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Neil, As I have pointed out the 56 D500-1 was never tested by any magazine
and therefore no publication compares figures on what the 56 D500-1
was capable of. This whole question of what cars were capable
of should include the scope of performance that was recorded by all
sources to see a clearer picture of performance in respect to other contemporary
vehicles. The lack of overall direct comparisons and incomplete information
leaves us resorting to speculation on how these subsequent cars match up. When
you revert back to just the verifiable facts......When contemplating "stock
vehicles" I conclude that with respect to stock competition the
best performance Chrysler vehicles of the Forward Look era were the
C300 and 300b letter cars and the 56 D500. These cars when shown on the
national stage were consistently breaking thru a wide range of performance
barriers. While Chrysler's emphasis on performance was still quite
formidable for many years it nevertheless failed to see the across the board
success in a broad range of performance areas that was the hallmark of
these early performance oriented models. There are probably a lot of
contributing factors... but the facts are the facts. I would fully expect that
eventually the early performance marks would fall but when you look at
performance or Racing competition as a realtime test of capability when it came
to the national venues the history shows that these three models
were Chryslers best performers of the Forward Look era. We can
bench race from here to eternity swapping trannies and gears til the cows come
home, but the real story is only what the recorded history can reveal. Tim
In a message dated 1/27/2008 1:40:46 A.M. Mountain Standard Time,
esierraadj@xxxxxxxxx writes:
A week
or so, ago, I'd asked if anyone had a definitive listing of the
various
iterations, or applications, or part numbers for the 3-speed
transmissions
that went into the FWDLK'ers.
Sports Cars Illustrated (3/58) has a very
complimentary review of the
'58 Fury, and states : " The '58 Fury's manual
transmission
is smoother in its opeation than that of the '57.
It's
still on the heavy side, though, and requires prior engagement of
a
synchronized gear if clashing is to be avoided on engagement of low
or
reverse. But, its crossover (fore and aft motion in the
neutral
position) and up and down shifts between second and high are
smoother.
This transmission has undergone two re-designs dictated by
increasingly
powerful engines. In the course of making the gear
teeth
huskier, low's ratio has gone from 2.58 to 2.50 to 2.33, and
second's
from 1.83 to 1.68 to 1.55 .
In the '58 Fury with 3.73 axle
gears, it is possible to wind out to 54
mph in low and 85 mph in
second.
Rear axles have undergone a similar beefing-up, with the result
that the
choice of optional final drive ratios now has dropped to two. They
are
3.73 for the stick and 3.36 for the Torqueflite torque
converter
transmission."
Nothing was said about the 350 c.i. Golden
Commando engined 58 Fury
being so much slower than the 295 c.i. 1956
D-500-1 ( with its own
'beefed'-3-speed, which allowed it to exceed 100
mph, in the quarter
mile, right?) , but the article concludes : " As for
sheer go, it far
outstrips the already hot '57 Fury."
The '58 Fury
only managed a paltry 15.5 second quarter mile, at 86
mph
Interestingly, the Fury got to 80 mph in 13.2 seconds, so, it took
about
2 seconds longer to get to 86 mph.
The '56 D500-1 broke 14
seconds in the quarter mile, huh? Must be the
power to weight
ratio.
The '58 Fury weighed 3830 lbs; the mythology on the D500-1 would
have it
weigh around 3400 lbs in order to reach 15 second quarter mile
times,
IIRC.
ANY WEIGHT, does anyone know/have the model/part
numbers for the various
3-speed transmissions, that were produced in the
50's, and what ratios
they may have had, in them, and what their
applications may have been?
Neil
Vedder
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