Q: Greg it was a pleasure meeting you at The Bloomsburg Nationals car show and reminiscing about the races at Beaver Springs Dragway, those best of seven match races in the 1960s, and the Dodge and Plymouth super stock factory race cars with automatic transmissions.
Also we spoke of The Ramchargers a bit, so I’m asking if you can give us some of your enjoyable nostalgia stories about what the Ramchargers meant to racing, overall, and also about when you told me you met Tom Hoover, he the main 426 Hemi engine designer, at Beaver Springs Dragway? Bob L., Carbondale, Pa.
A: Bob, pleasure meeting you, too, and I’d be happy to give my recollections. The Ramchargers and Tom Hoover played key roles not only in Hemi engine development, but also in the successful implementation of automatic transmissions in drag racing.
Back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, automatic transmissions were not the top choice of those who demanded the best in quarter-mile performance. Usually, if you had a performance car like a 409 Chevy, 390-427 Ford or 389-421 Pontiac, if you had an automatic it was probably a good second slower in the quarter-mile than its 4-speed counterparts.
However, the Dodge/Plymouth 413-426 wedge cars were soon to appear, and offered either a poor shifting three-speed manual or a large and beefy three-speed push button 727 automatic, called a TorqueFlite. And, thanks to Hoover and The Ramchargers, it wouldn’t be long until these MOPARS would dominate the Super Stock and Factory Experimental classes in the 1962 to 1965 era. As for the less powerful MOPARS like the slant 6-cylinder vehicles, they relied on a lighter and smaller TorqueFlite called a 904.
The Ramchargers, meanwhile, included a group of devoted Chrysler engineers who worked on racing after hours. Their dedication led to developing the 413-426 Max Wedge and soon to follow 426 Hemi, and then prove their worthiness by on-track performances as reliable, successful race engines. Be it a showroom stock ‘62 to ‘65 midsize Dodge or Plymouth or a nitro Top Fuel dragster running 200-MPH in six seconds, The Ramchargers were involved.
Even more important is how The Ramchargers figured out how to make an automatic transmission work and win regularly in big time drag racing at a time when 4-speeds dominated street and strip in Chevys, Pontiacs and Fords.
After much development by The Ramchargers with their ’61 413 Dodge, the 1962 Dodge and Plymouth 413s came to market, and things were about to change big time. I contacted the former owner of Beaver Springs Dragway in Pennsylvania this week to verify the following as he was with me when it all took place. And, thanks to my involvement working for the renowned promoter “Beaver” Bob McCardle, I got the chance to have a long talk with the late Tom Hoover, known as the mastermind behind the design of the 426 Hemi. This encounter took place in 2004 as Hoover was an invited celebrity guest at the race track’s annual Nostalgia Nationals.
Hoover noted that the early Dodge/Plymouth high performance automatic cars just didn’t get off the line well, and it was The Ramchargers that decided to try what McCardle and I recall Hoover calling “Bonsai start” experimentation; in translation, Hoover said this means revving the engine up to 5,000 RPMs and then dropping the automatic into low gear. (Yes, for real!)
Although you might have gotten away doing this a few times with your 1961 Plymouth Savoy Slant-6, when you put a 500-horse race ready 413 or 426 behind a 727 TorqueFlite, those neutral to low starts were way different. Hoover told us that after several catastrophic blow-ups trying to make it all work, The Ramchargers finally gave up and then tried something that changed the face of performance cars and drag racing forever.
Hoover explained that The Ramchargers figured out that the small nine-inch torque converter in those Slant-6 powered MOPARS, called an A-904 converter, could be utilized successfully in unison with the beefed-up 727 Hemi TorqueFlite producing amazing results… and more important run-after-run reliability. Hoover said some fitting adjustments were necessary and tweaking the internal fluid cooling properties of the A-904 as needed.
The little A-904 converter led to instant success as the Dodge and Plymouth 413/426 automatics were turning as fast or faster times than the 409 Chevys with 4-speeds. This all took place from 1961 to 1965, an era of factory super stock racing that rewarded manufacturers with the “win on Sunday sell on Monday” marketing theory. One thing is for sure: enthusiasts weren’t buying 1962 Dodge Dart Super Stock 413s because of their looks. Further, even the Beach Boys were happily singing the ballad of a “Super Stock Dodge winding out in low” in a drag race against a fuel injected Corvette.
Not only did The Ramchargers figure out how to make an automatic transmission launch properly, they could also be given credit as the catalyst of the many aftermarket transmission companies that would soon follow specializing in transmission and high RPM launch converters. Companies like B&M and ATI come quickly to mind, and both were around in 1961 and are still going strong today.
A final memory is the many “Best of Seven” match races I attended in 1961 through 1965 and getting to see the actual 1964 Ramchargers Dodge that won the SS/A class at the U.S. Nationals. They came to our Vineland N.J. dragstrip and easily defeated Harold Ramsey in the Union Park Pontiac 421-inch “Swiss Cheese” Super Duty Catalina, a feared 4-speed car that was one of the fastest Pontiacs in the country and undergoing “match race only” lightening techniques. The Ramchargers won four straight that Saturday night and their 426 Hemi ran 11.30s at 127-MPH.
In ending, Hoover informed us that the Ramchargers eventually ran 130-MPH with that 1964 Hemi automatic, all with the tweaked A-904 style converter transferring everything their 426 Hemi could throw at the TorqueFlite. From then on,
automatics were just as popular as 4-speeds, and today, near 100- percent of cars in bracket drag racing run automatics…all with due respect to Hoover and The Ramchargers wizardry.
Thanks Beaver Bob McCardle for re-visiting our Tom Hoover discussion and also to Bob from Carbondale, Pa., for your question and kind comments.
(Greg Zyla is a syndicated auto columnist who welcomes reader questions and input on collector cars, auto nostalgia and motorsports at
[email protected] or at 303 Roosevelt St., Sayre, Pa. 18840)