Well, after a 10 month hiatus...family, work, schedules, rain, excuses, blah, blah...I finally made it out to my local track last night...The addition of the stepped LTs resulted in more power down low and its having trouble hooking now...I guess its time to get "serious" with the suspension tweaking....Anyway I managed an 11.55 @ 119.5 with a weak 1.59 60'...Its 1.5 mph better than last year and the air was crap last night...Overall I'm happy with the mph improvement especially because the conditions were less than optimal..I think 120 is possible in good air...

...and I got a really cool 8x10 of the 'bird lifting the left front at launch...I'll try to post that later...

--Alan

 

Thats a nice gain in mph, wait till it cools down! Get that thing to hook and low 11's are yours. Congrats!

 

Yeah, I'm working on the suspension now...Those headers and ewp apparently threw everything out of whack...I thought that switching to the Bogarts would help a lot, but I hooked better on 16x8 stockers and the little 255 50 R16 M/T radials! ...Now we are working on pinion angle and relo brackets in the rear...might be time for some coil over adjustables in the front, but we'll see...

Its getting there...If you are going with a Joe O. cam, you'll be happy...Mines only a 226/234 and it pulls like an ape everywhere...
Take care..

--Alan

 

nice gain! cant wait to see the pic

 

Click on the link thing in my sig...I think I got it hosted the right way...Nothing dramatic, and you might need bifocals to see it, but the left is up, just a weeee bit...

--Alan

 

Alan, nice to see you finally had a chance to test the car. Got some questions for you. What tires are you running now on the back? You flashing the converter or not? How big is the converter? What gear and what rpm are you pulling when you cross the line? Nosey sob arn't I?

 

I'm running the M/T Radial in the 275 50 R15s on 15x10 Bogarts aired to 15 psi cold. I'm launching just off idle like last year, flashing the converter which is a Vig 3600. 3.73 gears in the 12 bolt and I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't look at the tach at the end of the runs

...Its been 10 months since I've raced it and it shows...The car hits nice and then "unloads" about 30 feet out...I can feel it...I just ordered relo brackets and they'll be installed along with checking/reseting the pinion angle and we'll see what happens...I've got alot of good suspension parts back there, now its time to use them correctly If you look at the link in my sig the car intially leaves nice, actually lifts the left front a wee bit...I've got a track rental coming up in 2 weeks we'll see what happens...I think 120 mph is doable, hopefully 11.20-30s are, too...

--Alan

 

Any idea where the converter flashes to, coming off the line? Or have you thought about stalling it up to see if that works better with the new set-up? And I know what you mean about forgetting the tach reading, I do the same. I'm always looking for the mph, the few chances I do have to take the car to the track.

 

When mine was unloading like that Madman said to stiffen up the back shocks and viola it doesn't do that any more.

 

Well, the first thing we are going to do is to get the basics straight...Check and set pinion angle with good computerized angle finders and weld in some relocation brackets...I'm still trying to do this with stock shocks (Decarbons) and springs...I may switch over to a coil over adjustable set up shortly if these changes don't help...and I've tried stalling up the car a bit, but it just breaks loose even more...Last year I experimented with a launch technique that worked, but now its making more power down low and its a whole new ball game...We'll get the damn thing sorted out..

--Alan

 

I have a 396 stroker w/ Vigilante 3200 stall. With my combination only the flash works, the hard stall doesn't work at all. I played around with this a lot during the launchs and allowing the converter to flash-up is the only way to have consistant 1.60 60 ft times. Attempting to hard-still the converter moves the 60 ft times to 1.80s. Basically, a two tenths loss in the 60 ft times.

WD

 

Well, the pinion angle that I thought was 2 deg neg. was 1 deg positive , the rear was 1/4" out of square ...Now we are at 1.5 deg neg., the rear is squared up under the car, and the Spohn relocation brackets are welded in with the LCAs in the 2nd hole...NOW, we'll see what the car can do! If I was 1.55-1.59 with everything out of whack, we'll see what it'll do now!

--Alan