I made it tonight. Didn't do as well as I hoped but I did get a personal best, 15.609 @ 91.06mph

There's still more in it. I left the traction bars in the safe position, still street tires, no burn out, no posi. I tried a launch at only 1500rpm and it just spun so I reverted to the get it rolling and floor it technique.

I also think I will need a much shorter gear for racing. By the end of the night I wasn't bothering with shifting to 4th and was going through the traps at around 6100rpm in 3rd.

Reaction times were much better than they were at Columbus last year.

I tried to make a couple runs shifting like I did at Columbus to get an idea if the traction bars and lowered rear are helping at all but I couldn't come close to the 15.95 I did in Columbus. On the way home, I remembered that I had jets with me. It was probably 15 degrees cooler than it was in Columbus so a change there may have done something. The elevation is only a 100 foot difference.

After the last run, the valve train seems to have gotten a little louder but it didn't get any worse during the 50 mile trip back home. I'll take a look at that this weekend.



Tony was there in his duster. I think his best was 14.6. Oh, and I put the truck on the scale, 3675lbs with me in it.



I had a real good race against a '91 S10 with a 283. I was just planning to do some testing during that race but when I saw how close we were I thought "I think I can beat him" but it was too late. My "testing" slowed me down too much. that race he ran 16.187 @ 89.16 and I ran 16.223 @ 86.91. His best for the night was 15.5. Our reaction times were .003s apart. Me, .179. Him, .182. It was a good race. We talked for a while in the pits. I thought it was cool that it wasn't a 350 and it was period correct where the engines were concerned.



The announcer guy liked the truck apparently. I couldn't hear him but people were telling me that. I think it had more to do with being a unibody than anything else.


Lawrenceville, GA

Way to go Charlie.  When you get the traction problem solved you will be well on your way to winning rounds in competition.

John - "The Hoosier Hurricane"

Street tires suck on the track don't they Charlie? Ha!Ha!

-Gary Burnette-

They sure are bad for launching. I'm sure I can get more out of them by putting the traction bars in the position which is better for traction and playing with the preload. I just don't want to break something and have to have it towed home. I need to get a ramp truck.

I don't have the power to have the problem you have with street tires once I get moving, though.


Lawrenceville, GA

Y-Guy Charlie:   15's are o.k. especially when you look in the "Muscle Car" mags and see street Hemi's & etc. running 15's.

               Keep it up and get Tony to do the pictures...

Bill

Pelham,Al

Nice going Charlie. You're getting there. Chuck

Y's guys rule!
Looking for McCullouch VS57 brackets and parts. Also looking for 28 Chrysler series 72 parts. And early Hemi parts.

MoonShadow, 292 w/McCulloch, 28 Chrysler Roadster, 354 Hemi)
Manchester, New Hampshire

Charlie, This will sound counter-intuitive, but it works. The harder you run the street radials, the better they hook. I run around 45 at the Pure Stock races.

Frank/Rebop

Bristol, In ( by Elkhart) 

You mean the pressure?



I was comparing things last night and my 60 foot was generally worse than in Columbus. They didn't have the track prepped very well since it was just a test and tune. Hopefully that's the reason. I was hoping to see some improvement there with the traction bars and lower rear - but it probably simply need some tuning in that area, too.


Lawrenceville, GA

Yes. BUT once they break loose you're done. You'll still need to slip the clutch on the start. The track prep is a major part, many tracks don't do a lot of prep for T & T. Our local track is really bad in that scenario. I was usually 2 to 3 tenths slower at home as opposed to Columbus or US 131.

Frank/Rebop

Bristol, In ( by Elkhart) 

I went again last night, but with the Firebird. The only significant departure from stock is the Hooker cat back. Everything else is stock or stock replacement. 305 TBI, 5 speed, 3.08 posi, WS6 (for those not familiar with GM stuff, that is performance suspension, different springs, wider wheels/tires, bigger roll bars). The best was16.848 @ 83.16. It has the same launching problems as the truck. I was expecting it to leave better. Street tires suck. The weight with me and some other stuff was 3590 and the tire size/gear ratio combo works out to about the same as the truck so I had the same issue, not enough track to get into 4th. So I can say that my truck is faster than my "sports car" in a straight line, anyway.



We swapped the cam in Tony's Duster last weekend to something smaller with more overlap and swapped to a lower rpm intake, from performer rpm air gap to a performer. The plan was to make it less peaky but to try to keep the averages pretty close and make it more street friendly. It seemed to work. He only slowed 4/10s, 15.1s (the 14.6 above happened when the water/power steering pump belt decided to retire. 14.7s were consistent) and says he's much more happy with the driveability. There's an electrical gremlin with the ignition so he put it away for the night before trying different shift points and launch rpms. So it may be even closer to what he ran last time.



One race was pretty fun. It was a turbo 4cyl of some kind. I could hear the turbo and blow off valve when he shifted behind me and then after about the 1/8th he blew by me, ran 13 something. When I got my time slip, it turns out that he was asleep, a 1.6 second reaction time and mine wasn't great so I got about a 1 second head start and that was the best run of the night for me. Up to the 1/8th I was thinking "why did you waste money on that rice burner?" After the 1/8th I was thinking "open mouth, insert foot." Sometimes I forget they can be fast.


Lawrenceville, GA