When BangShifter Doug Miller sent me an email telling me about his buddy Steve Caldwell’s 1972 Pontiac Ventura the photo was of this thing with the wheels sky high on a little tire and I knew this was right up our alley. There is great video from underneath the rear watching the suspension do it’s thing, and also in car footage of a giant wheelstand pass last night where Steve ran his personal best in the car. 9’s are not far off, and it’s all Poncho which makes it even cooler. Because it’s a Ventura it is a little different than the average Nova. With a .030 over 455 under the hood, 11.7 to 1 compression, Icon Pistons, an Eagle crank, and Scat Rods all held together with ARP fasteners this thing makes some steam. And that’s just the foundation of this thing.
A big Bullet solid flat tappet with 268/276 @ .050 duration 579/597 lift plus 1.65 roller rockers moves the valves in Kauffman 74cc aluminum heads that were ported by SD Performance including port matching the intake. On top is a Holley 950XP, and it’s all fired by MSD. Hedman 2 inch headers get the spent gasses out.
A Coan 4700 rpm stall 10 inch converter sends power through a built TH350 with a Hipster trans brake on it’s way back to a 8.5 inch 10 bolt rearend full of 33 spline axles, a chrome moly spool, and c-clip eliminators. 3.90 gears aren’t all that steep, but the Poncho’s torque has no problem rotating the earth underneath the Ventura and carrying the wheels for days. Steve shifts this sucker at 6200 and it sounds awesome! His best pass is a 10.05 that he ran last night at Sonoma and the in car video is below. It does all this on a 9 inch slick using Caltracs bars and Caltracs split mono leaf springs. Rancho RS9000 shocks out back control the rear and AFCO’s handle front end rebound control. The undercar suspension video was a 10.17 pass a couple weeks ago.
We love this car because it reminds us of the Stock Eliminator cars I grew up with and love to watch. It’s got more motor and a trans brake, but the stockers were the original small tire racers and still know how to get big performance out of way less high performance parts than the average race car. Steve’s Ventura certainly knows how to make good use of the Poncho power and a simple but well sorted combo. We love it!
