Pat Spangenberg (owner of Rod & Competition Specialties) is know for the cool street rods that his shop builds. There is a new kind of “street rod” that they started playing with a few years ago when a certain puke green 1966 Impala was added to his corral of cars.

Take a 4,000 Impala with stock suspension and 10” tires, add 540 cubic inched of BBC (that makes 961 HP) and toss a fogger on the top (with the “big boy” 400 HP jets in place) and you have a recipe for 8.77 time slips !!! The legendary green beast is the test mule and gets plenty of street miles in between the 100 drag strip passes over the past couple of years. She aint pretty but she sure is fast !!!

The “white car” is a true work of art. This 22,000 mile original was put  together about 10 years ago and started out as a genuine L72 (425HP 427) with a bench seat/4 speed stick and some steep gears when it left the General’s assemble line. Every detail has been attended to and it is now one of the nicest B-body cars in the country. A very healthy 615 BBC now resides where the old 427 used to be many years ago. Still maintain the stock suspension this baby is a handful when you hit the single stage fogger.

“Top Gun” just about says it all. Having watched this street racing legend over the years Pat set his sights on owning this bad boy and when he had the chance jumped on it. Now this was back in the late 90’s and he had a street/strip car that was capable of running deep in the 10’s.

 Kelly Landry was the original owner of the Nova and had every conceivable combination between the fender wells (including a blown BBC) that he ran with a 5 speed. This car was often seen cruising around the Milwaukee area (sometimes as late as 2am in the morning…I wonder what he was out doing at that time of the night?).  Oh, the good old days….

The “First Car” happened to be a Camaro that was a original “MO” code 1968 Z/28 !!! Yep, hiding behind those groovy side pipes and spoked wire wheels was a real collectible muscle car. Dig those shackels man….

Pat’s Dad had a bunch of cool cars back in the day. This late sixties/early seventies street rod was the one that a heavy hitter on the streets of Milwaukee. Powered by a bullet proof 327 that could spin to big RPM….this baby was light weight and could clean the clocks of  many of the street bruisers of the day.

Contact information:  Rod and Competition Specialties #262-781-9044 

Brian Hansen- Owner of 10″ Wide Racing (“Motor Head” from the start)

I was born in 1966 and showed an interest in hot cars at an early age (it probably has something to do with our family car being a Dodge Super Bee with the “Drag Pack” option.

This picture was taken in 1970, standing next to our new 1969 Dodge Super Bee, with my mom and sister Kim.The Super Bee coupes quarter mile time was in the low fourteens at over 100 MPH (and was tested at the local “proving grounds” near our house).

                               Nice “Family Car” complete with roof rack and trailer hitch !!!

Our other daily driver, a 1965 Mustang with a 6 cylinder and “three on the floor”. Not a muscle car at the time but would be nice to have now and put a nitrous assisted big block Ford in it.

Early Car Interests
It was not long before I started talking about the kind of car I would like when I got my drivers license. I was always talking about a V8 that I could hop up (of course)
My interest in hot cars was “nurtured” by Art Lutzke, the automotive teacher at Waukesha North High School. He was an avid hot rod enthusiast himself and a great mechanic. During my high school years there was a 1968 HEMI Road Runner that lived in our auto shop (and we got to help work on it during class). Pretty cool stuff…
I did ask my parents to save the 1969 Dodge Super Bee so that it could be my first car when I got my license. Needless to say, they did not think that was the kind of car a 16 year old should have for a first car. They were probably right…

Brian’s first “Hot Rod
Shopping for this car was quite an experience. I wanted a V8 and my parents said whatever I bought had to have nothing larger than a 6 banger.

Well, I ended up “reluctantly” choosing a sort of “clapped out” 1968 Chevelle with a 6 cylinder engine and a 3-speed stick shift. The motor sounded sort of sick and smoked a lot. This did not bother me because I already had “other ideas” on what I was going to do with the car.

It was not long before the modifications began. I found a heavy duty 6 cylinder truck block and began working with a local engine builder to make a 6 banger that would scream. This replacement engine featured a huge solid lifter cam, ported & polished cylinder “head” with larger small-block Chevy intake & exhaust valves and two carburetors.

The engine also featured split headers with dual exhausts that sounded pretty wild. The end result was a “fire breathing” six banger that once beat a 1968 Olds with a 455 CI V8 in a street race. They could not believe that they were beat by a six cylinder!

The 3 speed on the floor was quickly changed to a Muncie M21 4 speed (complete with Urst shift) out of a 1966 GTO. I had to scrape up the $75 for the complete package but I thought it would be worth it to have the 4 speed (those were the days).

My Second Car – The “Cuda”

The Cuda’ had a stock 340 Magnum and an 727 automatic transmission. I was the third owner and the purchase price was $1,000 in 1987. I spent a little over $4,000 to restore the car to original. The car was gorgeous !!!

The Cuda was drag raced in the Muscle Car Nationals at Great Lakes Dragaway in 1988.

“The Blue Nova” Drag  Racer

In 1989, I bought a 1968 Chevy II Nova that already had a 427 CI big block V8, a modified Turbo 400 automatic transmission and a 9” Ford rear end with traction bars.

The car had a roll cage and a 5 point racing harness (it had everything that a good “street car” needed). My friends Bob Hood & Tim Jakus thought I was nuts for wanting a 10 second street car.

The car was driven to the track and ran low 12 second ¼ mile runs through the full exhausts as it was bought (3700 pounds). But that was only the beginning. I added a nitrous oxide system during the spring of 1990 and got the car in the tens (through a full 3” exhaust including tails pipes).

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Then the fun really began. I had to go faster. A set of Merlin BBC cylinder heads, a bigger Lunati cam and a 250 nitrous plate system was installed in the same old short block.

In this configuration, the car ran 10.47 second quarter at 123 MPH through full exhausts. The trap speed was limited by lifter pump up at 6,400 RPM and 7,200 RPM was needed to get to the end of the track.

Then the quest for more speed continued — One of my friends Bob Hood sold me “take off” parts from his car. A big lift solid lifter cam was installed. The car ran the quarter mile in 11.70 @ 114 MPH on horsepower (no nitrous). For a few months, he went to their “test-n-tune” highway and tried out more modifications that included a Nitrous Works 325 HP NOS system. Now the car was a “real animal”! I was ready to go to the home track, Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove, WI and make a pass before winter set in.

I knew that the car could 60 ft. mark in the 1.40’s and thought that it could maybe I could get the car in the 9.90s. I put in a 325 pills in the Nitrous Works plate and staged the car at the starting line. The lights came down, matted the throttle and simultaneously pressed the “magic button”. The car stood up and planted the Mickey Thompson 11.5*29.5’s on the sticky starting line and I was off!

I watched the tach hit 7,200 RPM and clicked the shifter into second and heard a loud bang and the car immediately unloaded the suspension. The engine was still running so I pretty sure that it was a tranny, convertor or rear end. It turned out that the trusty Turbo Action 9″ race convertor had given up the ghost from too much action !!!

This was the Nova coming back from Great Lakes Dragaway on the back of a truck (the first time that it had ever been on a trailer in 7 years).

Then, I married my Wife Kim and the Nova was sold and the money was used towards the down payment for a house. I still know the current owner of the Nova (Brian Chelf), who lives in Iowa.

 Current ride 1967 Impala 396

It was not long before I got the itch for another car. I found the pictured 1967 Chevy Impala 396 Sport Coupe advertised for sale in one of the local papers and located near our house.

The elderly gentleman, who owned the car, was the original owner! He was a retired policeman from the Chicago area. The car had been kept in a climate-controlled garage since it was new!

I even had to have an “audition” before he would show my Wife and I the car (since it was under a car cover). It was over an hour before we could even see the car !!! In the end our patience paid off…

Genuine original one owner 74k mile big block 1967 Impala as we bought it in 2000. Not very fast but very cool.The Impala has all of the toys (power windows, seats and even Comfortron air conditioning) and they all still work – quite rare for a 1967 car. The interior is bright red vinyl and in perfect condition, and amazingly, still smells like new! The big block 396 runs nice but is not this is not race car at 4400 pounds!!!

The next car…

Someday I would like to build another fast street car. Hanging around guys like Pat Spangenburg and Kevin Ribbens who have “big cars” that are capable of running in the 8’s has “influenced” me and I think I’d build a Impala, Biscayne or Caprice. Nick Scavo’s 1965 Impala (now owned by Joe Penze) was also a big influence in my facination with making 2 tons of fun run in the 8’s. 

 The engine of choice would be a 540 BBC with a F2R Procharger (so that I can still run a flat hood or small cowl hood). Stock suspension and 10″ slicks of course !!!

Fastest Street Car Drag Racing on and then….

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Since the early days of street legal racing the cars have exceeded anyone’s wildest dreams. Who would have ever though that a radial tire Mustang would be able to lay down a 6.90’s pass…thank you Dave Hance !!!!

When racers started taking their street race cars off the street and gotinvolved in organized street car shoot out’sthe 9 second car was a heavy hitter. Nowadays we have cars that are running on stock suspension, with 10″ tires, andcan click off a 8 second pass with a mild tune-up. The serious cars are well into the 7’s at a buck eighty…pretty stiff competition.

Chuck Samuels low 9 second El Camino (then)

This old El Camino was a terrorizing force in the early days of street car drag racing. This baby had a flat stock hood (very cool), little 9″ Goodyears (yes, they were used in the early days before Mickey Thompson took over) and a nitrous ingesting big block Chevy that Chuck built & tuned. This was a low 9 second ride and it must have weighed 3,500 lbs (including the ballast in the tail gate). Check out the helmet that Chuck was wearing during these 140 mph blasts down the quarter mile.

Bryan Metz & Mike Rees (Now)

The progression of street racing to drag racing from the 1990’s till now.

The best comparisons would be a car like my Malibu through its changes, then to our current Camaro. In the 1990s we raced at much heavier weights than we currently do under SFI and NHRA rules. When I first started Heads Up racing we weighed 3400- 3500 pounds.  My Malibu started life as a ladder bar back-half pro-street car that would do 200 foot wheelies and always dead hook. I was running a 500” big block Chevy with Pontiac heads and a Big Shot plate NOS system. We were going 8.40’s.

As the technology around us improved so did the et’s. One of the first major upgrades to the Malibu was the installation of a round tube back-half and 4-link. With no other improvements we ran 8.20’s on our first hit. Two tenths from a suspension upgrade and I had no idea how to properly tune the 4-link, obviously leaving plenty on the table. Soon after came the digital ignition boxes with individual timing control. I started working on my engine tune-up and getting the most out of my jet-limited plate by controlling the individual cylinders timing, we seen significant gains and ended up running in the 8.0’s with no other changes.

We used to be somewhat limited in our engine tuning to the worst cylinder, sure you would put a colder plug in it, open fuel holes on the plate to that cylinder (or so you hoped), file the lugs in the distributor cap to retard timing but then came the digital msdbox, now I find myself with 5 degrees of timing difference from my worst cylinder to my best, all done with the stroke of a keyboard. Others used their ignition systems to ramp power and aid with launching.

 It was about this time I bought my first Racepak, a SC1000. This technology has the ability to teach us about our cars, and stop us from burning them up. The following season our racing series allowed us to use Fogger systems. At our first race armed with my Racepak, digital 7, and a fogger I was going to fly. I wanted to be the first to the 7’s in my class. I was strapped in for my first qualifying attempt, only one car left in front of me, and don’t you know it, he runs a 7.99. DAMN IT, so close.  I pull up to the light and let go of the transbrake button and go on the ride of my life, right down the middle and it felt fast, 7.97. I jumped out at the end, went to pull the plugs and swap them before my drive back to the pits, but I can’t get the plug socket on the plugs.

After thinking about it for a moment, I wondered, could I possibly have gotten them so hot they swelled up? YES… there was one plug that didn’t burn, #8. We towed my car to the scales, there is some good news, and the guy that ran 7.99 was 100# under weight. I am the first to the sevens. All that great technology couldn’t give me a tune-up starting point, but it did give me the info and tools needed not to do that again.

Now a state of the art car, like the Metz Performance Camaro is built to perform at a maximum level. The car is aerodynamic , light, andsits 3 inches off the ground. It has considerable front-end overhang for tripping the finish line beams, and uses all the lightest of materials from carbon fiber body and interior panels to carbon fiber brakes to help keep the reciprocating weight down.

The aerodynamics’ and front-end overhang of our 1992 Camaro are a major improvement over the 1979 Malibu. Using the same driveline, ignition, Racepak, wheels, tires and carbon brakes the Camaro ran a best of 7.56 180 mph @3150# with a .044 jet in bad air. The Malibu in comparable air ran a best of 7.62 180 mph @3050# with a 048 jet.

We have become much more efficient in the ways we run the cars thanks to tools like a Racepak, used for data acquisition. A Big Stuff 3 fuel injection system that can tune the entire fuel and spark system through a keyboard and even electric shocks. Technology and knowledge can be awesome.

Best of luck with all your racing

Bryan Metz

www.metzperformance.com 

Fast forward 15 years. Electronic Fuel injection, Big Stuff management, 1,500 horsepower on 10.5″ Mickey Thompson’s. Performance…well in testing this year here was one of the test blasts with this new car:

Sixty Foot: 1.06, 330 feet 2.99, 1/8th mile 4.54 158 shut off at 5.6 and still ran 7.14 168    

 Andy Jensen was there with the “Giant Killer” 1968 Camaro. Feast your eyes on the baddest single turbo small block Chevy on the planet…when you are done looking at the other scenery. This little 427 SBC has taken Andy’s new Camaro to 3.87 @ 191 in the 1/8th mile. www.jensensenginetech.com

 While we were hanging out at the Edelbrockdisplay we noticed this monster big block. Just out of curiosity we asked whet the going price was for this Pat Musi 632 BBC bullet. Since the Edelbrock guy did not know he walked us over to none other than Pat Musi himself. He was busy talking to Tony Christian but took the time to tell us the complete motor was about $26k. The 18 degree Big Victor CNC headed beast made 1209 hp / 939 ft pounds of torque on nuts n’ bolts. When the fogger was unleashed this combo belted out 1666 hp/1408 ft pounds of torque. Nice street engine….

 Bryan Metz on building a race car (2008 article)

I was asked by Brian Hansen (who owns 10” Wide Racing Videos) to be one of the contributing editors in the new Tech Talk Forum on the web site. I feel honored that Brian thinks enough of me to allow me to share my experiences in building race cars with all of you.

 First I’d like to give you some background in how I got into the race car building business. I have known Brian for over 20 years and we used to be street racers when we were younger.  As the cars got way too fast and unsafe to race on the public roads we turned to our local race track to test the performance of our cars.

Great Lakes Dragaway (GLD) www.greatlakesdragaway.com offered us a place for us to run our cars in a class called the Outlaw Super Stocks. Instead of racing on the streets (which in hindsight we should not have been doing in the first place since it is not a safe place to race) we now had a safe place to compete against other street racers.

Since GLD is in between Milwaukee and Chicago we had guys like Nick Scavo and Chuck Samuels to learn from. They would often help us when we were having problems getting our cars to work and we learned a great deal from them. All the Chicago guys raced and tested at GLD (like: Chuck Samuels, Spiro Pappas and Marty Buchand (some of the other the baddest of the bad street racers). In the early 90’s along came the NMCA and that’s when their names became well known across the entire country (and world). At the same time I choose to race my 1980 Malibu in the Modified Super stock class at GLD (their personal test-bed for the NMCA classes).

For me the love of racing has always remained a constant. It went from putting a big motor in my Malibu to back halving it with ladder bars and then cutting that out with my now right-hand man “Spike” (Mike Rees). Eventually the back half was replaced with a four link (that is still in the car today). The building of the Malibu started in 1986 when I thought that running 10.50’s was really fast (ow the cars runs 7.50’s in its current trim). I spent way to much redoing the 2^nd back half myself (but I learned a lot from the experience).

Currently I own Metz Performance and I also work for Troy Coughlin  (Jegs) on their drag cars. I have worked for Troy on his race team in many different capacities for almost 8 years. Spike, who works for me at Metz Performance, also works with me at Jegs and has for 3 seasons now. I feel very fortunate to be in the situation that I’m in building cars (even though we sometimes work really long hour’s week after week). But I love it !!!

 At Metz Performance we build state-of-the-art “outlaw style” cars along with many other services (like building roll cages and other custom fabricated components). The one thing that I have learned over the years is that I could have saved a lot of money if I had built my car years ago by thinking ahead to how it might eventually be raced in faster classes.

My suggestion is that before you start building a race car that you first pick a class that you can afford to race in over the long run. Then start looking at other sanctioning bodies and look for other similar classes (so that you have the option to run a number of different events). Lastly make sure that you build a race car that will allow you to go faster (By building one that will allow you to meet the requirements of going faster: roll cage, chassis, safety equipment, ect).

I know most of you build a certain car because it’s your dream car, but if you plan to race competitively, and go very fast, pick the correct car. Preferably something aerodynamic and can be lowered.

I’d like to wish everyone a great racing season in 2009.

Thanks,

           Bryan   www.metzperformance.com