65 Gran Sport -Q-Jet, Manifold and Tom's rockers comparison race results

Took me a while to get all the results together, but here it is:

We went up to Lebanon Valley with two cars, my 65 and my 73 Stage 1 car, raced all day, didn't break anything and drove both 100 miles home without drama.... that's a little heaven right there but it gets better..

We raced from 10am to 3 pm . Made 25 runs in the 65, and 18 in the 73, The day was pretty good, started at about 60 degrees with 30.22 pressure but 90% humidity and a 5mph headwind. - as the day went on we ended up with 78 degrees and a 15 mph headwind, but humidity went down to 60% and the pressure stayed at 30.22. I figured (right or wrong) a CALT range of 1100ft to 1600ft as we finished.

The 65 is basically stock with a recurved distributor, 2.5 inch mandrel exhaust with x pipe, 3.32 gears and a ST300 auto. Other mods include a fan clutch, Bruce Roe converter controller, driveshaft loop and significant suspension tuning at a NE GS/GN club Dave Morgan seminar. The hooks well on 225/75/14 Silvertown repro redline radials and has run a best of 14.76 @ 93.28 (in a -500 DA and about 250 passes ago) The car has 73-75 k on it and the engine has never been open (except for timing chain and valve springs) Today's race weight was 3900 lbs with me in it.

We started with my Doc Mod spread bore manifold with the 66 750cfm Quadrajet on it. we made 4 runs for an average of 15.17 @ 90.07 with a best of 15.11. Not particularly strong, but that was today's number.. had I left it alone it would have run that for all 25 passes. (the car is VERY weather sensitive, so you never know what you're gonna run till you get there)

We then threw on a '79 800 CFM Quadrajet 4M4 that was specifically built for this car with 66 throttle shafts (Thanks to TechG8 from Everyday Performance...spend money with him!), and very similar specs to the 66 carb (jetting, ICR, rods/hangers,etc..no longer a smogger..) we made 4 more passes and I was astounded to find the 50 CFM got us an average of 14.90 @ 90.01 with a best of 14.88, or an uncorrected gain of almost 3 tenths and over 1 mph... I guess Buicks do like lots of carb!

It's also of interest to note that this carb changed my shift point from 4800 back to 5000 rpm. it must have had something to do with the change in vacuum to the modulator, because I had carefully set up the governor to go at 4800 with one 9 oz. and one 10 oz. weight. So from here on out I'd estimate we leave a 10th on the table as the engine widmills till the shift. this is backed up with data from the g-tech meter....I lose .06 g's in pulling force between runs at both shift points.

Then we swapped on Bob's ported manifold. This is the one with a huge plenum that flows as well as a 2x4 squarebore. Unfortunately, it was about this time that the air went away... we did 4 more runs for an average of 14.89 @ 91.24 with a best of 14.84. Still faster ,despite the air. One of the questions about this manifold is where it made power, so we look at the numbers and find it's just about the same as the Doc Mod at the 60', 330 and 660, and started coming on at about the 1000 ft mark which is a long high gear pull at about 3600-3800 rpm. What also may be considered is that manifold can only flow as much as my heads, which are bone stock.

Then we swapped in Toms Rockers. Even as the DA got worse, we immediately picked up an average of .03 and .66 mph at the 660, .06 at the 1000' and .09 at the 1/4, with a trap speed gain of 1.01 mph. (corrected number in a moment) the ave of six runs was 14.80 @ 92.25, with a best run of 14.70 @ 92.78. MY best ET to date, but .068 mph under my best of 93.46.

It's important to stop here and describe the difference in seat of the pants feel. The car was now pulling after the shift just like my stage 1 car... the numbers don't show it, but you have to take my word for it. And believe me, it was anybody's race at that point, and people were lining up at the fence to watch...the rest of the afternoon we raced the 65 and 73... if the 73 hooked, it won. but it was running 14.6's pretty constantly with a best of 14.58 (off it's best pace of 14.2's because of the air) I had a lot of people come over to me as we were packing up telling us how much they enjoyed the show.. it didn't hurt that there is a lot of sincerely foul mouthed rivalry between me and my buddy who was driving the 73. It's like uncensored Snake vs. Mongoose.

Back to the numbers: I felt it would be fair at this point to correct for air, headwind hp loss and shift point. I used the Wallace Racing app (http://www.wallaceracing.com/Calculators.htm)
to correct back to sea level DA, account for headwind HP loss (11 hp) and added my lost 10th back in for windmilling rpm.

The results (at sea level, no headwind and optimal shift point);

baseline ave (Doc Mod and 750 CFM Q-Jet) - 14.98 @ 91.15
800 CFM Q-Jet ave - 14.60 @ 92.28
Bob's manifold ave - 14.52 @ 93.62
Toms Rockers ave - 14.22 @ 95.28

So short version -
800 CFM - .28 tenths actual gain, .038 theoretical gain
Bob's ported manifold -.01 actual - .08 theoretical
Toms Rockers - .09 actual, .30 theoretical

Overall average gain - .37 tenths actual, .076 theoretical. Not bad for an afternoon's work.

Clear as mud? In the real world, on my car things I expected to make a huge difference really didn't, and things I didn't expect to did. Net of all this work is I have a new low ET and still drove home. I like that.

I'll be going back up on October 10th, anyone is welcome to join me. I think with good air, I can easily break the 14.5 mark with a totally stock motor with bolt on parts. . I'll let you know.

A special thanks to Tom Telasco who is shown in the pic below with my buddies Trans Am - he came up for the day to help turn a wrench and also helped my buddy with his ignition system on the TA - it went from a no-rev 14.9 to a fire breathing 14.1 @102 in about a half an hour. He's just that good. Thanks Tom.

 

That's pretty cool stuff!
Thanx for the real world write up!:grin:

 

Thanks Rhett. It was a fun day. At least I got away from another day of moving 45+ yrs. of "Stuff" to my home & other locations. Hope it's all worth the time & aggravation to finally build something of my own, my way, live there & finally have ALL my "Stuff" in the same location. A "Gear-heads" dream. Now all I have to do is stick around long enough to enjoy it.
I'm especially thankful for the opportunity to help your friend with the TA. This is all about having FUN & the opportunity to be helpful in whatever way possible. Even though most said those plastic spacers in the left front spring wasn't going to work, they DID, along with the alignment I did to the specs I believe are correct for this application. There's more to going fast than making more HP.
The "Nail" is just a joy to work on. Swap carbs., 5 minutes. Swap intakes, 20 minutes. Swap rockers, maybe 30 minutes. We never got into timing or anything else. We just concentrated on the task at hand & what we were trying to achieve.
So, in total, theoretically we lowered ET by .86 & gained 4.13MPH. Not a bad day for bolt on parts on an otherwise "Stocker" engine with over 75K on it that can be done by most anyone with a small amount of mechanical knowledge. Of course it makes it SSSSSSOOO much easier when all the little details are taken care of before hand. Like reworking the already reworked distributor, among other things.
Hopefully by the 10th. I can do it again.


Tom T.

 

25 and 18 runs between 10am and 3pm??? I made exactly 3 during the same time frame a few hours west of you...

 

All right Rhett, That is a lot of good info.:TU: I do have a few things to say. The intake I worked on does have a doc job on it, Its just had extra work on it besides the doc job. I am not sure of the amount of plenum work the intake that Rhett is calling the doc job intake has done to it like rounded corners or smoothed areas. Also the real comparison would be a stock q-jet to the modified one. Rhett do you remember how much gain you got from stock q-jet to doc mod? Then what might we expect total for ported intake? I still think a hotter cam and head work make this intake help wake it up even more.
I kinda knew Toms rockers would help, I remember trying them with the seat of the pants testing years ago :eek2:
That is one good looking q-jet carb you guys built.
They say nailheads need more air and that carb should do the trick:TU:
Can you give me baseline mph vs best mph for
carb
intake
rockers
Rhett, I set around looking at parts trying to see what might help them give us more go, But I have not been able to do what you and Tom did at the track. Thanks for all the time and effort. Hope you do even better on the 10th....

 

Hey Bob! Hope all is well.

I never ran the Q-jet manifold unmodded....it came in the mail and I got out the die grinder!!! Attached is a pic of the two plenums for comparison...and to be fair, you're only responsible for the excellent runner work on the bigger modded manifold. The plenum just came that way.

On the "Doc Mod" spreadbore, I only did the plenum work and rounded the corners out of the plenum... no runner work.

As far as the Q-Jet builds, I owe all the credit for the plating job to Ken/TechG8 at Everyday Performance.. I did the internals but he was very helpful as we discussed the build specs.. They both really run great.
As far as baseline MPH's, I'll use the best from each test segment

750 QJ - 90.44
800 QJ - 91.25
Big Plenum - 91.12 (uncorrected)
Tom's Rockers - 92.78 (uncorrected)

Don't forget the weather was 10 degrees hotter for the last two configurations.

I agree that that manifold is just looking for a better flowing head to sit on top of. The intake sound is so much different from the Doc mod I did, you know something big is waiting in there.

Keep thinking about what we can try for the 10th...

Thanks,

 

Solid lifters

 

And that seems like a great idea. What would the break in period be for a car with a seasoned cam? I'd also have to get different pushrods... Do you know what length?

 

Now I am really confused,,,, is Tom the ugly one on the left or the ugly one on the right ????:laugh::laugh:

 

Great Question!

The ugly one on the left holding the shaker scoop owns the Trans Am. His name is Rick Barletta, he was my boss 25 years ago. And he is Mr. 4 Speed - He can row with the best of them, the nose never dips....truly impressive.

 

The first picture with the Buick advertisement centered in the background is epic.

 

Great info. Thank you for posting!

 

I will be first to admit my math is all over the place, the DA conversions are purely speculative...I know enough to know that the more I think I know, the more I know I don't know.....


Thanks to everybody who showed interest in what we were doing. I just talked to Tom, and we're going to go back up on October 10th to see if we can tweak the car a little, and perhaps even try the solid lifter route...who knows, stranger things have happened.

In the meantime, here's a link to the website for the track photographer.. some great launch and burnout photos of the 65 and 73, and Rick's 70 RAIII 4spd Trans Am (you don't know how much I love that car....it's freaking awesome, even for a Buick guy)


http://photosbyjim.smugmug.com/201420132012/Friday-September-26-/

 

Tom - Ordered all the solid lifter stuff from Carmen, he also is sending over some .070 longer rods...give me a call tonight to discuss if you're free.

I might just have these things in and ready for the 10th!

 

-Q-Jet, Manifold , Tom's rockers and solid lifters comparison race results

Solids are in!

Just wrapped up the break in period, got the car good and hot and everything looks good. Haven't taken it on the road yet, I hope to at least get a few miles in before I drive to the track Friday.


Weather is looking good and I'll extend the invitation again - anyone in the NY/CT/MA/New England area who wants to race this Friday, there's an open track rental day with I think plenty of spots left. the guys whose putting it together is Kevin Bernier, his number is 860-538-1296 if you want to reserve a spot. Price is 70.00 for the car and driver, and 30.00 for an additional driver.

Last week I got 25 runs in on the 65, and 18 runs on the 73. That's getting your money's worth.

So at very least, I'll have more to report Saturday AM.

 

Hope the weather holds out for you and some video would be :bglasses:

 

Probably no video or even pics this time, as it's just gonna be me and Tommy, and he refuses to learn how to use my camera.

However, me and the guy with the Trans Am are going back up (assuming nothing blows up Friday) for the Supercar Shootout series on Sunday, October 19th - great group, some REAL strong running stock appearing stuff.....makes you rethink the need for headers, aluminum, etc..

Those guys take tons of pictures, So I'll post those up....

 

Back from LVD tonight, I'll write up the results over the next day or two - for now I'll say three things:

21 runs today.

Drove home.

I've never had anyone beat my best time in my own car (any of them) before.

That'll keep you guessing for a few.......

 

One time when I was in law enforcement, I had sold a kid a built up engine that he put in a pick up truck.... I was working radar and clocked the truck at 82 in a 40 and when I turned the blues on,, he took off and ran completely off and left me.... :Brow: could not do anything because it was night and I could not id him because I never got him stopped.... my buddies on the force razzed me a whole bunch about getting beat by a engine that I built.... :laugh:

 

I'll take a guess Rhett. Did ole Tommy get some seat time?