84TAProject

I want to go up to Lebanon Valley soon to give my car a baseline run so I can see what happens after I mod it some more. Currently in my trans am I have:

1971 350/270 horse (8.5:1 compression I beleive, motor is out of a truck but has 487 heads, not X's which would mean its 9:1, but who knows, lets go with 8.5), Heads have larger ports than the early 80's small block heads I have.

XE262 cam (218/224 @.050, .462/.469 lift)

Hedman Shorties and Y pipe, with a 2.5" straight pipe instead of a cat going to Hooker Cat back system.

Holley Street Dominator Single Plane street legal manifold with divided plenum (currently saving for better, I didnt know it was single plane when i bought it used)

3.23 posi rear with 235/60/R14 Futura tires.

Stock converter and quadrajet with Open element filter. 180 thermostat.

700R4 tranny.


Okay, now some questions. What kind of times should I expect at the track? How about speeds. I just want to know about what it should run, and if its more of a driver error if i pull a bad time or a mechanical problem. All i need for safety equiptment is a helmet right? How about launching, do I just nail it from a stop (spins very well on the roads here from a stop) or bring it right before my converter locks and feather the gas to keep it from spinning? Should I place my stereo back in, this helped the traction here quite a bit, but the extra 80 lbs or so cannot be good. How about where to shift the motor? I was thinking holding it in gear until 5500 rpm, but i dont know if its safe to spin this motor that high (4bolt main). This motor seems to haul when its that high, I had it to 5200 rpm once, and was thouroughly impressed, but afraid to do it more than I had to. Thanks guys, I hope to be at the track in the next month.

Basett_Racing

Its always hard to say exactly, but it should be a decent running combo. The #487 heads are actually pretty decent flowing stock cast iron heads. Their port design is based on the '70 and early double hump heads, but with larger combustion chambers, meaning as factory castings go, they are some of the better ones. The Comp Xtreme Energy cams work very well, and I'm sure that your 350 probably seems to be fairly torquey with a smaller version like the one you have. The Xtreme Energy cams are designed to make a lower compression engine act as though it has more, which is definetly a good thing in any stock 350 made after 1970 and before L98/LT1/LS1's. If the engine is in good shape, it will be fine turning it 5500 RPM. You'll have to try shifting higher and lower until you find where the car is fastest. This usually takes more than one time at the track, but BE CONSISTENT. Try to keep up with everything you do. Its best to have a log-book, but if you don't, take a notebook, and write down what you did on each run. It sounds like it would be easy to keep up with 6 or 7 runs, but it so easy to lose track of what you're doing. I've seen guys come to track and run say a..(14.00) and then go to tinkering with timing, not keeping up with where they're shifting, not knowing what RPM they launched at, etc. and leave the track disappointed wondering why at the end of the night it running 14.30's or 14.40's!! Believe me, that happens a LOT!! And one more thing, don't run the car to death. If you run back to back, the car is getting hotter and hotter. We told a guy that one night with an LT1 4th Gen that kept getting slower as the night went on, and he said, "Nah man, I got a 160* thermostat, the car is running plenty cool." I told him, "Yeah, the water temp is cool, but it feels like you could cook hamburgers on the hood!!" When you run one to death like that everything under the hood gets hotter and the car slows down, period.

About you're launch, again, that's something thats hard to predict. Its been ages since I even ran on street tires at the track, but I will tell you, as a general rule, street tires normally spin much worse at the track than they do on the street. When my 82 Z28 still had the 305 in it about 10 years ago, it wouldn't hardly slip the wheels at a stoplight, but I took it to the track, and it was like it was on ice! If you could get your hands on a pair of soft compound tires of some sort, you will have a much more accurate measure of the cars potential than if you don't. But if that's not an option, do what you can to get as good of a run as you can, but even then, when you try different things, keep up with what you did, write it down, so you can go back and look to see what helped and what hindered you're ET. Just have fun, watch what other people are doing, and go to the track to learn more about how to make you car faster. I promise you, if the track you are going to is anything like the one's here, there will be plenty of 16 - 17 sec. Hondas and Nissan's there, so you won't have to worry about being the slowest one there!! Taking a car to the track for the first time can be a terribly humbling experience, be warned of that!!..But everybody started somewhere, and they aren't content with the speed they were running then.

Bottom line is: if the car doesn't run as well as you expected, then find out why, and what you can do to make it faster. I have seen people and helped people tune a second or more out of car in one night, and I have seen people come to the track, run a great time off the trailor and the car is already as fast as it can go with that particular set-up. I think you're car if tuned pretty decently will run well. It should run as good or better than a stock L98 car, and with a little tuning they can low 14's, high 13's, but don't get discouraged if it doesn't on your first time to track, that's why you're going to track, to find out how fast it is. Just be careful, and have a good time.

Oh P.S, keep us updated on your progress. That's one of only problems with this board, there's 14,000 or so members, and 13,950 of them are bench racers!!

IHI

iTrader: (1)

Basset-I'm not knockin your post but how in the hell did you not break tires loose on the street and spin like hell at the track. Did'nt warm up the tires? Man, our track is known for hookin so is if you can break it loose on the pavement you'll hook at the strip, unless your track was green, or you had a one legger than your screwed, I just can't imagine that; we're lucky here I guess. Anyway good post-it's impossible to "type" everything a guy to needs to do at the track but you summed it up very well, hopefully that will give him/others a good base.

Basett_Racing

Well, I did have an open rear-end, and I only ran at the track a few times before I found a set of half worn out slicks. I did try to do a quick burn-out to get a little heat in the tires, but it seemed to make mine run worse. At that time my car was still pretty mild, but I went to the one weekend and ran my best time ever (to that point) which was a 15.3x @ around 94. The very next weekend I went back to the track with a half worn out set of M/T 26 X 8.5's, and the car went 14.81 @ 93. That was around 8-9 years ago, since then I've only ran on either slicks, Et Streets, M/T Sportsman Pro's etc. But you're right summing up everything you should do at the track in a post. I always think of ten more things I could have told someone to do after I post. Maybe someone should write a tech article, "How to Drag Race" !!

IHI

iTrader: (1)

A person could write an article, but you and I both know that if it was written "completely" nobody would read it cause it would be looong.