The king of used transmissions is Robert Cullins. He is a good friend and one of the smartest car guys I know. He had his philosophy on transmissions & engines and going fast, it was different from the methods everyone else used for going fast, but it worked and the best of all was it was predicated around used components, especially used transmissions.
He had this big old boat 1975 Pontiac Bonneville. About three tons of steel. It was what we called a ‘beater‘. It looked beat, not a drop of elbow grease on cosmetic issues. Not a person who cared about styling and profiling, it was more fun to keep them guessing.
Anyway every Saturday night lots of the racers would gather at Glades Cutoff Road to race for money. Robert always came home with a fistful of doe. So what was this top secret? Simple, he would buy a used Pontiac engine, I think it was always a big fat 455 cubic inch monster sized motor. Then he would bolt a ‘competition nitrous oxide kit’ (NO2) to the engine. Literally, that was it, install the kit which took about an hour. BTW: NO2 is laughing gas. Ha, Ha.
He also would buy used transmissions, which cost pennies on the dollar and bring it to me. We were very friendly and he would help me on occasion, so I had no problem “hipping” Robert up with a quick inspection of his used transmissions and install a real aggressive shift kit.
Did you know No2 adds 200 horsepower to an engine instantly, from idle to full throttle. It also burns holes in pistons and valves, so the competition kit is abusive on engines. The beauty was that at that time, 455 Pontiac engines were very abundant and could be picked up at a salvage yard for about 200 dollars. Two hundred dollars was a lot less than the thousands of dollars the other guys spent on hi-performance engines and transmissions.
So basically while the other guys were buying expensive racing transmissions and torque converters, Robert was buying used parts like used transmissions and beefing them up for cheap. He saved a lot of money
For street racing, King Robert just kept beating the other guys. It was funny, because the other guys tried like crazy to beef up their transmissions and came back every week to beat the “Used Transmission” King. It never happened. The guy was a mechanical genius. To this day when I see Robert, he always has that special grin on his face, but now he is all grown up and drives a nice and luxurious car, with the sporty transmission & engine, of course.
