They did a little better than that. If I recall this correctly, in a test done by Popular Mechanics back in '66, the dual quad '66 Riv GS did the 1/4 mile in 15.3 seconds........and that was on bias ply tires. I'd be hard pressed to believe the later ones ran any slower, the 430 engine that came later was even more powerful. Does anybody know what a stock '70 455 Riv ran in the 1/4?
I'm holding a 2/69 Car Life with a '69 road test - they got 0-60 in 10 flat, and 16.51 @ 86.71 in the quarter. I also have a 4/69 issue of Motorcade which printed a 9.8 0-60 and 16.30 1/4 mile @ 88.6.
Yeah, I know that's what was advertised, but I must say my Riv. NEVER ran that slow!!!! Look at Ken's '66 Wildcat, 15.27ET@90MPH??? Now this is a stock "Cat" 3.07 pegleg. The only thing done was mess with the AFB, the Distributor advance & drill a couple holes in the trans. add & subtract some miss. springs.
There's no way the '66 could be faster than it's successors. Back in "the day", there was a guy with a maroon '67 Riv GS, 430 engine, that I couldn't touch with my '66. We raced a couple times down the Blvd. and each time I lost. Of course my '66 had the q-jet and a stock tranny and cam, he claimed his 430 was stock aside from a mild cam. We both had 3.42 gears, so I'd say it was pretty much an even match. But none the less, I seriously doubt those road tests boasting 16.something are accurate.......maybe they were driving uphill? uzzled: Just a footnote......he stuffed it into the side of a building one day, and I ended up with the trunk lid off it. It was a solid texas car too. ou:
I have a 68 RivGS that i will get around to parting out some day.Still has the 3:42 under it and it's a low milage car if i remember right.I'll let you guys know. Tom
That's cool, Tom.. I'd be interested in some parts. I never thought they were that slow either. This one won't be! :Brow:
If anyone cares, you don't have to guess at torque loss through a U-joint. (Hint: treat the CV as two u-joints): To=Ti*(cos a)^2 To = Torque out Ti = Torque in a = angle between joints in degrees For the sake of the formula, a shaft that's perfectly straight yoke-to-yoke has an angle of zero degrees, so in that case To = Ti (no loss). i.e. if you have a 10° angle, you lose 3% torque. For what it's worth, the loss is in heat. If you have multiple CV joints, use the forumula for each and sum up the results. If you want to figure horsepower loss, choose any engine rpm and use this formula for hp loss at that rpm: hp = (rpm * torque)/5252 Devon
I'm no engineer, but when considering the driveshaft, it would seem to me that the center bearing would rob the most power, and the cv itself would also steal some power b/c it has more resistance when turning at an angle than when turning in a straight line. Too bad there isn't a way to measure the EXACT amount of torque loss at the end of the driveshaft vs. the end of the tranny. When you consider the amount of force required to turn the shafts by hand in a TH400 tranny, (which doesn't take into account the load imposed by the front oil pump) and the amount required to turn the diff pinion by hand with fluid in it, somehow the force required to rotate that 2 pc. driveshaft seems minimal to me. I will say this.....synthetic rear end fluid does create less drag IMO than dino fluid does. I could definitely feel the difference in drag resistance by hand when I made the switch. I haven't tried synthetic grease in the shaft or synthetic fluid in my tranny yet though, but I may some day. Too bad I don't have access to a dyno to actually measure the improvement. I'll bet synthetic rear end oil alone might add at least a few HP. :idea2:
I agree. Back in the day when my buddy had his '70 Riv, and we were young and reckless, there were few cars that could come close to touching it on the street. The other guy always had this look on his face. :eek2:
We have access to a chassis dyno, and I was contemplating running the car as-is, complete with old grease and lube, switching to all synthetic, and running it again. We did this with a '90 Mustang... with a straight shaft, much more "loose" rear axle, and an auto... picked up nearly 3% power just with Royal Purple synthetic fluids. I bet the Buick would show a huge gain over that. The problem is the motor has a miss and runs like hell, and I'm betting it's either a broken rocker, a stuck / burnt valve, and the timing chain. I have to see if I can fix it for the dyno session before we do the new motor build. Does this sound interesting?
Absolutely. Whenever you can, let us know dyno differences with only one variable changed at a time (hey, it's only money!). Devon
Too bad you aren't located near me.......I love experimenting with things when you have something that will actually measure what improvements the changes actually made. I'd like to see how much rear wheel HP mine makes now that it's broken in and I have the bugs worked out. When it had only about 1,000 miles on it, I went to a $25 dyno day at the grand opening of a new speed shop around here. The guys were Mustang guys, and claimed their machine wouldn't give a torque reading with an automatic. It took them 5 runs in order to even get a HP reading. Although it only pulled 220 HP, I was happy considering I told him not to rev it past 5,000 rpm's and my crappy rebuilt NAPA fan clutch was locked up solid. Add to that the heavy black smoke that was pouring out my exhaust...... I never did figure out what that was, but it was so bad we all had to go outside for fresh air! ou:
We usually try to do one variable at a time, but sometimes we don't have the time to make the baseline, an improvement, another pull, another improvement, another pull, etc. If we had an in-house dyno, then it would be full speed ahead! Another consideration is that many car owners don't like to see repetitive dyno runs on their car / engine. It can be pretty scary in person. And nothing sucks more than blowing up a car on the dyno... it's happened to me. (Lost a trans once... dyno rollers were locked, but assistant tried to rev it up in gear... smoked!) As for the fluid change, would it matter to know how much improvement was had by engine oil, then trans, then grease, then rear axle? Or would a complete change be OK? I assume most people would do all at once if they could...
I was only kidding, of course it would be wonderful - but not likely in the real world. I think the total fluid changeover makes perfect sense since it rteally is pretty typlical of what one of us would do given the chance. Heck, I just appreciate the fact that you're willing to go as far as you are with this! Devon
My 67 Riv GS 430 ran 15.09 at 91 on Michelin X radials back in 1985 at New England Dragway. Later with 26 in slicks, 155,000 miles and a curve kit in the dist, new timing chain, .030 shims under the tired valve springs, stock type Midas exhaust and rejetted carb.....otherwise BONE stock (heads never been off)....it ran 14.38 at 94. My point is, those mag tests in the 16s were either smoking the tire(s) or easing off the line. Also on single snorkle air cleaners cars an easy .3 could be picked up just be running no air cleaner. Those little snorkles severely restricted air flow. I could never understand putting a 750-800 cfm carb on a car then choking it with an air cleaner that flowed like 600 cfm.
220 is more than the stock 5.0 Mustangs laid down by a solid 30-40 hp. The smoke was probably a combination of carbon, new rings & seals, and jetting... the dyno loads 'em pretty hard, so they smoke sometimes. You probably did that under hard accel on the road, but maybe didn't notice it.
I agree... some timing, metering rods, a more aggressive advance, air cleaner, plug gap, and tire pressure probably made a huge difference in these cars.
Right a little extra timing and good gas to go along with it (50-50 Cam2 and 93) helps get the big boats moving as well as the 3.42 GS gears and don't forget the switch pitch trans. 4.10 and an OD trans would be a killer combo. I love rolling up alongside a loud 5 spd Mustang and hanging right with it in my BIG crusty surface rusty, greenish gold, dented "geezermobile".
Be careful guys. As good as synthetics are at reducing frictional loses & increasing HP in the process we have to remember that some things require friction to work properly. Yeah, I know what your all thinking, now STOP IT!!! In a posi rear friction is required for the clutch pack to work properly. Fluid too slippery will cause a loss of this required friction causing the slipping one wheel smoke show posi. Many builders of rears recommend AGAINST the use of synthetics. In a pegleg rear the less friction the better. As a side, about these peglegs letting go. When one tire spins the spider & side gears are going in opposite directions at twice the normal speed all spinning around the shaft holding them all together when performing a one tire smoke show. The same goes for auto. trans. Friction is required for the clutch packs again to grip firmly. Synthetic grease for u-joints, slip joints, suspension parts A-OK in my book. After the engine is broken in synthetics also. Power steering the same. We're not running Detroit Lockers or Spools or manual Trans. to be able to take advantage of the more slippery lubes. For sure we don't want our posi's to even think about slipping with 4000+ pds. Use of slicks it's even more important. For your smoking problem Joe. Did you run with the stock air cleaner on??? If so, that's why it was smoking, running rich. Let me explain. With the stock air cleaner on with stock carbs. the ones I've tested were around the 14.7 cruising & around 12.0 WOT. Take the air cleaner off & this goes to around 15.0 cruising to a very lean 17.0 at WOT. Put some little good flowing air cleaners on & notice the improvement, especially top end!!!! Just more thoughts. None of this is a science class, more like common sense & logic.
