Thread: first time at the track

Tweet

I know most of the guys are saying don't expect much its a truck,but there not that bad.I am thinking even on a 1/8 mile track it would even be better.I think what will hurt you more is those big tires.Wasn't the worlds fastest pro street car a 57 Chevy, by Pat Musi?Thats less aerodynamic than your truck I think.Then he switched to a firebird body or something like that ,and ran the same set up,he ran the same.Don't get me wrong aerodynamics play a big part on the track if you were hittin some high speeds.100 miles an hour is not high speed for a drag strip.

yeh a buddy of mine has 58 chevy truck that did 11.6 at epping with a 383 and 10 inch slicks I might drop the tire size down to 29 in tall after I mocked up thewheel tubs last night I only had like 2 to 3 inches of bed side left and talking to one of the prostock guys down at the machine shop today he said the shorter tire would help get me up to speed faster

With a smaller tire you might find yourself running out of engine before the stripe. I like the bigger tire to start with. With that converter and gears the bigger tire might give you a great ET and MPH. Your big block is going to have enough low end torque to get you up to speed quick enough.

Has that engine been balanced?

yes the whole lower end was done at reids and not sure if it matters but was also sonic tested to see if it could handle a 0.100 overbore

31x18.5x15 mickeys

Thats 18.5 wide right? IMO i think its a little to big.Looks great! but can slow you down.You can do a whole lot with a 10 wide tire.

well for the street thats what I'll be using at the track I'll
probably see if can get a set of 30x13x15 slicks

What do you think about fiberglass?HHHMMMM Maybe a fiberglass front end Anyways keep us posted on what times you run.

I have another question. Did you weight the truck, or is the weight you posted a guesstimate. The reson I ask is I checked in one of the books I have at work, and it lists your truck as originally weighing 3100lbs. Did you put the truck thru a weight loss clinic? lol

actually yes it hasa narrowed tube rear clip a lightened 76 camaro front clip no bumpers just roll pans (aluminum)
4 bar rear suspension no inner fenders
we put it through the scale at my buddis moving company and it came in at 2540 so I figured with driver and fuel around 2700 or maybe 2800

Cool!! I am hoping to see that thing ripping up the track in April. That's just around the corner.

Dave is right, a few paragraphs ago, Dave had mentioned that there are not alot of cars that are not running blowers or NOS that have more than 500 rear wheel horse power. In my Cougar im running a 460 stroked to 514, decked, Aluminum cobra jets ported and polished to the max, 15 to 1 compression, 1150 Davinci carb, solid roller cam, lifters and rocker arms. This is all bolted up to a powerglide trans and 5:14 gears. I can go on and on but my point here is, My car was running a consistant 9.8 at 142-145 MPH. I had put the car on a chassis dyno and was amazed that it was only putting out 430 RWHP ( maybe something wrong with his dyno...im hoping anyways...ha ha ha)
They are also right about the torque convertor being a little to high, 5000 is very high for your aplication. My cam kicks in at 4200 and is red lined at 7800 RPM and Im running a 4500 stall. On the chassis dyno, the numbers read to shift at 6100, so theres not much lee way there. At tracks where the bite is not so good, i have to turn my 2 step down so it doesnt kick in so hard or else i loose alot on my 50ft time because of tire slippage. Your pick on torque convertors is a very important one.
If you want to run it on the street as well as the track, maybe send all your info to the company that you picked to build your convertor and they will build it to suit your needs. They are only a phone call away and most times have knowledgable tech guys who are great to deal with.

hey thanks Rick I'm gonna definately look into calling the tq comany and the first place the trucks going in the spring is the chassis dyno to find out exactly what its putting out for rwhp

You were saying that a buddy of yours went with the same setup except he has a stroker kit in his engine. You mentioned you were running almost 10-1 compression, with his stroker kit he can run the same type of pistons as you are and be around the 12-1 range because of it being a stroker. Big differance in pulling power. But, if you want to run it on the street also, keep it down so you can fill it up at your local gas bar...

I heard this phrase once years ago and will never forget it, Think of your engine as if it was a race horse, if you cover up most of the race horses nose, he cant breath to well, so he cant run to fast to far because he will start to run out of air. Well, same goes with the engine, if the heads are not ported properly you will run out of air real fast and it will stop pulling hard just as quick.

Im kinda siding with Dave on this one also, high 12's low 13's. The bad arodynamic's of the truck shouldnt bother it to much untill you hit the very upper end. The big block should be putting out enough torque to pull it.

I gave up on my desk top dyno, after inserting all the specs that i know are in my engine, that engine is supposed to be putting out over 1000 HP....

Whats that magic number they use ???????...I think it goes something like this, after you spent enough money to get your car/truck into the 9's, its another $1,000.00 for every tenth of a second after that......

Maxed_out_rpms, you might be really suprised how much more power your making if you were to put your engine on an engine dyno, vs a chassie, the big converter is a huge power loss and will not register how much power your actually making, or take into account the tq multiplication that the converter provides, so imho chassie dynos are kinda worthless on automatic cars, you really need to run an engine dyno to find out shift points, max HP/TQ, A/F

53chevypickup, i run a 48 ford pickup on the track and i run consistent bottum 13's on a leaf sprung rearend, i started out in the mid 14's and whittled it down by making adjustments, so i wouldnt expect to go out and make a 12 second pass first time out, my motor is a .060 over 390(Long Stroke Truck Engine)Performer RPM intake/heads, 9.7-8:1 Compression and a fairly mild cam, est. at 450 crank HP and i find that im just running out of power towards the topend, i basically duplicated a buildup in hotrod magazine so im fairly certain of the power, so all things to be considered on your first time out

Steven

Oh and my engine builder said that most of those desktop dynos tend to be a bit optimistic on power, because of the efficences(sry for spelling) are not all 100% as was already mentioned