I need some fresh eyes to look at what is going on with my car in order to send me down the right path to enlightenment....or pain.

To those not in the know about my turd, the plug wires are 5 years old (though well taken care of) and the plugs recently got an oil bath due to a leaking intake gasket. I have the replacements sitting on the bench...I've just been doing all the other maintenance on the car and everything gets done when time allows.

Read on...

There are 3 items of unknown quantity. The affects of my plugs/wires condtion, the amount of wheelspin present, and the effectiveness of the PCM tuning (I haven't ran diacom in forever).

Given that..... Look at these two runs....

Run 1

1.94 60ft
5.45 330ft
8.41 660ft at 83.8mph
13.11 1/4 at 104.6mph

Run 2
1.86 60ft
5.34 330ft
8.26 660ft at 83.3mph
12.96 1/4 at 104.1mph

What is terribly clear is that most of the benefit is from the line to the 330ft timers and all the improvement is over by the 660ft clocks. Total improvement was .15sec.

Lets see what the differences are between the runs (weather condtions were VERY similar. I've got all the data in my log books). Both runs were at the same track as well..

Run 1 - late spring '02, 1 5/8 shorty headers, 3.23s, old tuning, 1-2 and 2-3 shift hesitation, Sportsman Pros, 1/4 tank of gas, 2400 SLP stall, 52mm TB, coolant temp at 185+.

Run 2 - last, friday...the 4th of April, 1 3/4 SLP mid-length headers, 3.73s, new tuning, no shift errors, ET Streets, over 7/8 tank of gas, Yank 3200 stall, LCA relocation brackets, stock TB, coolant temp at 175-180.

All this is with the LT4 HOT cam, 1.6 rockers, K&N CAI, plugs gapped at .045, and the same ignition system. The exhaust has a DynoMax bullet (3") where the cat used to be, 3" flowmaster cat-back and a cutout (open at the track).

If anyone wants or has the capacity to look at the programming for comparison basis, let me know. I see and feel the improvements, but it did not equate to real numbers.

IMHO, it looks like the stall helped me gain off the line (pre yank stall runs with just the 3.73s show NO improvement. SOTP gain only) and that's about it. Nothing else seemed to make a bean's worth of difference.

I'm not whining......I want to know why. Aside form the basic mainenance stuff I need to do....where is the failure in the 'system'.?

There are people with similar track conditions with almost the same mods turning much better numbers (though some are....slower).

Am I wrong....? Is this what I was supposed to expect...? I can live with it if that is the case cause I know when the car hooks good and I don't fill up the tank the car will be a consistent 12-second car as it is today......my goal all along.

I am not convinced that the high rpm miss is all that bad and we'll have to wait a few days to see if I have a collapsed lifter (more than likely I don't, I just want to check).

Did I piece this thing together wrong or something......