Duesenberg 1/4 mile times/speeds?

In an earlier post,I think in June,I said I did most of the dismantling of J487. This is NOT correct.The dismantled car was J467 ,a Willoughby sedan. J487 is still alive and working and was in the O'Quinn collection at the time of his death. It is a LeBaron LWB dual cowl phaeton that Don Thompson bought from John Troka in 1950 as a derelict and got it going again.
The speeds posted on an up hill run with several cars was on a hill with slightly over 4/10ths of a mile from bottom to top. J396 was marginally faster and as stated,J528 had a clutch problem. These were all speedometer readings and nothing really precise,just some guys with potent old cars having fun.
I checked the distance of this hill recently with one of the electronic trip meters on my '97 Lincoln Town Car and from zero to the top it registered .4 and .5 came up after cresting the hill and a few yards down the other side.
Anyhow,I must do a better job of proof reading and avoid errors on engine numbers as much as possible.

Bob Roller

J 396 was a fast car an once when I removed a spark plug,Don Thompson looked into the cylinder with a small pen light and thought that it may have had high compression pistons but we were never able to be sure about it. The modifications on SJ528 were Jahn's high compression of 3.875 diameter.I put the rings on them myself and also assembled the head with 32 new valves and took a lot of time setting the clearences between the cams and the cups. This was a powerful engine by any standard and coupled with the Clark 5 speed it was definetly a road car. I never knew the rear end ratios on any of these cars. We had one in for repair or maybe a tune up that was geared like a farm tractor and had a top speed of about 100MPH indicated in high gear.We always thought that a ratio that gave 35MPH per 1000RPM in high gear was about ideal for both smooth get away and highway running. The "Farm tractor" ratios would give a better flexibilty in high gear with less shifting up and down in traffic which in the days before automatic transmissions was desireable to some drivers.
Don Thompson whose correct name was Raydon Rhodes Thompson died at age 80 last December and was the owner of both J467 and J487. I did most of the dismantling of J487 and we used the parts on other cars.
It is Don Thompson I can thank for my involvement with these very unusual cars and all the memories I have associated with them. To quote Bob Hope,thanks for the memories.

Bob Roller

different gear ratios? I believe J357 has/had 4.10 ratio. Possibly J396 had a higher ratio?

Steve

Our experiences with a GOOD running "J"on quarter mile or thereabout was in the early 1950's with J528and J396 and once with J357. This is an uphill run and a rather steep hill and J357 topped it at 108mph and J396 at about 112.J528 had a clutch slipping and barely broke 100. One other run was with J487 as a chassis only and it was also about 110. This car was the only one we had with the updraft carburetor.The other 3 had a downdraft.
On level ground,among these three COMPLETE cars,J396 had the edge and also over the chassis car.J487 was and is a LWB LeBaron phaeton and the first "J" I ever laid a wrench on.

What kind of 1/4 mile times/speeds should we expect to see from J Duesenbergs in the various configurations of wheelbase, body,
supercharged, non-supercharged, etc.?

Did the factory ever publish any speed numbers?

If we have rpms, gear ratios, and the tire rolling radius,
we could calculate some numbers.