It's really tough to argue...
It's really tough to argue with the styling of the '70 GTO but to see the actual Knafel "Tin Indian" racecar in person after all these years is almost like seeing a long-lost relative walking down the street. (Yes, the lack of blue paint on the sides of the nose is correct for how the car was painted back in the day.)
'70 "Tin Indian" GTO Judge
The Pontiac world was reintroduced to the Knafel '70 "Tin Indian" Judge at the 2006 Ames Performance Pontiac Nationals, and owner Mike Guarise was thrilled to have it out for the Pontiac faithful. Mike is a collector whose area of interest is historic drag cars; Pontiac or otherwise. In addition to the Knafel Judge, Mike has also held title to many other famous drag cars, including Arnie Beswick's '69 D/Stock Judge and Arnie's '61 389 SD Ventura, as well as Bill "Grumpy" Jenkins' '70 Pro Stock Camaro and the '71 Sox & Martin Pro Stock Hemi 'Cuda.
The road to recovery was a long one for this particular Judge. After its racing career was over, it spent 23 years in Virginia, where it remained with most of its original race componentry intact and a scant 88 miles on the odometer. The car was built to run, featuring radio, heater, seam sealer and insulation deletes. If it didn't make the car go faster, it was left off.
In the early '90s, Arlen Vanke located and purchased it, bringing the GTO back to Michigan, where he had moved. He kept the car with the intent to restore it but before he could get started, Mike heard about the Judge. We'll let him tell the story:
"One day in 2000, I received a call from my friend Fred Engelhart. He had just hung up from a call with Arlen Vanke and thought I might be interested in an old drag car that Arlen had found in Virginia. Since old drag cars are one of my collecting passions, I of course wanted to hear more. I had recently become aware of Merle Green's restoration of the Knafel "Tin Indian" '66 GTO, so when I heard that the Knafel '70 Ram Air IV racecar was available, I asked Fred to arrange the deal as soon as possible. A call was made to Arlen, a price was agreed upon and, in short order, the car was in my garage awaiting restoration."
Having seen some of the work that Micky Hale performed for collector Dick Bridges, Mike called Hale to see if there was an opening for his Pontiac. By March of 2001, the Judge was on its way to Micky Hale Restorations in Ashtabula, Ohio, and its engine went back to the man who originally built it, one "Akron Arlen" Vanke.
The '70 "Tin Indian" Judge...
The '70 "Tin Indian" Judge was raced with an R/A-IV headed R/A-V, and that same engine is still under the hood today. Though the stock Ram Air system was not used, there's a small velocity stack air cleaner for the Carter Thermoquad. Note the trick angle-plug R/A-IV heads that were developed by Warren Brownfield at AFR.
The engine was one of those "never supposed to have happened" situations. As GM was still officially out of racing, things like the Super Duty program were only distant memories. Still, Knafel had been the recipient of special cars and support in the past, and the Judge had a unique engine.
Seeing that the Ram Air V cylinder heads were just too much for the 400 engine, a short-lived proposal was hatched in 1970. The idea was to take the severe-duty Ram Air V short-block and mate it to the top end of the Ram Air IV, taking the best attributes of both engines and curing both of their problems-the low-velocity heads of the R/A-V and the cast bottom end of the R/A-IV.
The result was a durable and rev-happy round-port Pontiac V-8 to be called the 400 Super Duty. It would have been released with engine code LS1, slated for use in the '70 1/2 Trans Am. Though never released for production, there were a few examples built by Pontiac Engineering. They looked externally identical to a regular Ram Air IV and, after a quick stop at the Engineering Garage before its delivery, the Knafel Judge had one sitting in its engine bay.
Need we say more? Mike Guarise...
Need we say more? Mike Guarise would like to thank Arlen Vanke, Bill and Janet Knafel, Micky Hale, Chuck Cocoma, and Ron Normann for their help with his Judge.
This particular engine received a few extras, though. At the time, Pontiac was working with Warren Brownfield at Air Flow Research. The majority of the work on the heads was for the R/A-IV version of the 303 Pontiac used in the '70 SCCA Trans Am season. These heads were ported in a similar fashion to the 303 versions. Their flow potential was also augmented by an angle plug conversion that put the spark plug in a more advantageous position for the combustion event. Even by today's standards, these were pretty trick pieces.
The camshaft was also a non-stock piece. As the Ram Air V used a larger cam gear than other Pontiac engines as a means to reduce spark scatter, a special camshaft was needed to retain this feature and also provide for the standard Pontiac valve location of EIIEEIIE, as opposed to the RAV's EIEIIEIE. Though we do not know the specifications of the flat-tappet camshaft used, the grind was probably developed as part of the "Latin Squares" program for the 303.