A Pure NASCAR Superspeedway Stock Car
Dressed in Vintage Skin
“I can’t say that I know of another street
car out there that has raced at Daytona”. That’s what we were told by Ray E. –
the famed NASCAR crew chief as we sat in his office at NASCAR Business Park in
Mooresville, North California. Outside was his freshly built ’64 Plymouth
Belvedere with the body atop a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Car of Tomorrow chassis
that raced under the Dodge Valvoline car at the ’07 and ’08 Daytona 500. Its
Dodge R5-P7 engine was used in superspeedway cars driven by Kasey Kahne and
Bill Elliot.
In the first race for the then-new 426
Hemi, Richard Petty, Jimmy Pardue, and Paul Goldsmith finished 1-2-3 at the ’64
Daytona 500, all in ’64 Plymouths, so R. thought the body style would be a
perfect candidate for a modern superspeedway chassis. “I love old vintage”, R.
says, “but I also really love new technology. I just wanted to take a vision of
two things that were just such polar opposites and make them work together. So
I thought, what was the coolest stock car body from the ‘60s? That’s a ’64
Plymouth. When we slammed that thing down with the fat tires and new
suspension, it was just perfect”. NASCAR fabricators R. and Dan B. had also considered
doing a street car. “Finally, when I started working (for Everham), everything
came together”, says Dan, who was build leader after he purchased the Plymouth
on eBay. This was the team’s first street-car buildup, and Dan stressed that,
“The detail has to be a little better than on the race cars”.
Ray
Evernhan’s ’64 Plymouth Belvedere has the guts of a Davtona 500 NASCAR Sprint
Cup Car of Tomorrow
The chassis is straight NASCAR, as nothing
on it was replaced with street parts, though Dan says, “The car is built for
more of a circle track setup. We had to make it turn left and right”. The team
had to purchase upper control arms that were the same length on both sides of
the car, though the bottoms are already equal lengths on the Cup cars. According
to Dan, “Camber and caster needed to be the same on both sides, but fortunately
there’s a lot of adjustability, about 3 inches worth. You can change the window
on the upper A-arm slugs. The car had enough adjustment that we could get it
without having to cut anything off. Other than that we didn’t take much out of
it. It’s still a race car”.
The engine was detuned with a custom Comp
camshaft and educed compression to be more street able, making “only” 750hp on
North Carolina’s 93-octane pump gas. Fuel injection for NASCAR Sprint Cup is
new for the ’13 season, but this older engine originally ran a carburetor, so
it was converted to EFI using a FAST system that controls injection and timing.
It does not have coil packs like the new Cup Cars, but rather a traditional
distributor. It still features an MSD ignition box, but only one instead of
twins found on race cars, though t has two batteries for turning over the
high-torque starter.
There are a couple aero upgrades, like a
small front air splitter and rear spoiler, but very little of the original body
was changed. The front track width didn’t perfectly mate with the body, so the
wheel openings were modified to clear the tires under full lock. The most
difficult part of the build was slicing apart the car to fit the new frame, as
it’s an un-body (no separate frame) in stock configuration. The body was mostly
complete when they bought it, and the team was able to reuse all of trim. “It
was a rolling shell of a six-cylinder car; all the Mopar guys will be happy we
didn’t cut up a pristine car”, Dan says.
Dan also laid the Radiant Red and Graphite
Gray graphics, both from Sherwin-Williams. He added two coats of gloss clear coat
to smooth the edges of the graphics, wet-sanded that, then added two coast of
satin. The gloss under satin also to the unique finish.
By the time you read this, the car will
have been auctioned at Barrett-Jackson, with the proceeds donated to Ignite, a
part of the Autism Society of North Carolina that is opening a few facility in
Davidson, North Carolina. Ignite works with high-functioning adults with autism
or Asperger syndrome to help them have a quality life. “I hope whoever buys it
drives it. Its not just a show car”, R. says. Dan added, “If I owned it, I’d be
driving it every day. Hopefully, whoever gets it will, if I have something like
that, I’m going to drive it. I don’t care what happens to it when I’m driving
it”.
“This car is capable of 200 mph”, R. told
us with a smirk.
“I hope whoever buys it, drives it. It’s
not just a show car”.
Reader rank it
Is this car firing on all eight? Here’s the
score from a poll of HOT ROD readers, 1 piston is the worst score, 8 is the
best.
·
Overall: 7
·
Function: 7
·
Stance: 7.5
·
Engine: 7.5
·
Exterior: 7
·
Interior: 7
Ray
was adamant about installing a rear spoiler intended to add just a little down
force without scrapping any top speed. It was done by Dan’s team and sits at 30
degrees.
The
wheels are custom units from Wheel Pro. They are modeled after Sprint Cup
wheels but are two-piece, 18-inch, and aluminum. There are only four in
existence, although R. has called Wheel Pros to order a spare. They measure
18x91/2 with 285/40ZR18 tires.
Those
are Eibach springs that bring the car to the perfect height without rubbing,
but it rides like a race car. If you buy it, our advice is to avoid potholes.
Another
donor from the Daytona 500 race car was the 18-gallon fuel cell, reworked to
easily accept filler from a standard gas-station pump.
The
interior features a Racepak dash readout for both the driver and passenger. If
this car actually sees some serious racing, this idea will work well as the
passenger/navigator can monitor lap times and g-force, among other things.
A
358ci Dodge R5-P7 engine powers the Plymouth. It has been detuned to 750hp with
a cam and EFI from the Comp Performance Group.
That’s
a Ford 9-inch with 3.6 gears. Almost every part of the suspension is
adjustable.
This
is a retired car of Tomorrow chassis that raced at Daytona twice. Little has
changed. It’s fully adjustable and we would love to see this thing kill a
racetrack.
