Who Ran A Boss 429 In Top Fuel???

I have done this search several times. Each time I seem to find new photos. But, I always come up with the same result. Connie Kalitta seems to have been the only one in the Top Fuel class in the United States that used a Boss 429 based engine. In his case, it was the 1969 season. I have found several funny cars, but no more dragsters. Has anyone else seen a blown nitro Ford Boss 429 engine in a Top Fuel dragster "back in the day"?

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There was a guy named Chuck Seyler who also ran a Boss 429 Top Fueler in the late 70's to early 80's. But I think he was self-funded out of his own pocket, so you can imagine that his racing endeavor with the Boss was short lived.

BBFTorino wrote:There was a guy named Chuck Seyler who also ran a Boss 429 Top Fueler in the late 70's to early 80's. But I think he was  self-funded out of his own pocket, so you can imagine that his racing endeavor with the Boss was short lived.

Good call!!!  I found a few listings on Drag List.  These were with Al McFadyen as the driver.  Photos are from 1986, 1988, and 1991.  It is quoted as the world's quickest and fastest "True Ford Powered" car, with Alan Root power.

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In 1991, they became the "World's Quickest & Fastest Ford Top Fueler" at Englishtown with passes 5.515 & 255.60.

Drew Austin has Boss 429 powered camaro nostalgia funny car that has gone 5.54. But the term Ford Boss 429 has to used loosely with the style engine their team uses. Much the same as DSR, Alan Johnson, ......

Walt Austin's engine was designed in the '90's when his son Pat was dominating the Top Alcohol Funny Car class.  It is designed on 4.900 bore center of the Ford 385 series, not the 4.840 bore center of the Chrysler 426 series.  NHRA banned the WAR Boss 429 before it was finished.  Many years later, it was used with great success in truck pullers.  Drew and Pat built a Nostalgia A/Fuel dragster with an injected Nitro WAR Boss 429, as that was the only nitro class without a 4.84 bore center limit rule.  Finally, a few years ago, NHRA allowed the 4.900 WAR Boss 429 to run in Nostalgia Top Fuel and Nostalgia Funny Car.  Pat and Drew arrived at the last NHRA Heritage Series race of 2021, and won the event on it's debut.  The WAR Boss 429 is not an AJPE, BAE, TFX, DSR, JFR engine in any way.  It is a clean sheet design from the early 1990's.

I think Garrett Richards may have been using the same WAR style engine in his Pro-Mod Mustang.

Well, I was off a few years on the timeline, but I remember seeing the Chuck Seyler dragster make a few passes on the old 'NHRA Today' program a long time ago and thought it was really cool.

BBFTorino wrote:Well, I was off a few years on the timeline, but I remember seeing the Chuck Seyler dragster make a few passes on the old 'NHRA Today' program a long time ago and thought it was really cool.

After first using Stock Boss 9 castings, Chuck also used billet heads made by Paul Kane's, friend Billy F...

https://www.460ford.com/threads/new-all-out-ford-head.152763/page-6
Scroll down to post 108 and read on from there..

Thank You for posting that! Great info!!!

Wasn’t Force running a ford based Hemi for a bit?

dfree383 wrote:Wasn’t Force running a ford based Hemi for a bit?

Yes he was, but it was not based on any previously existing Ford architecture. It was a all new design, but because of NHRA's "rules" , they had to throw a lot of Chrysler Hemi DNA in there.
Lots of people will say that Ford copied the Chrysler based top fuel Hemi, but the fact is, they had to....they were forced to do so by the NHRA because the NHRA will not allow a clean sheet design, and especially a Boss based design to compete.

BBFTorino wrote:

dfree383 wrote:Wasn’t Force running a ford based Hemi for a bit?

Yes he was, but it was not based on any previously existing Ford architecture. It was a all new design, but because of NHRA's "rules" , they had to throw a lot of Chrysler Hemi DNA in there.
Lots of people will say that Ford copied the Chrysler based top fuel Hemi, but the fact is, they had to....they were forced to do so by the NHRA because the NHRA will not allow a clean sheet design, and especially a Boss based design to compete.

The only thing Ford in Force's stuff might have been the main bearings, since they were 3" mains...just like a Mopar hemi...

Correct.  The Boss 500 that JFR ran in his Ford years was simply an AJ/TFX style combo with a "Ford part number" and Boss 500 decals on the spark plug covers.  They built it inhouse at their Brownsburg shop, and continue to do so, now with Chevy decals.  Bob Tasca III still uses said engine. This is no different than the billet Ford 300-6 head with a "Ford part number". You could not order it from Ford Racing, they had a note in the catalog to contact AJPE to purchase it. Only about a dozen were ever produced, and Ford had nothing to do with it.

TASCA BEGINS HIS BOSS 500 ERA

Calkins wrote:

BBFTorino wrote:...Chuck Seyler...ran a Boss 429 Top Fueler in the late 70's to early 80's...

Good call!!!...with Al McFadyen as the driver.  It is quoted as the world's quickest and fastest "True Ford Powered" car, with Alan Root power.

With "Alan Root power?"  Not exactly.  Chuck Seyler's racing program was indeed using true Ford Boss hemi heads as produced by Alan Root, but the team was unsuccessful in achieving the above-noted historical records because the Boss Hemi/Root heads were getting blown apart by the nitromethane.

THEN, my late business partner, Billy, machined a pair of Boss 429 heads out of solid billet aluminum (per an original Ford blueprint provided by Seyler/Root) but he changed the exhaust rocker arm's valve train design per Van Heskett's recommendations (to address a failure issue the Seyler team was having with the OEM heads). It was with these very-first-ever solid billet Boss 429 heads with their redesigned exhaust valve train--which Billy machined and Van assembled and tested on his own car--that Seyler's car became the worlds fastest Ford.  There is more detail to this story but I'm keeping it intentionally condensed here.

Correct.  QrtWarrior posted a link to that thread earlier.

My "true Ford" reference was based on their engine using a Ford 429/460 head gasket/bolt pattern specs, and not a Chrysler 426 spec as the John Force Racing "Boss 500" engine uses. The "Alan Root" part was purely a generic term on my part, and a copy and paste from other posts.

Honorable Mention: Another Ford 385 Series, Nitro-class car to make a pass at an NHRA event was the wedge-headed Nightmare built by Van Heskett, at the NHRA Pomona Winter Nationals in the late 80s.  It had been paired up against Billy Meyer for a qualifying run, whose crew came over twice to scrutinize the Ford car, after which the NHRA officials suspiciously swooped in and pulled the Ford car out of the staging lane numerous times trying to disqualify it via various engine rule violations but were unsuccessful in doing so (the car was perfectly legal).  In the meantime, Billy Meyer got re-paired with a different car while Nightmare was pulled to the side.  The Ford made its qualifying pass thereafter, but the driver chose to do a half-pass for some reason and the car did not qualify. Nightmare was built so that it could be run in either Fuel Altered trim or in Funny Car trim with just a 10-minute body change, and during this car’s life Heskett’s Fuel Car expenses were usually covered by race tracks commissioning him to show up and make exhibition passes at the shows.

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And Van is still at it. A few years ago, he had a blown nitro fuel altered at Bakersfield. He also had an injected nitro wedge powered front engine dragster.

Left to right... Van, Driver Dave Rifkin, my Dad, Chuck Stevens

Calkins wrote:And Van is still at it.  A few years ago, he had a blown nitro fuel altered at Bakersfield.  He also had an injected nitro wedge powered front engine dragster.

I'm pretty sure I did port work on the heads for both those cars (A429's on the FED & A460's on the Altered).  Spoiler Alert: Van has just finished constructing an all new Fuel Altered, and this time it has hemi heads on it.

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QtrWarrior wrote:

Left to right... Van, Driver Dave Rifkin, my Dad, Chuck Stevens

I've always loved this photo.  At the time it was taken this was the fastest & quickest TFS A460 headed car in the world (according to Mike or Rick Smith).  More importantly, it reminds me of how much I wish I had gotten to know Chuck better but alas I was late to the party. Thank you for gifting me his Team Jacket from back in the day.

Paul Kane wrote:Honorable Mention: Another Ford 385 Series, Nitro-class car to make a pass at an NHRA event was the wedge-headed Nightmare built by Van Heskett, at the NHRA Pomona Winter Nationals in the late 80s.  It had been paired up against Billy Meyer for a qualifying run, whose crew came over twice to scrutinize the Ford car, after which the NHRA officials suspiciously swooped in and pulled the Ford car out of the staging lane numerous times trying to disqualify it via various engine rule violations but were unsuccessful in doing so (the car was perfectly legal).  In the meantime, Billy Meyer got re-paired with a different car while Nightmare was pulled to the side.  The Ford made its qualifying pass thereafter, but the driver chose to do a half-pass for some reason and the car did not qualify. Nightmare was built so that it could be run in either Fuel Altered trim or in Funny Car trim with just a 10-minute body change, and during this car’s life Heskett’s Fuel Car expenses were usually covered by race tracks commissioning him to show up and make exhibition passes at the shows.

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Two places that were like my home away from home.....the old LA County Raceway in Palmdale, Ca.....and Ford Power Parts (as seen by the large FPP sticker on the front spoiler wing)....nice!