Hi, just wanted to say hello to everyone here at MMA

Les Szabo · Post by **Les Szabo** » Sun May 15, 11 9:19 am

RobTwin wrote:Hi Les, here's a couple more to add to your scrapbook:

The third one, with Jason's Coronet, has a few faces (and backs) you may remember...
(r-l) Jason, Andy, Stu (my other half), you in the black jacket (did you wear anything else?!) talking to Spiro (had, and still has, a yellow 73/74 roadrunner)

I know I have some others, will have to dig out the old prints again....

thanks, thats a few more to add to the collection, yeah did like that jacket

...and is that Brian Patemans fast Pontiac in the background in pic 3...

Les Szabo · Post by **Les Szabo** » Sun May 15, 11 9:23 am

DaveBishop wrote:
PaulR wrote:
Hi Les ,
It's great to have people from way back when on here.
Did you end up with the ex "Whiffy Smith" green 340 AAR cuda at one time? Used to see it at Chelsea with the reg 340 AAR on it. Could be a case of memory fade as it was 30 years ago!!!!
Al Falkner had the AAR when it was seen at Chelsea with the 340 AAR number plate. Two drunks set the back of the car alight outside his house when he lived in Leytonston East London. As Les said Tim has the car now and I have the engine.

Oh thats cr*p, blimey Tim has some work to do then, apart from the other 5 then, he was talking about building a 500ci blower motor or something?.... Dave does it have the AAR heads?
I was running AAR heads and W2 rockers on the '71 for the last year or so....there's a story attached to that.

db · Post by db » Sun May 15, 11 10:29 am

Wow sounds like you were one of the kingpins of street car drag racing back then Les!
Great to hear these old tales and see the pics. It fills in a bit of history behind how the scene grew and evolved.
Nice to know the apparent freindliness behind all that fierce competition was genuine. It's one of the things that's always appealed about drag racing, the genuine down to earth people behind it.

Thanks for the N2O advice by the way, waffle all you want mate

Les Szabo · Post by **Les Szabo** » Sun May 15, 11 10:34 am

By the way if any of you would be interested in the specs of the '71 and '69 cars for comparison to weight of car to ET's/mph/hp, and parts used etc for any of your current/future builds you guys may be doing, as a guide only, I will be only too pleased to post them up.

There's a lot of fancy "must have" parts out there now that were not available then, and I reckon its all too easy to buy things you don't REALLY need to achieve your goals.

Les Szabo · Post by **Les Szabo** » Sun May 15, 11 10:48 am

db wrote:Wow sounds like you were one of the kingpins of street car drag racing back then Les!
Great to hear these old tales and see the pics. It fills in a bit of history behind how the scene grew and evolved.
Nice to know the apparent freindliness behind all that fierce competition was genuine. It's one of the things that's always appealed about drag racing, the genuine down to earth people behind it.

Thanks for the N2O advice by the way, waffle all you want mate

Hi Paul, no I wasn't anything special, just did a lot of homework and calculations and picked the parts carefully that would hopefully produce the numbers. Its also a case of reading in between the lines and experimenting with certain parts.
And yes the genuine friendliness of people was fantastic, there were quite a few occassions when I needed it, and they were there.

Charger · Post by **Charger** » Sun May 15, 11 10:49 am

hello there

, great looking cars

enjoying reading all this and great old pics, makes me realise i'm still quite new round here

Les Szabo · Post by **Les Szabo** » Sun May 15, 11 10:59 am

Charger wrote:hello there , great looking cars

enjoying reading all this and great old pics, makes me realise i'm still quite new round here

Hi and thanks, that looks a real beaut you have, my first ever Mopar a '68 Charger, never forget it.

Steve Chapman · Post by **Steve Chapman** » Sun May 15, 11 11:05 am

Welcome Les, nice pics and storys, nice to have some real history posted up. Keep the nostalgia coming.

Les Szabo · Post by **Les Szabo** » Sun May 15, 11 11:11 am

Chip wrote:Welcome Les, nice pics and storys, nice to have some real history posted up. Keep the nostalgia coming.

Thanks m8

DaveBishop · Post by **DaveBishop** » Sun May 15, 11 11:15 am

Hi Les it does have the AAR heads and the rocker gear but it took me awhile to find them as I think that you had the heads and rocker gear off the engine I hear the were a casulty of the Broadwater farm riots when your shed got set on fire still cant remember how you got the heads off the engine getting old and my memory fades in and out. Do you remember the club nights in Tottenham. I think that the rocker gear is the original but I thinkl that I had to find another set of heads such along time ago

Les Szabo · Post by **Les Szabo** » Sun May 15, 11 11:31 am

DaveBishop wrote:Hi Les it does have the AAR heads and the rocker gear but it took me awhile to find them as I think that you had the heads and rocker gear off the engine I hear the were a casulty of the Broadwater farm riots when your shed got set on fire still cant remember how you got the heads off the engine getting old and my memory fades in and out. Do you remember the club nights in Tottenham. I think that the rocker gear is the original but I thinkl that I had to find another set of heads such along time ago

I only got the heads, no rockers I don't think, can't remember who I got them from now. And yes, I came home from picking them up in my "shed", granada ghia, but thought I'd go downstairs later to bring the other one up, and of course that was it...all hell broke loose on the Farm, the shed lasted till about 9 o'clock when they burnt it.
Next morning I went and got it out of the boot, a bit charred but got it sorted. I later went to the states and into Dick Landy's place for the W2 rockers, but they had a bit more angle than the originals, that took about 3 days to sort out so the pushrods wouldn't hit the head as they went up and down. Still had some problems with the rockers above 6000rpm so never really got the full benefit with them.
Unfortunately those heads got damaged in an N20 overdose and had to be skimmed to the point where they were almost unuseable

And yes I remember the "Smoke City wheelers" nights at the Beehive, yourself, Graham barrs, terry Hollingsworth in the yellow AMX Javelin and Steve Rawlings, did he ever finish his 15yr project Supra?

Derek · Post by **Derek** » Sun May 15, 11 1:47 pm

Wow Les, sounds as if you've been around the block a bit. Welcome by the way, good to have someone like you here.

Les Szabo · Post by **Les Szabo** » Sun May 15, 11 2:43 pm

Derek wrote:Wow Les, sounds as if you've been around the block a bit. Welcome by the way, good to have someone like you here.

Thanks Derek...yeah 1980 >1991

TW71 · Post by **TW71** » Sun May 15, 11 5:01 pm

Les Szabo wrote:By the way if any of you would be interested in the specs of the '71 and '69 cars for comparison to weight of car to ET's/mph/hp, and parts used etc for any of your current/future builds you guys may be doing, as a guide only, I will be only too pleased to post them up.

There's a lot of fancy "must have" parts out there now that were not available then, and I reckon its all too easy to buy things you don't REALLY need to achieve your goals.

That sounds like a great idea Les

RobTwin · Post by **RobTwin** » Mon May 16, 11 1:16 am

Les Szabo wrote:.......And yes I remember the "Smoke City wheelers" nights at the Beehive, yourself, Graham barrs, terry Hollingsworth in the yellow AMX Javelin and Steve Rawlings, did he ever finish his 15yr project Supra?

Yes Steve did get some use out of that Supra but he's moved on now. We were chating to him a couple of months ago in a pub in Hitchin.... I think he's going ProMod next

I didnt hear too many details but a cam lift of 1.25" made my ears prick up

I guess there's still some money in fitted kitchens...