Blazin Bessie…  

History:

Back in 2004, I wanted to build one car, for street, strip, & show.

Along came a 70 Acadian SS, so it was completely stripped & reassembled as a factory SS, with the addition of the rear tubbing, a 4-link/9” diff set-up, an eight point roll cage, and the blown/carbureted 468 BBC/TH400 driveline.

So we drove it, showed it, and raced it. Had tons of fun.

Then along came the dragster, and the Acadian seen less & less asphalt.

 Then, during our long (& miserably cold!) winter of 08/09, I decided to give the Acadian a complete overhaul, with a couple of changes in mind: go to injected alcohol, and take 600 lbs off the car.  

 The short block went off to Ken’s Kustom, for a complete freshening & piston / cam change to take the new alcohol diet. The Brodix heads were also sent in for a complete go-thru.

 Back home, the front GM frame was tossed for an Art Morrison strut set-up, the stock firewall was cut out so we could position the motor 8” back of stock location.

A new 1200 hp Sportsman Deadenbear PG was on it’s way to replace the TH400.

Out went the Detroit Locker & Bear street axles; in went a Strange 9” floater & Mozer race axles.

Aluminum fuel tank up front, and the rad & trans cooler in the trunk base.

All the stock glass ( and window cranking hardware) was pulled & replaced with Lexan.

Complete front clip was pulled & replaced w/ Harwood fiberglass components, which Cahill Auto Body fused together into a one-piece tilting assembly. No more of this over-the-fender work.

Interior flooring was gutted & replaced w/ aluminum panels; new aluminum tunnel was built; the dash insert was replaced w/ a trick aluminum unit we built with all the req’d gauges; all the old wiring was sacrificed to the circuit gods & replaced w/ new stuff, hooking together a new MSD 7AL, HEI coil, Deadenbear’s ‘Lightning’ gizmo box, and a Painless panel. All the circuit relays & fuses are on the inside panel of the glove box, to keep all neat & tidy & retain the interior stock looking dash pad.

New Kirkey seat & cover went in, along with a DJ Safety cam-lock 5 point harness.

New rims, new rubber.

New batteries; a 16v to power the new MSD starter, and a 12v for the rest.

And a new DJ TAFC chute got mounted on the butt.

And a pile more new stuff that’s too long to list.

Off to Cahill Auto Body it went to transform the previous deep blue color to the present black/silver scheme, and then Rick Roy & his airbrushing talent went to work to give it the extra ‘nastiness’ it now deserved.

The project was completed just before the World-of-Wheels show in Wpg, so we entered it, and took home the class’s top award! Cool!

But enough of the show stuff, this was a race car…

 First full run down the track saw a low 9; tuned her up, and an 8.74 came out. We were happy.

In total, it has only seen about 10 complete ¼ mi runs.

Spent close to $70,000, will let go for $45,000