Story and Photos
by Garry Foster

Pulling up to the burnout box in his 1955 Chevy for its maiden run, Greg Wright had a lot going through his mind. “Will it go straight? Will it behave at 130 mph? Are all the bolts tight?” That inaugural moment is exciting for any builder. All the research, planning, design and machining is about to be tested and the elements have to work and stay together safely for a few runs before you settle down and realize you’ve built it right. “The launch is as much of a rush as the race itself,” recalls Wright after one burnout filled the car with smoke. He had to open the door to see the tree. “Sometimes your ride goes sideways on you; sometimes it sits so square it seems you could stay there forever spinning. With people’s cameras going at the starter lights, it creates a neat feeling.” Wright, who resides in Victoria with some very detail-oriented friends, has created one fine ’55. By chopping the top four inches and experimenting with front coil springs multiple times, he perfected the low stance. Gassers with straight axles and stock GM springs sat too high.

“I cut up one set of front springs but it was too low and I tossed them out,” remarks Wright who tried five or six sets before he found the right height. “I would remove an inch and put them back in, set the car down, and it was still too high. So we started over again, sometimes going too low. Once you get it you know it looks and feels just right.” To finish the low and balanced look, he called upon the expertise of custom body man Kevin Sauriol of Bear Mountain Autobody. Sauriol builds custom rods and his attention to detail gives Wright’s ’55 the features of a show car. The firewall alone is a work of art that’s as smooth as glass. For instance, where the roll cage passes through the firewall, Sauriol even filled the gap around the tubes, which generates accolades every time they lift the front. Inside the cabin, the transmission tunnel has a seamless finish that flows like one continuous silver sheet. No welds, fasteners or rivets—just patient craftsmanship at its finest.

“Kevin builds rods, not race cars,” says Wright. “So he built this as if he was building a street rod. He also filled where the floor meets the firewall, so it came out pretty fancy.” The final colour Wright chose for his 10-second racer was Viper Red with graceful flames on the front that fade from light to dark silver. He chose fibreglass for the tilt front-end, the trunk lid and both bumpers. The rest is steel.

Wright wanted the flames to be subtle but not too small because the ’55 is large. Another concern was the shading: He wanted gradual transitions between colours. To do this they enlisted the skills of Gordie Smart in Victoria, a part-time hobbyist with a reputation for fine detail work. Smart started by showing many books and styles to Wright who preferred the look of a natural flame with no hard edges between colours. Eventually they settled on a gradient blend. Smart worked for days to perfect the right shape of each flame. “The first night Smart stayed for four hours and when he left there was not one piece of tape on the car,” says Wright. “He would try it and pull it off, then do a few more and pull the tape off. He was so careful, so picky about the shape, that it took 4-5 nights to do it.”

Wright envisioned his ’55 with a matching scoop. But not just any scoop. The discerning eye of his body man envisioned a scoop that embodied the original shape of the front-end using fiberglass moulds. First, Sauriol cast each curve above the headlights, which became the front corners of the scoop. Next he created two moulds where the hood flows down to the grille—one for each corner—which became the rear corners of the scoop. By assembling these four moulds Sauriol finalized its shape. His good eye for symmetry created a scoop with the sensuous curves unique to the 55’s original design.

“A 1955 Chev is one of the few models where the headlight is set in with an eyebrow over the top,” says Wright. “It’s very distinctive. So we wanted to incorporate that look into the scoop.”

Sauriol then fabricated the fiberglass bumpers and trunk lid, which keep the car light, yet stock in appearance. Both the grille and indicator lights are also stock. He kept the headlight’s chrome rings, marker lights, tail lights, door handles and Chevy emblem on the trunk lid because he wanted it to look like “something moving on the street.” And this ’55 definitely moves. Dialing in at 10.15 seconds is the result of a carefully thought-out plan with all the elements working together to take this ’55 to 131 mph in the quarter-mile. Under the flamed hood sits a balanced 454 cubic inch big block bored .060 over to 468 ci producing over 600 horsepower. Inside are JE pistons pushing an Eagle crank and connecting rods under a 13.5:1 compression ratio. To create the balanced assembly, Wright chose Mid-Island Machine Shop in Duncan, BC, and then asked Bill Nesbitt in Victoria to assemble the package.

To fire it up, Wright uses an MSD 6AL ignition box with a built-in rev limiter. MSD, a multiple spark discharge system, is more accurate than conventional distributors and has a chip installed to prevent the engine over-revving. By using a crank-triggered ignition, he bypasses the distributor. Instead, the engine’s front balancer has a ring with magnets and a pickup sensor that faces the ring. As the magnets fly past the sensor, it fires a spark plug. A crank trigger signals the plugs when to fire, even though the distributor has a cap and wires. Wright says this system creates a better spark and he never turns the distributor to set the timing. To advance and retard the engine, Wright moves the sensor up and down on the crank trigger.

For carburetion, a Holley 850 cfm double-pumper on an Edelbrock Victor Jr. hi-rise manifold mixes C-12 racing fuel, which Wright buys locally by the drum. Ceramic coated headers complete the package and curve unobstructed around the frame without interference from motor mounts because there are no mounts. Instead, Wright chose two large mounting plates that hold the big block by running from side to side across the frame. One is positioned before the timing cover and the other bolts between the block and 2-speed Powerglide transmission.

“This is a stiffer system that lets you unbolt the tranny and pull it out without supporting the engine,” says Wright. “The block doesn’t move because it’s held at the front and back, making it easier to work on.”

He chose a Powerglide over the common Turbo 350 because there are fewer internal mechanisms, so it uses less power, says Wright. Inside the cabin a reverse lockout prevents the shifter from accidentally traveling through neutral into reverse or park.

At the rear, a 9-inch Ford differential with 4:88 gears gives the ratio he wanted for the 14x32-inch Mickey Thompsons to take him through the quarter mile at 7,000 rpm. Wright installed a Mark Williams aluminum centre section with 31-spline axles, and ladder bars and coil-over shocks keep it steady. Four wheel disc brakes and Centerline wheels complete the racing look. When adding air to the slicks, Magnetic SnapCap tire valve caps cling to the fender to prevent loss—another practical detail in this flawless package.

Pleased with the results of his first season on the strip, he plans only minor modifications. The Powerglide’s first gear is too high, and to help it launch harder he’ll replace it with a lower gear. By increasing the Holley to 1050 cfm he feels it should bring this ‘55 into the mid-9s.

Wright runs at Mission Raceway Park near Abbotsford, BC, which has a 1/4-mile shutdown allowing him to glide to a comfortable halt. But at Victoria’s Western Speedway the strip is approximately 1/8 of a mile requiring Wright and other drivers to lean hard on the brakes after only 4-5 seconds. When the momentum changes quickly from acceleration to deceleration at the end of the strip, it causes most cars to “dance” briefly requiring alertness on the part of the driver.

“When you suddenly let off the gas and jump on the brakes the car comes up a few inches then dives,” says Wright about this seemingly-unbalanced dance where it wiggles on its wheels. As a result, funds are being raised to pave a longer strip. Meanwhile, Wright finds Western exciting at both ends—from the burnout box to the brakes, which he completes in half the time it took to read this sentence.

What makes Wright’s engineering even more significant is his use of hand controls to accelerate and brake. Due to an unfortunate construction accident, he lost the use of his legs requiring Wright to design an elaborate system for shifting and braking. One hand applies the gas and brake while the other is steering.

This is how it all works from the moment he enters the burnout box. On the steering wheel are two red buttons. One is a line lock on the front wheels for burnouts. The other is the transmission brake, which is held for staging at the lights. This locks reverse and first gears together inside the transmission. Wright then brings the engine up to 5,500 rpm with the car stationary. (Yes, it’s hard on the crankshaft and bearings.) The stall converter is set for 5,500 rpm and when he lets the transmission brake out, it launches.

The shifter is powered by a solenoid mounted to the transmission tunnel. Inside the solenoid is a magnet and spring and when Wright flicks a toggle switch and pulls it down into first gear, it compresses this spring. What determines when the transmission shifts is a 3-step MSD box with a 6,600 rpm-activated switch. When the tachometer reaches 6,600, the rpm-activated switch cuts power to the shift solenoid releasing the magnet, and the spring hammers the shifter into second gear. Wright set up the Powerglide with a manual valve body so it doesn’t shift by itself. As he blasts down the strip, Kirkland aluminum race seats provide comfort and support for the journey.

On the dash are four gauges: oil pressure, water temperature, transmission temperature and fuel pressure. Wright mounted three fuel pressure gauges throughout the car: one on the Barrie Grant 400 fuel pump with a return line to send unused fuel back to the fuel cell. Then up front there’s a fuel regulator mounted by the big block with another gauge. With the engine running and the flip-front open he can check pressure while setting the Holley’s floats. The dash gauge shows fuel pressure: If pressure drops during launch then fuel has sloshed, which can starve a carburetor.

“Fuel delivery during racing is important,” says Wrights. “You don’t want to lean the engine out and burn a valve or blow a hole in a piston. We ensure plenty of fuel reaches the Holley through a ¾-inch line running from the fuel cell mounted in the middle of the trunk.”

Wright placed two batteries on either side of the fuel cell for better weight distribution. Since there is no charging system in the car, batteries are charged between rounds.

Both Wright brothers have been drag racing for years but Greg is more of a mechanic, whereas his brother Ted prefers to drive—although this feature-rich ’55 is Greg’s and he clearly loves to drive.