(Photo credit: Eddyville Raceway Park FB Page) – If you are a fan of alcohol funny cars you know the name Dale Brand. For many years he was a very strong racer on the IHRA circuit and when that dried up he switched his combo to an NHRA style setup and has been doing a great job on that side of things, defeating Frank Manzo at an NHRA divisional race at Cordova earlier this summer. That being said, even a guy like Brand who races a 3,000hp alky flopper needs to just get out to the strip and have some fun every once in a while. He recently took his old bracket car, a 1968 Charger to Eddyville Raceway Park just to make some laps and enjoy the night. Brand had not raced this particular car in 20+ years, so he was probably as surprised as anyone when he dropped the hammer in the burnout box, exploding the engine in amazing fashion.
The photo below shows the resulting carnage and it is totally epic in scale. We have seen lots of blown up engines in our day, but this one looks like someone stuffed it with dynomite and lit the fuse. There’s the crank, rods, even pistons showing. The only thing that kept the whole mass of the bottom end from smashing to the Earth was the front few bolts in the oil pan. Had the pan rails broken up front, it may have shot the crank and all of its associated components right out the bottom!
KNOW THE MOTOR? EVER SEEN ONE FAIL LIKE THIS?
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It looks like a 440 from a motor home.
Would this be the wrong time to make a basketball pun of the situation?
1977 440 block with Brodix heads.
What 75 duster said… late 440 blocks are not known for their dynamite proof-ness… Hydrolock?
440 blocks are very tough. But if you make over 600 HP on these stock blocks which I’m sure Dale had this motor making, you better throw them away after 4 to 500 run. The center webs start stressing and cracking. This was probably an old motor that had probably been run down the track a lot of times prior to this weekend. Thus making the webs week and ready to be read their last rights.
That crank will clean right up!
been racin big mopars for years,never seen that
“Damn, I’d barely got her past 9 thou & then this happens…….”
Have to wonder how much power it was pushing since it’s not even a Billit Torque Converter?
I am guessing no rev limiter since it happened during the burn out. It has been sitting for 20 years…not good to let things set. Maybe he should have went through the engine first before taking it out and beating it right off the bat like that…just my opinion.
In ’71 I had a roadrunner with a 440 +6. I went into the military, and in my absence my younger brother blew it up for me. it had 3 bent rods and the crank was broken in two places, and it still ran. I had the best mopar man in our state rebuild it for me. talking to the mechanic long distance he ask me what the hell I did to it, and I told him I had no idea because my brother was scarred to tell me. The mechanic said he had been building sprint car engines all his life and had never seen a six pack 440 blow like it did. It had all the good stuff forged internals and all. I paid 1800.00 for the car and it only had 10 k miles on it. the engine cost me 1800.00 also, and believe me it was bulletproof. In fact that car was the most bullet proof car I’ve ever had. 8|
Didja kick little brothers butt? In 1969 I bought a special factory order ’69 GTO, brand new, and the only car that ever gave me problems was a ’70 RoadRunner? with the 440 6 pak and all I ever saw of it was the tail lights getting smaller and smaller and smaller and gone…pfffft!
I was running 400c.i. +425 horses and could not touch that car! Man those were the days!
It’s a 1977 440 block cast around 10:00 P.M. on July 1 1977. This guy blew the crank out of the bottom and just about cut the block in half!
I prefer the short deck blocks myself ! They are almost indestructible…
and a good stud girdle.