Well I took my car to Milan Dragway yesterday to see what it would do. I had a blast and it didnt set the world on fire but I am real happy with its first outing!
Crazy to think how fast I put this car together and how well it turned out. I showed up at the track with all of 66 miles on the car. Brand new motor,new T5, new tires,new braking system,new suspension and a brand new MircoSquirt computer with very minimal tuning time on it.
First pass off the trailer went about how I thought... blew the tires off, pedal, short shift around 5500 and ran a 14.52 at 97
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rshagmpSRVY
Logs showed it was real lean everywhere so I added some fuel and tried again. Still tryin to figure out the launch it went 14.00 @ 100 after a few horrible launches
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ofMynz5Pp8
Added more fuel and launched it real easy it pulled a 2.09 60ft and ran a 13.93 @ almost 102
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClV8He6lFkc
After that there was a string of a few more 13.90s but with more wheel spin it wasnt going to get any better. I data logged every pass and made some adjustments this morning that really made a big difference in the seat of the pants.
My biggest problem is the car is right in the middle of the wrong gear combo. With 3.55 gears my shift light was coming on about 1200ft in 3rd and leaving it in 3rd I would cross the line doing 101-102 at 6200rpm, if I shifted to 4th it would drop 3mph. So I think I might drop back to a 3.27 gear so I can lower rpm in 3rd across the stripe.
Boy, looks like you need some tars... :hick: Guessing you have std tires??? A set of drag radials would get it out of the hole in under 2.00sec...
If you don't improve traction the taller gears will make it more difficult to launch... You can play with tire height, easier than changing gears...
BTW, congrats 102 is a scootin', guessing you've already found more in the tune...
I running on brand new Sumitomo 245/50-17
(http://i681.photobucket.com/albums/vv173/deathbypsi/Turbocoupe/IMG_2079_zpsl2slcanr.jpg) (http://s681.photobucket.com/user/deathbypsi/media/Turbocoupe/IMG_2079_zpsl2slcanr.jpg.html)
Im not really worried about the best ET or 60ft since I really dont want to put a sticky tire on it ever. Thats when I get carried away and things will start to break. Im goin back again soon just to see how much I can improve on the 102 mph
However I do wonder since these tires only had 66 miles on them if they would be a little more "greasy" being this fresh and if they will hook better after a few hundred miles and some heat cycles
Pretty good times. Any idea on what it weighs?
no weight yet, still lookin for a scale around here
In my experience tires get harder and give less grip at strip as they cycle/age...
I had some pretty good luck with a set of 225/50/16 Michelin radials, would give high 1.9 short times but same size Nitto DR gave 1.900... When I go to track it's to race ET class, tires that aren't consistent are useless for me... It ran those times(best NA 13.11@105) for nine years till the 5.0 finally expired, never broke anything...
Im signed up for another private track rental on Oct 15th so that will give me lots of time to play with the tune and launching the car. Hopefully by then the motor will have at least 1000 miles on it and be broke in good
Heading back to the track today for round 2!
I have about 350 miles on the car and been playing with the tune. Car feels real strong and I have been practicing my launches so hopefully I can squeeze out some sub 2.0 60fts.
I did find out a couple days after the last t&t the shop that aligned the front end had the toe set to 1" out! Car felt sketchy as hell anything over 70mph so I took it back and the guy just scratched his head and didnt know how he let it out the door that far off. Its now set to 1/16" out and feels a bunch better at speed. Curious if being that far off the first time was scrubbing off much mph.?
If it was a full inch toe'd out it would have bee all over the road by 40-50 mph, been there done it... Yes excessive tow in or out will scrub/drag tires... Now AFAIK a RWD vehicle should NEVER have toe out, but something like 1/16"-1/8" toe IN... Reason being as the vehicle gains momentum the front wheels are forced rearward, so in reality are running at near zero toe... FWD vehicles should be toe'd out as the pull of the wheels forces toe inward...
I plan to start a new thread about my alignment so be on the look out. Something is up with my front end still.
Anyway, tonite was a complete waste of time. Never have I seen this track with this many cars on a t&t nite! And on top of that The History Channel was there filming for some show and they seemed to be catering to them more than the other racers. On the plus side I did race one of the cars they were filming so a TC might end up on some THC show. Then a spectator may of had a heart attack and actually flat lined right as they opened the lanes! They shut down racing for an hour while EMTs worked on the guy and brought him back. After the EMTs were done and they transported the man off site we started racing which was just one oil down after another.
My first pass was at 5pm {got in lanes at 345} and it just blew the tires off and I aborted the run. I went right back in line and didnt run again until 630. That pass I left rite off idle and pulled a 2.16 60ft,13.94 at 102......same as last outing. I went right back in line and sat there till 830 while they cleaned up more oil downs and right when they told us to fire up to run the sky opened up and it down poured. The end.
Try again on the 15th.
Again, you need some tars...
I doubt you'll ever be happy with the short times on street tires, especially with a stick shift...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzKixE2gWig&feature=em-upload_owner
Here my only real pass. 2.16 60ft is slower by almost a tenth than last time but still ran a almost identical 13.94 at 102 compared to my 13.93 at 102 from two weeks ago.
My lard-ass (3700lb+) Thunderbird would cut a 2.18 60' with the stock rear control arms and 225/55/16 Firestone Firehawk GT tires. It's now got Maximum Motorsports Extreme Duty rear control arms and Quad-shocks. I'm hoping to find out how much of an improvement those two items make this weekend.
Whats its current best?
With GT40 heads/intake and a race weight of 3750lbs it ran a best of 14.61@94.03 with a 2.25 60'
With Edelbrock Performer heads/GT40 intake and a race weight of 3710lbs it ran a best of 14.12@98.01 with a 2.18 60'
I'm hoping to find out what it'll do with the Performer RPM intake and Maximum Motorsport rear control arms tomorrow.
Your Thunderbird probably weighs in the 3300lb with driver range. You can probably get some E.T. out of it but the MPH is pretty much all it's got. Most Fox Mustangs with GT40 heads/intake weigh about 3200lbs and trap around 101-102.
Good luck!
Good to know im at least in the ballpark. Cruising some of the other forums I have seen other guys with what they claim are stock gt40p longblocks going well over 110mph
Well I went back to Milan yesterday for a private rental and I put 13 passes on the car trying all kinds of things.
I made two changes to the car since last time. I swapped in 3.73 gears and brought along a set of 26x8 ET Drags.
The first two hours I ran my 17" street tires and tried different launch rpms and tried different shift points. I wanted a real apple to apples between the 3.55 and 3.73 gears. I found that by dumping the clutch right off idle would let the tires hook and it blew my mind when it pulled a 1.96 60ft. My best pass was a 1.96,13.72@102. That was shifting at 5900-6000 and when I tried short shifting at 5500 it slowed to the 13.80s. Logs showed I cross the line in 4th at 5000rpm with the 3.73s
The last two hours I swapped on the slicks and tried launching between 3000 and 4000 rpm.They worked great. The 3000 launch wasnt enough and it bogged with a 1.92 60 but the 3500-4000 launches resulted in four passes between 1.74-1.78 and 13.33,13.37,13.34,13.41 all in a row and all at 102mph.
I datalog every pass and only needed to make minor adjustments as my tune is as about as good as it can be since no adjustments ever made any real change in the mph numbers.
Felt pretty good with these numbers for a car set up to throw around corners and not built to drag race.
Pretty nice passes. Any idea on the car's weight?
The 1.96 on street tires is decent, still I never doubted the stickies would make a world of difference...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLsjxkHvCzQ
No weight yet