I have always wanted to make a couple of 1/4 mile runs in my bone stock 1986 WS6, 305 TPI, 700R4, 3:27 nine bolt. The car is all original with 29,800 miles on it, and the RPO code sheet is full, so she is probably pretty heavy. We are not looking at anything impressive here, however it will be nice to know what it will do. I have done some stop watch times on 1/4 mile on an old air strip with a hand held GPS, and have seen 15.3 a couple of times. This may or may not be accurate??? We are planning to trailer the car to Spence Field in Moultrie GA in 2013 for the car show there. While there, we will be able to enter the Run What You Brung class at South Georgia Motor Sports, Cecil GA. It happens on Friday nights, and one can get the chance to run an honest to goodness real dragstrip. The only problem is that it is a 1/8 mile strip. How does one convert 1/8 mile numbers to 1/4 mile times, or can it be done accurately? It seems like there are too many varibles to just double the time? And NO, I am not going to pound the s*** out of a survivor car, so I may not get everything out of it that it has to give. Thanks in advance. Charles

 

http://www.eldemoniorojo.com/calculator.htm

 

Cool calculator! Thanks.

 

For a NA engine, the closest calculation is 1/8 mile x 1.56 = 1/4 mile.

There's no guarantee that will be exact. Too many factors affect your 1/4 mile performance. The calculation and charts only predict what your 1/4 mile should be if everything is working perfectly. Your time can easily be above or below those results.

If you're running the 1/8 mile in the 9.8 range then you can just say you run mid to low 15's in the 1/4. Without an actual 1/4 mile timeslip, it's only a rough guess.

 

SGMP is a 1/4 mile track. One of the best tracks in the south. Will they only have it setup for 1/8 mile??

 

They were running 1/8 mile runs Saturday night, even the jet car. I don't know what criteria they use for setting up for 1/8 or 1/4 mile runs? We went to watch our grand daughter's husband race modified on the circle track and wandered over to the dragstrip to watch them qualifing for Sunday races. That is one very nice facility.

 

We've raced 1/8 mile when the top end clocks weren't working. We've also raced 1/8 mile when the top end wasn't safe enough for the high speeds (cold, wet etc). The only advantage to running 1/8 mile on a 1/4 mile track is that you can see your time and who won before you get to the 1/4 mile mark.

Although everything happens in the first 1/8 mile and the last 1/8 mile should only be a high gear brute HP pull to the finish, I find 1/8 mile racing a little boring. It's over so fast that you don't have time to notice anything. At least in the 1/4 mile, you have a little more time to judge how your opponent is doing in comparison to yourself. As the engine starts to peak out at the top of the 1/4 mile, there's also a higher chance of something going wrong.

With a few less things to change the variable of a run like in a 1/4 mile pass, dialing in is a little bit easier.