic......
congrats buddy, car looks great.

 

Good job Vic- you're the man

 

way cool Vic, see ya at Pacific this weekend.

Russ

 

Way Cool!

okay, okay I know I that's ripping off Dennis Taylor's line, but seriously Great Job on realizing your dream of getting this car on the track. Looks good! Have fun this weekend and good luck!

 

cool

Way cool!
hope you have a lot of fun in that. I saw the wannabe car run a few years ago always thought the injected alky floppers looked neat

 

Very cool Vic~!

EDB

 

Good job Vic, thanks for sharing with us! the finish line will show up quick on that full pass.
Ken

 

No daught about that,...

I thought puking was way cool......,..woops did I just say that,.

Thanks everyone. I am hook ,line and sinkered,..

Here is a couple more
pics by Frank & louise Kunkel






Vic

 

Rear End?

Vic, Nice job, looks great. check your pm's

 

Nice work Vic! Car looks bitchin!!!

Good luck in Seattle...hopefully somebody will post up some V I D E O !!!!

Nice picture with the "peace sign" too

 

Thanks Dave, Gene,..
I have had a few request for specs on the car so here they are,...
Car is the original Ken Veney , Veneys Vega #1
body,..1972 J&E Chevy Vega
chassis,..118 inch Ken Cox, Koni coil over front,.. solid rear
designed & tacked by Ken Veney
Motor,..BBC 505 CI 13.1 comp,4.250X4.350,..EST HP 980 @6900 740TQ@5400
Hillborn 2 7/16 stack injection
Dart pro cnc 335 cylinder heads 116 cc
H-beam rods, SRP/JE pistons, Eagle crank, Milodon gear drive,
Erson Cam 817/774 280/288 @.50
5.2 amp OXC Vertex mag by Spud Miller @ FIE
Enderle 110 w/.170 sizer,..100 main..070 Hs
Original chrome Olds rear end, henry`s axles, spool, and 4.56 gears
Trans specialties 5000 powerglide 1.80 1st pro tree brake
1969-70 B&M series 60 shifter,..quick click ????
6 gallon custom made moon fuel tank By Randy Parker
stroud chute,..Fire Fox fire bottle
Original push style brake lever w/upraded master cylinder and calipers wilwood which are both by Wilwood
Halibrand 16x13`s w/goodyear 34.5x17x16 rears and 23x5 fronts mounted on convo pros(unfortunatly) needs american 5 spokes,..lol
original,..motor plates ,seat, seat uhpolstry, SPE steering box, all rods and radius`s,P&S spindles, original Koni front coil overs and springs, original tin, rear end and all of its components,literally,.....body pole etc,..
This car IS about 75-78 % all of its original equiptment and all is in perfect working and safe condition.
The chassis is certed to Adv Et 6.0, with very little that was required. I had to add the helmet bars, and two diagonals, the rest of the chassis exceeded todays minimun by .002 for a 10.2 spec.
estimated value of this car in its current condition PRICELESS...

People of recognition for all their help one way or another
Ron Miller,my son Riley, My mom, my wife, Clint Thompson, Randy Parker, Dave Germain, Rocky & Rocky,.Kevine Sine, Lippy, Greag Means,Joe Miller,
Ron Higley, Doc Halladay,.Spud Miller,,..there are many more that I am forgetting about,. if your name is not listed I apologies you know what, and how, you contributed,..Pm me I will get it right.



Thanks
Slick Vic

 

Hey ,Rocky & Rocky? don't you mean Rocky & Bullwinkle? hehehe.

 

very cool vega
have fun

 

Lots of photos at James Drew site,..
heres a little wheelie shot,.. felt bigger inside the car ,...lol

http://public.fotki.com/1320Sherloc...her/17th-nhra-chrr-exhi/101008tm1chrr040.html

 

Howdy all,..I took my ride up to Pacific Raceways this past weekend to get in some full pulls,...2 out of 5 full pulls,..Track was less than a good thing on saturday, and a little better on Sunday,..My wife ran the video camara on both days and I will have that shortly to post up.
Murff was also there on saturday and provided some help and taped with his Video camera,..so here is a little from saturday,..both runs aborted.
I was having trouble keeping the car out of the bald spots on the track, and also that my left wheelie bar was down 3/4 from the right one, I need to put 4.10 or 4.30`s in it and also a shorter tire....overall had an absolute blast,..cant wait to do it again,, thanks to everyone who showed up to help or cheer, the crowd loved it, all 50 of them,..lol, thanks Murff, 23T,
div6Safty guy, russ, Steve Kaiser and his buddy, my brother Ron, my wife for the great video to come.

sundays runs
#1 8.78@149,..fat fat tune up
#2 8.64@151 still way too fat
#3 wheels up launch 20 feet out went left,..this run would have shown
something to me on the plugs,..game over aborted run.

heres a clip of my first hit when the car went left,video taped by Murff on saturday,..no I didnt have a crew I borrowed people to help squirt the injectors , put the body down etc,..a little less than looking like a pro,...yes I know I go threw the water too fast and try the ol john force burnouts,...I had fun,..thats what counts,..this car drives like a cadilac,...enjoy ,.more to come.

http://videos.streetfire.net/video/Vics-Vega-1st-Pass_193165.htm

heres a little warm up and tow to the lanes
http://videos.streetfire.net/video/Vics-Vega-Warm-Up_193119.htm


Vic