WWW.THUNDERALLEYTRANSMISSIONS.COM

A DRIVING FORCE FOR TODAY'S TRANSMISSION REPAIR

THUNDER ALLEY RACING TEAM

1969 Ford Falcon Super-Pro Drag Car

The Story of the Car

  Owned by Gerry And Cynthia Pieters of Kaleden, BC, this 1969 Ford Falcon Sports Coupe was originally purchased with the intent of building a street ready summer cruiser and occasional drag strip weekend warrior.  The car was originally equipped with a Ford 302ci V8 and an automatic transmission, not to mention the abundance of empty pop bottles that were being stored in the car.  The car had seen good use over the years and needed a little bit of TLC to bring back the shine of it's first years, but was deemed to be an excellent project to be undertaken.  After much thought it was decided that the car would be destined for much more drag strip use than seeing street duty for cruising on summer evenings, so the final decision made was to turn this car into a full on purpose built drag car.

  The car has seen many forms to get to the point that it is now, from a leaf spring rear suspension, to being tubbed out and having a ladder bar rear suspension put in. The original 302ci motor was scrapped in favor of a 351ci Cleveland motor, that had the potential to produce a load more horsepower than the original motor, while sitting in the stock location (even if it was shoe-horned in).  The current motor sitting under the fiberglass hood is a 351 Cleveland that has been bored out to 406ci by K&S Machine of Kelowna, BC.  This motor runs on Methanol race fuel, injected with a Ron's Flying Toilet System, through a Parker Funnel Web Manifold. Now the motor pushes out approximately 700 horsepower, almost three times (3 x) the factory horsepower rating of the engine.  All that power is transferred to the ground through a highly modified, custom built Thunder Alley Transmissions racing C-4 transmission, with a 5400rpm stall converter, specially built by Island Converters, a manual valve body, and PA trans-brake. The power then heads into a Strange 9" center section, filled with 6.00 pro-gears, and 35 spline axles.  The car was not able to handle that sort of abuse without some healp, so it made the trip to Rik & Jeremy Christiansen of Valhalla Racing & Fab. in Kelowna, BC, where they custom built and installed a N.H.R.A. legal 10 point roll cage, frame connectors, and back-halved the car so that we could run a larger than factory set of rear tires without having to cut the body lines of the car.

The Sponsors

  Without their help it would have been nearly impossible to make this car a reality. These people and businesses have provided us with parts and services that helped us get the car finished, as well as keeping it running for raceday. These sponsors include:

Fram Filters,  Castrol Oil,  Autolite,  Lordco Auto Parts,  Ellis Creek Autobody,  Auto-Trim Design,  Old Car Buff,  Penticton Radiator,  Bill Smythe's Snap-On Tools Dealership,  Thunder Alley Transmissions,  and Island Torque Converters.  We also enjoy the support of the other racers, and especially the Pit crew for all their help getting the car ready to race. 

to Page 2