My z vs stock lightning

This is really pissing me off. One of my good buddies has a 90 240sx with a black top sr20det. Full turbo back,bov, fmic, boost controller, im pretty sure it has cams ( lopes pretty good, but he wont admit to it, he says he thinks it does but hes not sure ) Anyways, he ran 13.8@103 on 8psi. When i raced he had 10psi, and the next time he had 12. The first time was from a 20ish roll i had passenger and pulled him ~ 1 car. Second time he had the boost turned up, i had a passenger also he got me by about ~1 car from a 60 roll. I know i should race him out of the hole but it was just us messing around. Anyways, one of my brothers friends dad has a completely stock lightning. And everyone is so confident that i am going to get pumped. I am pretty confident that i can take it if i dont blow the launch of break a rear. BTW i dont have the lt's anymore, and will have mac mids ory and a cutout before we race, and i ditched the 335's. What do you think, im pretty sure i can take a stock lightning.

Surely you can take a stocker. The story is interesting though. A friend of mine is buying a 240sx (gutted) and plans on putting some other turbo engine in it. He was talking like he would have 250 horse and was gonna stick it to me. I talked a lot of trash about it because more than likely he'll never do it, and I like to piss him off. He has a conspiracy out to beat my car. First he tryed with a prelude (and got his feelings hurt), then he bought a V6 stang which he was going to supercharge (he tryed to keep it secret), and now he's trying this.

if you go from a roll i give it to you, i raced a high 12 sec lightning from a 50 roll and got him by about 2 cars at 90, they suck at teh top end, 6 speed will get them from a roll. Now from a dig, they HOOK thats all ima say, but with 335's you should take him.

the stock turbo (t 25 i think) on an SR will support 235whp. They aren't good drag cars but fast from a roll. Good kill

TONY

if you go from a roll i give it to you, i raced a high 12 sec lightning from a 50 roll and got him by about 2 cars at 90, they suck at teh top end, 6 speed will get them from a roll. Now from a dig, they HOOK thats all ima say, but with 335's you should take him.


My buddy, CANTONRACER's, L runs 12.80's and consistently puts 2-3 on me from anywhere above 50. It's sickening.

I'm running low 13's (teens/0's) pretty consistant.

IMO, they don't suck on the highway at all. Hell another buddy, GREASE, barely inches him at around 80 and his Z is in the low-mid 12 second range.

look at your trap speed, plus your an A4, my trap speed and my trans, my car kills high 12 sec lightnings, also look at my 60' if i had that 60' i'd be in the mid 12's lol

Being that I race both a f-body, albeit not the fastest one, but still strong(well, it used to be), and a 2nd generation Lightning, I sorta know how they both run.

Went to the track last night and ran a 12.705@109.84 MPH. My 1/8 MPH was only 86.03. This truck is pulling almost 24 mph in the 2nd 1/8...hardly no top end.

look at your trap speed, plus your an A4, my trap speed and my trans, my car kills high 12 sec lightnings, also look at my 60' if i had that 60' i'd be in the mid 12's lol

Not saying you don't. You stated that "they suck on the top end" and you actually believe this misconception. I realize it's a Ford and this is a Chevy forum but that's a pretty weak reason to spread misconception. If I was running 130mph through the traps i'd destroy lightnings - that still wouldn't make them "suck on the top end" - because - GASP - they don't.

I raced a Lightning a few times on the interstate from a ~60 MPH roll. He had exhaust but other than that I have no idea. Every time I slowly pulled on him but it wasn't a raping by any stretch of the imagination. Those trucks are pretty impressive, but I bet many Lightning owners fail to realize that aerodynamics and a ~4600 pound weight negate a lot of the power those engines produce. They're still very nice trucks though.

Timeslips don't lie....

We raced a bone stock lightning from a slow roll in my oldest boys 86 350 TPI T/A (mild cam, full exhaust, 342 rear gears,1.6 rockers).
The race was good from the slow roll, but he killed us when we started from anywhere from 40 on up. If we started slow we could put a few on him before he started catching up, in about the 1/8th we had about a half a car , if we had ran it out past that he would have beat us probably by 3 or 4 cars.

Im just going by my own experiences, I run a 13.4, the lightning was running 12.7's-12.9's all day. We lined them up at a 50 roll, I put it into third by the time I hit 4 grand I started pulling and pulled about a car out on this guy by the time I was shifting to 4th. I see lightnings at the track all the time running 12's with low traps. The first time I raced at the track I raced a lightning that went 13.9 or 13.8 at like 103(lost this slip), He had like a 1.9 60' versus my 2.3, he literally ripped me outta the hole by like 3 cars, but I pulled him hard all the way till the end of the track, they're STRONGER point is from a stop. Automatics are better from a stop. A manual car has a better chance from a roll if the power to the crank is similar and weight is similar. I've also witnessed lightnings rip EVO's out of the hole and get caught, EVO's aren't extremely good on the top end they're strong point with awd is also a dig, they get pulled by stock srt's, which I have also witnesses first hand riding shotgun. So IMO lightnings do not have a strong roll capability, maybe the TPI's power was falling off up top, I just have not seen any lightning guys out at the local races asking for roll races, they're arent srt's they make their race in the first 60'. If you disagree, thats your personal experience and opinion, this is what I have observed in my experiences.

This truck is pulling almost 24 mph in the 2nd 1/8...hardly no top end.
My car on my best run in my sig went from 84.39-107.24 1/8 vs 1/4 and that was only my 4th time running the car down the track. I really dont know what to tell you about your truck, but its also trapping 109, I dont know what else my car has in it but thats what it did on a time slip. Also almost 24mph with a lower trap indicating what I see as a better top end for a lower trap speed. Im saying that your truck is pulling 109's and pulling 24mph while my car is pulling 107's and doing about 23mph on the second half, wouldnt you think that my top end is equal to yours when I'm running worse ET and trap speed, saying that a car with less power has an equal top end to a car with more power?

*edit- I'm not trying to start a flame war, if we could keep this respectful it would be a lot more civilized and mature.

No flames - those are for children. This is an opinionated discussion :D


Grease's car is pulling around 113 right now, still needs some tuning, but he only inches Canton's L at around 80. Now maybe you encountered some L's that, for whatever reason, didn't pull as strong up top. Could get good launches, low traps but still run good numbers, I could see that. There was a 'stang at the track last night going 12.80 @ 103.66 or so, I was hitting 105 but only going 13.15's - pissed me off lol.

Just in my experience - all bad hehe - Canton pulls me hard on the x-way.

Aerodynamics just don't matter a whole lot when you're talking 100-120 mph range. Figure out a Lightnings Hp/Weight ratio and I bet its 1/4 mile trap speed is very close to anything else that has a similar Hp/Weight ratio.

My truck weighs 4800 lbs race weight...it made 401/487 SAE @ the wheels. Ran 109.84 mph. It shifts @ 5000 rpm...it is all torque at these rpm.

On the highway, the truck runs mucho better because I have the benefit of a nice cold intercooler...at the track, it is just cooking because I don't have much time to cool it off after I just smoked the tires off in the burout box and staging.

What people don't realize when comparing #'s is how fast are you going at XX time. What I mean..on my 12.705@109.84 run, I covered the 1/8 in 8.191 seconds @ 86.03 mph. Your car ran 84.39 mph in the 1/8...which I'll guess around 8.67 seconds. One would assume your under 2 mph than me at the 1/8..and you would be right...somewhat. But when I am at the 1/8, you are not. So when I hit the 1/8, your probably around 82 mph. Same thing with the 1/4 with your 13.452@107.24. When I go thru the 1/4 @ 12.705 seconds, your going around 103.8 mph.

So who pulls harder? Race a Lightning that runs like mine from a 50 mph roll, an easy 3 car lengths by 110 mph it will be ahead...and pulling.

Aerodynamics just don't matter a whole lot when you're talking 100-120 mph range.

Sorry, that's just not realistic. (Not a flame, BTW.) Aerodynamics start to come into play at around 30 mph. And the rule of thumb is that you need to quadruple your power in order to double your speed - or, in other words, it might take only 25 horsepower to drive 30 mph (for a given coefficient of drag), but for the same car, it would take 100 HP to drive 60 mph.

(Those numbers are given as examples only, don't flame me if they're way off!) ;)

Thus, when you're talking about triple-digit speeds, you're already using a non-trivial percentage of the power that your engine is capable of producing. That's why having a car that's capable of 100 mph is nothing particularly special, but having a "150-mph car" isn't bad, & a "200-mph car" is all but freakin' unheard of! Ever wonder why cars like Ferraris, Porsche 911s, etc. all have top-end speeds that are fairly close together? Physics imposes the same restraints upon everyone... ;)

Actually it's quite realisitic. Find vehicles that have a similar trap speed as a stock Lightning and you'll find that they also have similar hp/weight ratios. At 200 mph there's a HUGE difference due to aerodynamics, but at at the 100 mph area, the difference just isn't large enough to make a claim that you'll start pulling on an L due to aerodymaics. This is the math part. Now see CantonRacers post for the real world results. They match up nicely.

By the way, drag is a square function, and the power required is a cube functionl. IOW, if you double your speed, drag goes up by 2^2, but the power required to attain the speed is 2^3. As a tidbit of information, the same is true of pumps. Doubling water flow increases delta pressure (d/p) by 2^2 and the power required to run the pump so it flows twice as much water is 2^3.

I think the answer to this disagreement is quite simple. The guy with the Lightening is in Ohio, the other guy is in Florida. I know with my Cobra if I try to run when the motor is heatsoaked, like it would be from a highway roll, I'll lose 3-4 mph. I imagine it is the same for a L. The heat and humidity down here kills a blower car, especially a Heaton. :cool:

I think the answer to this disagreement is quite simple. The guy with the Lightening is in Ohio, the other guy is in Florida. I know with my Cobra if I try to run when the motor is heatsoaked, like it would be from a highway roll, I'll lose 3-4 mph. I imagine it is the same for a L. The heat and humidity down here kills a blower car, especially a Heaton. :cool:

Hm, so all these years I've read all the BS about all motor cars suffering from the same things and elevation must be pure BS then too eh?
And the fact that 'they' say FI motors do not suffer as bad as N/A motors do? :confused:

Elevation isn't BS. Atmospheric pressure decreases as you ascend higher.


I just always heard anyway, that FI cars dont suffer as much :confused:

Last I checked wind friction exceeds ground friction after 50MPH. So why exactly are you suggesting that aerodynamics don't matter at twice that speed?

Seems kind of silly.

- Z28WannaB

Aerodynamics just don't matter a whole lot when you're talking 100-120 mph range. Figure out a Lightnings Hp/Weight ratio and I bet its 1/4 mile trap speed is very close to anything else that has a similar Hp/Weight ratio.

Hm, so all these years I've read all the BS about all motor cars suffering from the same things and elevation must be pure BS then too eh?
And the fact that 'they' say FI motors do not suffer as bad as N/A motors do? :confused:

It has nothing to do with elevation and everything to do with the heat and humidity. The L's and 03-04 cobra run an eaton blower. An eaton produces alot of heat. To combat the heat they run an air to water heat exchanger. At anything above 150 degrees inlet temp the computers pull huge amounts of timing to keep the motor safe. While an NA car, LT1 or LS1 may lose 3-4 tenths due to temp and humidity, an eaton car (truck) loses 6-8 tenths and about 6-8 mph. This is all due to the fact that the blower produces so much heat. For the same reason, guys spraying small shots on these type of vehicles are getting tremendous gains. I know of one guy picking up over 150 RWHP on what should be a 75 dry shot.

With my Lightning...if I run back to back, I lose 1 mph from heat soak...that is all.

I also do a lot of highway racing and I race cars that run a similar mph to me and I run dead even.

How a anything runs is based on elevation, humidity and barometer psi...

Last I checked wind friction exceeds ground friction after 50MPH. So why exactly are you suggesting that aerodynamics don't matter at twice that speed?

I didn't say it doesn't matter, I said it doesn't matter *much* in the *110 mph* range. Rule of thumb is it takes 15-20 horses to cruise at 60 mph for most vehicles. There are those tiny cars that get 60 mpg that are need less horsepower, but for most cars and trucks, the thumbrule works.

Here's where the math kicks in... drag is square function, and power is a cube function.

Doubling speed increases drag by 2^2, or 4 times. Doubling speed increases required horsepower by 2^3, or 8 times. In rough terms, that means most cars will require anywhere from 120 horses to 160 horses to do 120 mph. The math is simply 8 times the horsepower required to do 60 mph, or 8*15 and 8*20. Even the lowliest of cars can typically do 120 mph.

NOW... when you're talking 180 mph, or 3 times the initial 60 mph... since the two functions are still square and cube functions, you take the 3 times the intial condition and plug it into the function, like so:

3^2 for drag is 9 times as much drag at 180 mph as at 60 mph
3^3 for power is 27 times as much power for 180 as at 60 mph

Need 20 horses to do 60 mph? You'll need 540 horses (20*27) to do 180 mph.

The mathematics add up, and matches the real world experience of most Lightning owners, who typically say that the "I'll catch up because of aerodynamics" simply isn't true. Not until you're north of 120 mph.

Is this pissing match still going on...who really gives a sh!t

Is this pissing match still going on...who really gives a sh!t

Apparently you don't, so why did you even bother to reply? An even better question is, do you even have a car that can do better than a 16 second 1/4 mile yet?