Harry Holton is a legend in Mopar Hemi racing circles he got his start with a '65 Belvedere he purchased in 1965. It was an original car (in fact, he just sold it last April). He raced this car on the West Coast for three or four years, winning numerous races and setting records in both AHRA and NHRA circuits.
In 1968 he bought a factory Dart and campaigned it until the early 1970's. He won the Bakersfield March Meet with that car, including a first round win over Shirley Shahan, who was factory-backed. Since then he's bought and sold the '65 car on a few occasions and campaigned two different Barracudas.
For a period he was "retired" from drag racing but in 1992 he bought the stocker that his daughter drives, so he started going to the races more. Robin Pellisier's Belvedere came up for sale and he bought that in 1995 or so. Currently Holton works for Michael Ogburn, building motors and maintaining Ogburn’s two cars.
Mopar Max caught up with Holton at the recent NHRA SPORTSnationals at the drag strip in Fontana, California, and Darr Hawthorne conducted this interview.
How’d you get started with Mopars?
HH: We were Ford people. I had a shop and Chrysler hit me up to become a dealer in 1964, which I did. Became a dealer. So that’s how we got started with Mopar.
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Was there a Mopar street machine you raced, or were you strictly a Ford guy before Chrysler came to you?
HH: We were Ford. We had both a 406 Ford, and a 427 Ford door cars , and then we took the Mopar dealership, and that’s when we went with Chrysler. No, we were Ford people before that.
When did you get involved with Street Hemis, Street Performance and drag racing?
HH: No, we started with a ’65... No, I take it back. We had a Stage Three wedge in ’64. And when the Hemi came out in ’65, we had one of those... I forget what they called the class back then. Super Stock, or something like that, but it was a race Hemi. We never did fool with the street stuff. And I never got involved with the street Hemis when they came out in... 1966, wasn’t it? We strictly had race cars.
The Hemi that you tune on a dyno today is basically, what, forty years old? Is there much more to get out of it in terms of horsepower?
HH: Well, we keep saying we’ve hit a wall with them, and I thought we’d done pretty good when we hit 850 horsepower (on the dyno). Now we’re almost a hundred horsepower above that. You know, it (the SS/AH Hemi) is producing well over 900 horsepower now, and we haven’t hit the limit. The only thing is, we’ve got kind of a restrictor motor, because of the ’64 carburetor that we’re required to use, that’ll be the limiter, the primary carburetor, a 780 secondary carburetor. That carb and the second one will be the limiter. But personally, I hope they (NHRA) don’t change it, (carb rule) because if they change the carburetor rule, let us run any carburetor, then it gets more expensive to race these motors. You know, it would double the cost of the thing; so I hope they keep it just how it is.
How much money does it take to build one of these motors for an event like this?
HH: Carburetors to oil pan? Sixty thousand. And it’ll be more expensive this year because the new blocks are more expensive, and the new heads are more expensive. It’s just insane (the cost) is what it is.
Do you use aftermarket blocks?
HH: Oh, you can get brand new stuff, yeah.
But you can’t get it from Chrysler?
HH: Yes, you can. World Products is making a new block now. It has a Chrysler part number on it, and it’ll come from Chrysler.
Let’s talk a little about how you make the horsepower with a motor that is over 40 years old. When you’re on a dyno, are you thinking all the time what you could do different, or are you trying new parts all the time?
HH: You bet. We’re searching to improve the cylinder heads, improve the intake manifolds, especially the tunnel ram. My dad was in the Army. He was in Fort Hood, Texas, and when he was in basic training, he said, “You take two steps forward and one step back in the sand.” Well, this is what we’re doing here. We’re doing an experiment now with a tunnel ram manifold and we’re having a tough time getting beyond the (power developed by the) cross ram because we put the tunnel ram on for the first time this morning, and it just flat isn’t doing its job.
Are there some motors that would work better, have a better temperament for a tunnel ram than a Chrysler?
HH: Well, it’s all about the camshaft. And you know, tunnel ram (intakes are) going to be the manifold of the future, there’s no doubt about that, but we’re having a tough time getting past the cross ram. Tunnel ram makes this motor better in the upper RPM band. You’ve got to run the engines 9,300, 9,400 RPM, and the cross ram will run 8,800, 8,900. It’s got gobs of mid-range torque, and we’re having a hard time getting beyond it. We’ve got four cross ram manifolds now, and out of the four, we’ve got just one good one.