First time out.... waa waa waa waaaaaaaa !

That sucks your trans is trashed Jay.By your post you will have the turbo 350 rebuilt right?
Jamie

 

Thanks Koko ..here is a pic of the pieces out of the pan ...its weird all square ...are those maybe pieces of the sprag ...the little dividers between each torrington ? Yes I will have another 350 built........

 

Yes.

 

Any one ever try to improve their 60ft by modulating the A/C? I read a driving experience of a Mercedes twin turbo that had lots of hookup problems. The best times (in the 11s) were with the A/C on for the start allowing a harder pedal and smoother transition to hooked up and pedal down. Comments?

Chuck

 

I have to say. There is just no substitute for the right gears, posi and suspension tweaking.

It is the first thing that I do to any car. Before I start messing with the motor, tranny or anything, I get the car working right.

I say, if you are gonna measure the car at the drag strip, set it up to work there.

 

I would bet your car would see 12.50@107 with a 3.90 gear, good tires and some air bags or upper control arm relocators.

 

Thanks Dwayne that looks like it and I have heard -read that is the weak link in the 350....so as we saw here - it is. J

 

Bob what converter are you running ?

 

I'm running a TriShield Switch-Pitch 13" converter. Great converter, however there is a problem with my hydraulic circuit that causes the converter to go to low-stall under heavy load - I need to pull the tranny and fix that. I *might* be able to get better than 1.99 then, but traction is still the key issue.

-BC

 

Trying to beat my all time best 13.15 at 104 with a 2:56 gear .....didnt get there

So tonight was my first night at the track with my new turbo 350,and home made headlight ram air setup , and slightly looser ebay converter. As you may recall I ate the intermediate sprag in my turbo 350 last time at the track and never got a run in with the ram setup......

The track wasnt really holding well for anybody - cold night in Florida .... and my car with this new converter is still running terrible 60's..my best tonight was 2.35 ..my best all time 60 ft last year was 2.0 with a low stall coan converter. It still blows these nitto drag radials away.

I still never ran a 12 but my mile an hour was significantly up almost 2 mph - 3.37 mph all night ...I even had one pass running 107.37 at 13.47 with a dismal 2.426 60 ft. Thats my highest mph of all time. So my theory about running out of air due to my carb being so close to the 65 hood might hold some weight and the ram air has solved that .... my 65 is running so cold now with this fresh ram going down the highway I am going to have to put a thermostat back in it. I would recommend anyone with a 65 - 455 transplant (tight engine compartment) try to get some cold air in there and it might help you too.

my best 3 runs tonight were

2.35 8.81 86.07 13.37 @ 106.98

2.42 8.89 85.31 13.47 @ 107.37

2.33 8.86 84.57 13.50 @ 105.94

Now for the bad news I think this brand new turbo 350 bit the dust on my last pass ....it feels funny and you cant even feels the shifts at all on the way home ....it was going all the way to 3200 before shifting to 2nd leaving a traffic light etc ...this is the same exact symptom I had several months ago when I discovered the sprag in pieces in the bottom of my pan.......so I guess I will be dropping the pan once again to see what gives. The guy said he put a hardened race sprag in this trans,,,, I guess I will find out after checking vac modulator line etc . I am really running out of energy and money to keep chasing a 12..... I may just give up and quit taking it to the track alltogether. I have never owned such a troublesome rod in my life and I am just plain fed up with it .

 

Familiar words, most likely because I've expressed them myself. And I'm sure most of us can relate to them as well. Fortunately, at least in my case, my mind returns back to normal after a cooling down period :grin:

Sorry to hear about your tranmission woes. Also, from my experience, a cold track is never a good track, which is unfortunate because the colder air usually makes for the best power. Keep the faith, John. Simply by reading this thread leads me to believe that you won't be giving up that easily :TU:

 

Started pulling the tranny out last week ...should have it out this weekend ......

 

Before you start blaming transmissions better check your cooler. Yardley went through the same stuff and it turned out his cooler was blocked. Plenty of reading here:

http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?t=215212&page=12

I run a T350 in my '76 (11.9@113/4250lbs) and with regular racing and lots of miles I have to do a freshen up every 2 years. The clutches just start to burn away but I haven't had a major failure.

You should forget about hard power braking at the line. It is a waste of time if you're spinning. I let mine flash (3500) from between 1500-2000 at the line. If the track is hooking I'll take it up to 2000 but that is a good track. If it spins I just lower it a bit at the line and keep lowering it until it does hook. Best 60' = 1.58 on some M/T drag radials. Even with a bit of spin low 1.6's.

 

Good to know...I do not hard power brake at the line....the only way to get mine moving is to go to ~1100 let it roll out briefly then roll into then finally punch it . My tranny cooler is one of those big heat sink types . So its kind of like a big hollow tube with fins .... I didnt even run a cooler with transmission number 1 as I only had a 2000 stall converter and nice aluminum radiator with built in tranny cooler. Will shine a light down my cooler as a just in case. I am also going to run a rod down my lines as a just in case . As you have shown you can run a well prepped T350 with a much higher horsepower car than mine .

 

No time with 2 toddlers anymore BUT new tranny is in ....the ebay converter is out it weighed 26 lbs vs my old Coan at 35. The ebay converter I noticed 2 things it didnt have alot of fluid inside of it ? When I spun it on the tranny pump it made maybe 1 revolution. My old coan spins much freer and goes 1.5- 1.75 revolutions . The ebay one made a little noise when spun in one specific spot of its rotation. Is it bad I dont know but I am going with my old coan instead heavier and all. The ebay one when I emptied it as I said very little fluid came out and no metal shavings etc. I will try to finish up tomorrow with crossmember, exhaust,linkages. So hopefully I will have her FINALLY back on the road tomorrow afternoon.