Ok, I have a 89 firebird formula 305 TBI with the 700R4. The car will only run a 17.111 at the track with flowmaster 3 inch catback exhaust. At the track, the car was like 230-240 degrees after each run so I jsut put in a 180* thermostat and now my engine stays nice and cool. Power is a little better. I have 50k miles on the engine and oil is changed every 2k miles. Thec ar has gotten a complete tuneup (plugs, TBI cleaned, motor cleaned, bunch of stuff fixed blah blah blah). So, Is it my driving or the slug? I brake torque to about 1200-1300 rpm and get good reaction; .6xx usually. I manually shift it at 4400rpm each gear. Traction really isn't an issue as of now, the engine doesn't make enough power. Oh, and I have 8* of timing.

What the heck is wrong with the car??

 

what are you 60 foot times. You might also want to try shifting alittle higher, maybe at around redline, many people have said that if you have stock gears (2.73s) you should just use 1st and 2nd gear, finishing close or alittle above redline. I watched a stock 91 L03 pull a 17.2xx at the track the other night.

 

2.5xx is my ususual 60' time. The reason I shift at 4400 is that anywhere after than, the engine's power drops off...

 

You might wanna retard the timing just a little, to like 6* advance or so. Try removing the aircleaner as well (obviously only at the track), especially if it is the stock pos. That will help you make peak power at a higher rpm, which will allow you to manually shift at something higher that 4,400rpm

 

i know your EXACT prob.

you are shifting way too soon..

see, the stock tach is inaccurate... it always shows more RPMs then what the engine is actually doing.

do what i posted in this thread about tachs if you can:

https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...&highlight=RPM

now that you know your true max engine RPM reading for your tach (its well past the redline):

hold the engine till just before it, then shift into the next gear..



if you dont want to (or cant) find out the exact number, just take it a lil past the redline of what the tach says.



by doing that i went from a 17.3 to a 16.00..