Judges

[Steve_Hoog]

Eric

Did you see the post I made about the one RAIV Judge that sat in Muskogee since 1976, never moved an inch until a couple of years ago after I told a friend about it. All these years Gary and I never got serious about the car, having no clue it was a IV other than the crazy that owned it claimed it was. You know how those stories usally turn out. Well we lost out on that one.

Unfortunately the guy that got it, hacked it to pieces. The frame is in the possesion of the guy that owns the 69 BB Rag Camaro, and the motor, tranny, and HD390 rear are possibly still floating around Muskogee. Long story short, the drivetrain was stolen out of the car in 1975 while the car was in a local repair shop.

My best friend bought a RAIV intake back in the early 80's from some one down there, had to be from that motor. I suspect the motor to still be lurking around in some shed down there.

And that 71 Judge I stripped in 79 that the motor ended up in a station wagon, much to my surprise some one local read that post and knows where the wagon still is not far from here. WOW.

[yellowjudge]

Nope, did'nt see that one. It's a shame alot of rare cars beat, & parted. But, that helps the value of the ones left. Alot yrs ago had to do w/value. I had a 69 RAIII TA, 27 k miles, but all driveline changed, due hard race life. Car parked in 1974/5, sat & got rusty. I in 92, sold it to friend, after gathering most all parts. He lost interest, sold of all good parts, & gave me mint int. back. But, in 94, a RAIII 69 was worth maybe 20k, not worth redoing a basket case. I also had a complete orig 69 auto TA, rusty beyond belief, parts were alot more than I pd for whole car. At that time I had just got my 69 RAIV TA, it was 100% rustfree, & complete, so I kept it, & over 2001/2 had frame off done. It is a true concours car, but when I got it, I got "razed" that 20k was too much!

[Chevy454]

[ QUOTE ]
Personal Opinion as to Why 400 RAIV Pontiacs can even run with LS6 454 Chevys

Look at the Pure Stock drag results in Michigan, you see RAIV's and LS6 cars running neck and neck

[/ QUOTE ]

You Poncho boys had better get your act together! I wanna say the quickest Pure Stock RAIV A-bodies have been in the 12.90-13.00 range...while a few of the LS6 Chevelles have gone 12.40s. The quickest Pontiacs to date are a couple of RAII 'Birds, which have gone 12.3s...I believe one of them was Jim Mino's old car.

[StealthBird]

[ QUOTE ]
You Poncho boys had better get your act together! I wanna say the quickest Pure Stock RAIV A-bodies have been in the 12.90-13.00 range...while a few of the LS6 Chevelles have gone 12.40s. The quickest Pontiacs to date are a couple of RAII 'Birds, which have gone 12.3s...I believe one of them was Jim Mino's old car.

[/ QUOTE ]

But Rob, you have to remember, Mino's RAII Firebirds ran mid-12's way back in the 1980's during these shootouts, when LS6 cars were running 14's, COPO's were running 13's. These RAII's are still running the same times, yet the LS6 cars and COPOS have suddenly started running low 12's and high 11's! There's also a certain W-31 Olds that was running 15.2's a few years ago, and now runs 13.0's. I guess if someone can explain this, they can also explain Barry Bonds gaining 50 pounds of muscle and hitting 70 home runs at age 40 without illegal drugs.

The Mino's never invested in high dollar extrude honed stuff, or had the big bucks to use dyno facilities whenever they wanted. The Mino's cars were always dead stock, as was seen in the lengthy article in the late 1990's where they tore the RAII down. Didn't even have ported heads. Just careful assembly, careful blueprinting, and attention to detail.

So what took the Chevy guys so long to catch up?

[gtaa9]

If you think about it the 1970 GTO/Judge weighs in about the same as the 70 Chevelle give or take 100-200lbs.So you would think the Chevelle with the LS-6 would stomp the GTO with the RAlV.In a earlier post someone said that it was a even match up.The GTO with a 400 motor vs Chevelle 454 motor thats pretty impressive on the GTO's part.

[Belair62]

That RA IV must have ben a tad under rated ...

[gtaa9]

The RalV was rated at 370hp I red some were that the real hp was around 400-420hp.Is it true or false?I dont know.

[Chevy454]

Hey Mike! I was wondering if you were awake!

The same thing that made Mino's car lethal, was the same thing that put 21 cars into the 12s at the Pure Stocks in Stanton. We just started reading the same rule book as Jim! No extrude honing or any of that other crap is allowed, either...in fact, "Certified Stock" was created to do away with all that hokey business. Blueprinting is the key, but I attribute a lot of it to getting the compression where it's *supposed* to be. Case in point: I put together an L72 exactly as the factory would have in '69, no blueprinting just slinging parts together, and it came in at 10.2:1, and went 12.70s@108+ in our Camaro...I then added 2 points of compression, and in the exact same 3800 pound Camaro it runs 12.3@113+.

I'm in full agreement the RAIV was underrated, and I'd personally love to see someone step up and show us how it's done...any takers?

[StealthBird]

Rob, you DID wake me up! And to think my psychiatrist said not to worry about the "rats" crawling on my arms. Dern LS6's...

In the old Musclecar Review series, Dan Jensen built stone stock engines to test on a dyno. He used virgin heads, stock carbs, etc., to see how close the factory ratings were. They pulled over 400 hp from an A-body RAIV engine, then discovered that the 69 Firebird RAIV exhaust manifolds flowed another 20 hp over the A-body units due to a smoother chassis exit. I think they managed about 420 hp from the 69 Firebird RAIV configuration in stock trim.

I'm kidding with Rob and the LS6 guys. My point is that for the first 10 years of the stock drags, there were only a couple of cars running in the 12's, and we used to ask, "Where are the Chevys? Where are the LS6's, Yenkos, RAIV's, and W-30's?" It seemed to be all 440's and Hemis, Stage 1 Buicks, and your occasional 68 Firebird RAII or 455HO.

After a certain SS396 Nova ran 11's and all the "secrets" were disclosed in MCR, the gloves came off, and purpose-built, bend-the-rules cars started to be assembled, with a seemingly limitless budget, and they began to dominate the Pure Stocks.

In reality, all the great Musclecars ran 13's and 14's in stock trim, but I simply love watching the current Pure Stocks to see what these cars can do today. I'm glad the LS6 and the COPO's stepped up and are battling it out with the Hemis and 440+6 cars.

There are several Pontiac people that can build a lethal RAIV setup using stock parts, but I tell ya, they don't seem to be very interested in Pure Stock! Jim Hand just wrote THE definitive book on building a Pontiac V-8 using stock parts (can be picked up at Amazon.com, Border's, or Barnes & Noble), and his muffled, 9.5 to 1 compression, 4000 lb. 71 Lemans Wagon has been running 11's for years now with stock parts, RAIV cam, d-port heads, cast iron intake, etc. His engine, in a 3500 lb. Firebird, with 10.5 to 1 compression, would be deadly.

[gtaa9]

I've heard of blueprinting but have'nt had it explain to me.What does a guy do to an engine when he blueprints it?