My goal at the start of the season was to get a 10.82. The closest I came was in early July with a 11.04. After that performance went down hill and I was chasing ghosts all season trying to find where the performance went. One week ago the best pass was only 11.32 at 118 mph. I did notice that by increasing the float levels up so high that the engine started to burble from too much fuel, I was making my quickest passes.

Last week I redid my fuel system. I moved the fuel cell, pump and filter to the front of the car. I also changed the fuel filter and it looked like it might have been partially plugged (alcohol oxidization of fittings).

Today was the last race of the season so I really wanted some more track time to test the new fuel system. I was rewarded with the first pass of 10.743 at 127.06 mph! The air was still cool and it was going to heat up today so I never touched anything. Next pass was a 10.696 followed by a 10.640. The car was getting faster as the density altitude was increasing. After those 3 time trial runs we had a 90 minute lunch before first round. I guessed at a 10.65 pass. My opponent red lit so I ran it right out and got a 10.548. I would have broken out. I dialed 10.55 for the next round, red lit and ran 10.559, DOH!

60' times were 1.54 and 1.55 all day. Not the best I've ever had but then I also went from a TH400 to a Powerglide tranny so first gear isn't as deep.

2 test passes after that to play with timing never increased the mph at all but did give me a best ET of 10.546. Here in Calgary the ET break for Pro is 10.50 so if the air gets better I'll probably run quicker. Looks like I may have to buy a delay box and move into SuperPro next year.

And the best thing about today is that I don't have to build a new engine over the winter!!

 

congrats stephen!! way to go

 

Congratulations to you Stephen. Glad to see you made you goal this year.

 

Awesome times!

What's your new goal now?

 

good job..............what is the E T if converted to 1/8 mile on your care.....do a lot of grudge racing here in sc ......our street car runs 6.50 to 6.40 on muscle in the 1/8 with a 377 and glide in mustang 3000 pound street car

 

Do a full season with more than one race getting past first or second round. 4 years now and the farthest I've been is 4 rounds. Usually it's a first or second round loss. I've gotten the car to the potential that I want. Going faster means spending a lot more money so making it even more consistant would be the next goal. I want to be able to take the car off the trailer, write a number on the windshield and go out and run it.

Because of the current ET break for pro, I'm seriously considering getting a delay box and moving into SuperPro for 2004. With the LED lights in the tree now, I can't cut a good reaction time. Today my red lights were closer to perfect than my green lights were. I can't adjust to the square wave of the LED the same way I was able to anticipate the sign wave of the incandescent lights. At least with a delay box I can react at the first flash of the light then adjust the delay to cut a good light. It'll be another learning curve.

2004 race season starts in early May so I have a long way to go before I'm on track again.

Winter projects will probably be ripping out the 6 point roll bar and installing a full cage plus adding the rest of the SFI stuff to be legal to run in the 9's even if I don't have a chassis certification or competition license yet. Although I can't see needing the stuff to run locally, every track I can travel to will be at a lower elevation and the possibility of running high 9's will always be there.

I'm just ecstatic about how well the car did today. I never expected it to run so fast after the fuel system change. Running mid 10's at 128 mph feels so good. The engine was pulling hard all the way to 7000 rpm where I shifted. I could probably take it higher if I change the rear gears. Currently I use 4.56 but feel 4.88 would be better.

With the current setup and SFI equipement, the car has a 10.0, 135 mph limit. At altitude I'm still safe but if you see my correction factors, I'm getting very close to the limit. 9's is just so expensive to run so I'm now happy running at this ET/MPH

Best 1/8 is 6.772 at altitude. I don't have any dyno conversion formulas to calculate a corrected 1/8 mile but could guess it would be very close to 6.48. My best 1/8 mile mph is 103.84 and I did 103.83 twice today (uncorrected)

 

Yes, congratulations!

You're running with the big dogs now. The delay box is the next logical step.

I saw an 8.7-sec (at our altitude) '59 Impala foot-braking this weekend. Scary, to say the least (he was all over the lane after launching). He went out in the 2nd round.

Those LEDs are different, huh? I've gone out on a red more times this season than ever before (not that I never did before). If I leave when I see the 3rd yellow, absolutely not anticipating it, I'll bulb -.025. The only remedy is to launch at a lower RPM, which to do consistently requires a 2-step rev limiter. That will also slow down your 60' & ET. I just might do that this winter, anyway - this is bracket racing, after all, and a good light is more important than the fastest the car is capable of running. As long as it is consistent...

Again, congrats on achieving your goal. I had no hope of reaching 13's at altitude after my 1st time out last spring, but as the season went on and I made little changes along the way, it happened, anyway.

 

And I'm doing it on a 10" slick with only some minor inner fender modifications. No 4-link, no back half or tubbed out and I did it with all motor, no power adders, no roller cam.

Another racer I usually pit with has a 69 SS Camaro with a 377. He's always running low 11's and was trying to run in Super Street this year. He didn't quite have enough HP to compensate for poor air and was always slightly slower than the index (11.27 in Calgary). By mid season he gave it up and raced strictly in Super Pro. There's no way I want to do throttle stop racing but I now have more than enough power for Super Street and I'm knocking on the door of Super Gas! Since we're going IHRA next year, Super Street will be Hot Rod and Super Gas is Super Rod but Super Pro is always Super Pro.

I punched some numbers into Dragstrip2000 tonight. I was launching at 4500 and did the 1-2 shift at 7000. DD2K says I should launch at 3000 and shift the 1-2 at 6000. Maybe next year I'll give it a try.

 

Congrats on finally being in the 10's

 

awesome news, great work!

 

very good keep up the good work, my brother has a 632 in the works for his 71 nova , i bet that'll be a monster......i may take the old motor 555 BBC and drop it in my 83 z28 over the winter

 

Man you didn't just eak in either, broke right in there. congrats!

 

Good job!:hail:

 

Congrats! You're knocking on the door of 9's...

 

Kfoley, I am from Fountaintown just down the road. If you ever race your car, let me know I go every Sun.

 

mm'mm a 632 would be real nice. I'd be happy just with a 540. The 540 is the biggest short deck block and would be easier to fit although both the 540 or 632 would require larger headers than what I have now so a custom set would have to be fabricated either way.

It's good to see I have a huge fan club. I think my web site gets most of my fans when they find it through search engine. Everyone wants to know what I've done to the car and I answer all the e-mails I get. As I stated in another post. I can't reply to AOL accounts because of how my domain is set up and my mail server refuses mail from many ip blocks around the world and all mail with @yahoo, @msn and @hotmail return address's. I may lose the occasional real e-mail but I get no spam so for me it's worth it.

There's a possibilty of one more track day this year. The regular Friday night Secret Street race may be held on Sunday because of how cold it's getting on Friday Nights. I'm still waiting for word from the track. The only down side is that I now have less than 10 gallons of alcohol left over. That's good for about 5-7 passes.

 

I decided not to go out for the last track day/night (Secret Street) of the year. It's just too cold and I know the track will be slippery. 30 weeks until the start of the 2004 season.

I now know what I'm going to do for a winter project. First of all the 6 point roll bar will need to be cut out since I want to install a full 12 point cage.

Early in the season I thought my block had a frost crack in it. I pulled the engine, moved everything over to another block and had the block sitting in my garage all summer. I finally got it pressure tested and it passed. I'm going to pull the engine again and move everything back over to the original block and reinstall the engine.

The block that's currently in the car that I picked up in the spring has already been clearanced for a stroker crank and large valves. It looks like I'm going to slowly build a BBC stroker over the winter. It will be 498 cid and I'm estimating it will produce around 850 hp when I'm done. Since I don't know how long I'll take to build this engine, I don't expect to use it in the car next year.

It least I'll stay busy during the winter. I have also purchased a delay box this week so I will be moving into SuperPro next year. To my knowledge, the local track will still keep the Pro/SuperPro classes when it switches to IHRA. I believe IHRA just calls the classes Electronics and Non Electronics or Box/No Box. I have no desire to do any class racing with a throttle stop.

 

I sent you a PM, BTW when is the last day for racing at IRP?

 

stephen this may be out of content here but its drag racing...........your 9 inch ford rear what are the measurements or what model fords did it come from....i want to go to a ladder bar set up as well,i know i will have to relocate all the mounting brackets any ideas will be very thankful

 

My 9" housing is out of a 1970 F100. I purchased Strange 31 spline axles with a ford bolt pattern so that I could use stock ford 11" drum brakes. Although the pinion isn't centered (2" offset to the passenger side with equal length axles) the total width is within 1" compared to a third gen diff.

A proper diff should be out of a car. The way a 9" diff is set up, the driver's side axle should be shorter than the passenger side so that the pinion is in the center of the car. The angle of my u-joint is about 2* offset. More than 3* and you can have problems.

http://www.kevinstang.com/Ninecase.htm
http://www.ultrastang.com/Rearinfo.asp?Page_ID=9
http://hiqties.hypermart.net/9inch.html

These 3 web sites are a wealth of information on 9" diffs. A third gen diff, axle end to axle end is 61 1/2". You just need to find one that's close. I cut off the spring, panhard bar and shock mounts off a 10 bolt and welded them onto the 9" housing.

 

thanks a bunch stephen, real good info.........so i should try to find one out of a car....would the center section be in roughly the same location.....i have access to someone thats narrows the axle tubes, my brothers friend has a race shop he back halfs a lot of cars .....but i think when i go that route i would be better off with a ladder bar/coil over set up...i basically doing like yours don't want to chop up body yet......here we grudge run a lot wanna keep it some stock looking just better suspension my goal is 6.50 to 6.60 1/8 mile street car.....any suggestions.......auto machinist by trade so i save myself alot of $$$$$ by doing own machine work plus i do port work also when i figure out how to post a pic i'll show you some of our
( me and my brothers cars) we run 5 to 6 cars if all are together

 

Awesome times steven.


Just to let you know I am definitly in your fan club.I don't even really mess with third gens anymore.I always come to the drag racing furom and read how well your car is running.You and the other races on this board have given me so much knowledge.Even though I am building a 67 chevy truck to drag I still get alot of very useful info.



Thanks.

 

That rocks man!!!!


congrats,.. it's a long wait to grit your teeth and hold your breath till next racing days.. but damn it's soo sweet you got what you wante don the last day out this season

 

cool....its about damn time stephen.....

you have felt my frustration all season long, we're gonna try and get to the 11's for another 2 weeks......track closes the 31st