Dr. Rolfe Sassenfeld's 

My 1968 Corvette's Humble Beginnings

Above is a picture of my 1968 roadster as it looks today. My car hasn't alway's looked like this. It has gone through many transformations. This is what it looked like when the previous owner bought the car.  He spent a lot of time, busted knuckles, and money to restore into the condition that I bought the car in. After owning the car for about 6 months I decided to take it to the dragstrip wondering how well the car would perform. So after running a couple of high 16 second passes, I decided  that power shifting would make my car go faster. Boy was I wrong! I missed the 2-3 shift (the classic screw-up) and revved my numbers matching 327 past 8000 RPM! Needless to say it wasn't running the same after that. The motor had developed what I assume was a rod knock. Although I had blown the numbers matching motor to my beautiful Corvette I had caught the Drag Racing bug! So I decided I would be back with a vengeance.  After some consulting with an experienced machinist we decided to build a 350. This would allow me to run hard and leaving the numbers matching 327 safe and sound in my garage. So Kevin from M&V Machine Shop built me a stout 350 with Dart Sportsman cylinder heads and forged pistons. On top of the 350 I had a stock Holley 650 double pumper with an Edelbrock Performer RPM intake. This combination was good for 14.03ET@100mph and a 13.05ET@108MPH on nitrous. Both of these ETs were obtained with the stock 3.08 rear gear. Not too shabby considering that the altitude of the race track is over 4000ft.  Now most people would have been happy with that kind of performance, me included. Then late one night fate intervened. On a deserted street I was trying to impress a friend with the power of my car. All of a sudden I lost control and the next thing I knew I was doing an experiment in negative distance! That's right, I bit the dust. My buddy and I were all right but the car didn't fair so well, as you can see in the photo. This led to a bizarre chain of events that left my car stranded at the body shop for over 8 months!  During this extended absence I decided to put some 3.70 gears in the pumpkin and to have M&V Machine Shop build me an even stronger small block. This time we went for broke and decided to build up a 400. Kevin worked hard to convince me into buying some really good cylinder heads. Eventually I gave in and bought a set of Brodix Track I's. This was the best decision I ever made! After getting the car back with the 400 in it, on my first test drive I thought to myself 'I've gone too far'. The car was uncontrollably fast now. The power from that 400 honestly scared me. Kevin had told me that the 400 would be faster than the 350 on nitrous, but I didn't believe him, until I felt that 400 go. Yikes! I was ready to sell my nitrous kit. It actually took me an entire year to bolt on the brand new Cheater kit I had bought. That is how powerful a small block 406 is. How does the car perform now? You'll have to go to my drag racing page to find out. The moral of this story is: ALWAYS LISTEN TO YOUR MACHINIST!