I don't think I've ever raced Larry. I'd like to line up against him in a true bracket race. He'll leave it in DRIVE and I'll shift manually and still walk him....... See you soon, Lare...... LOLOL
Your record speaks for itself Yardman:laugh: Unless I treed you (unlikely) you would win a true bracket race. I'm thinking my traction problems are just beginning anyway. Unless I can hook it, everything else matters not.
I raced the Yard Dog at Cecil w/the Stock "Most Optioned" Car a couple of years ago and he killed me on the tree. Although we raced during a test and tune session his car is still faster then my 13.30 time, so he spanked me on all counts. Of course I had to listen to his winners B.S. story all weekend without any letup. Her is an example of how he showed everyone my reaction time at the tree..........
Hope to treat all my bretheren and sisteren this year as well. Can't wait to see you run in cecil, Larry.
I know Mike, but I have a bunch of things I want to do before this car goes down the track again. I'd rather test it at E Town or Atco. I'll get there, no rush for me.
Went to Cecil County Dragway with the N.E. GS/GN club. Weather was great. I look forward to this trip every year. Round trip mileage was 377 miles. Drove my car there and back, and it didn't miss a beat. I drove down on one tank, and added 5 gallons of VP 108 Race Fuel to what was left in my tank at the hotel. This year I added the new exhaust, an X pipe system, 3 1/2" off the headers to the X, then 3" back to the Magnaflow mufflers, and N25 tips. The car did pick up some. I weighed the car at the track again. It weighed an even 4000 lbs. with me in it, and 3835 lbs without me. My best E.T was an 11.54, best MPH was a 115.89. The Q-jet picked up the most from last year, a solid 2 tenths and 2 MPH. The AED, not so much, but there was a tenth and not even 1 MPH. I'll post my 2013 and 2014 time slips. I made 6 passes both years, Q-jet was the first 3 passes, AED, the second 3 passes. This year, the second run, I spun bad and lost 2 tenths 60'. That was a result of getting too far up on the converter (2500 RPM) and me lowering the tire pressure to 16 psi. This year, the car didn't like that, so I went back to 18 psi, and a 2000 RPM launch, and it hooked well consistently like that. On that second run, my hose hook came loose and bent my fan blade tips on the return road. I used vice grips to straighten the blades out as best I could and kept racing. After pass #6, I noticed coolant dripping onto the balancer. Thinking the fan imbalance took out the WP, I stopped racing and started packing up, and taking the DRs off. I didn't want to jeopardize my ride home. When I looked at it later, I realized that the bolt on the top of the water pump (that holds the alternator bracket/brace) had backed out enough so that the gasket was seeping and dripping down. I'm glad I stopped when I did, but I was just about to try using the GV to get through the traps at 6000 RPM, so I didn't get to try that. I will though. The car felt better with the bigger exhaust for sure, and it sounded great. Basically, the car ran 11.60's with the Q-jet, and 11.50's with the AED. On Run #5, I wired the switch pitch to stay in high stall for the entire run. While it resulted in my best ET and 60', it reduced my trap speed some. My gas mileage seemed to go up. On 1 leg of my trip home, I got 18 MPG. I could not believe it. BTW, run number 6 from this year was against Yardley. I was trying to tree him but red lighted badly. The Yardman is deadly on the lights.:laugh:
Good to hear it Larry. I recall years ago what it took to run those times, with an all iron 462, up here in the Northland, where DA's of 2500' is known as a "good air day". Back then, we had the following.. 462 12-1 compression 260 cfm iron heads 308S cam SP-1, ported Open headers w/collector extensions 1000 Thermoquad Functional hood scoop, sealed up for cold air to the carb 5000 stall 8" converter Trans brake TH 400 4.30 gear 12 bolt 90-10 front shocks Trick front springs No front swaybar Box factory rear arms, rear sway bar, air bags Factory front drums Lightweight front wheels with 3.5" tires 29x10.5 drag slicks 4110 lbs race ready, with me in it. Car would launch with the wheels in the air off the trans brake, in the 1.5X sixty foot times, and on normal summer days it would run mid 11's at 115-116 mph. It was a full on race car, forget about any street use. Engine dyno at 530 HP 550 torque. Now granted, you have a couple tenths worth of air out there, we never see here, but still, the fact that you can run the same times as my full out race car did, with all the ET handicaps you have vs my old race car, speaks to how far we have come in Buick performance in about 25 years. The second copy of your engine is in a 3200 lbs 68 GS race car, it runs 10.40's all day long up here in MN, and due to the fact that he only had the bowl port/chamber work on the heads, vs your full port, that one only made 586HP on the dyno.. He would have run about 10.20's at Cecil last weekend on pump gas... That still amazes me, and makes me want to get back to the track.. Have fun JW
Thanks Jim, I really have this engine running great. It is an absolute joy to drive on the highway. It just hums along doing 70 MPH at 2400 RPM. On my final leg of the trip back home, it got an unbelievable 18 MPG. Traffic kept my speed at 55-60 MPH. After 3 hours on the highway on the way down going 70, I got off the exit and stopped at a light. It idled at 750 RPM in gear, with the MT headers singing their song. I looked down at my oil pressure and laughed, it was about 26 psi. I just changed the oil for the 4th time before the trip. Previously, I was using the Gibbs HR-2, conventional 10W/30. Went to the HR-4, full synthetic 10W/30. After talking with Steve Reynolds, I used 7 qts. in the pan. I love this Q-jet. When I got down to the hotel, I added 5 gallons of VP 108 race fuel to what was left in the tank, drove to Cecil County Dragway, bolted the DR's on, took the front sway bar off, Teched, and went racing. This is a solid mid 11 second car that I can drive anywhere, exactly what I wanted.:TU:
<Cough Factory Lightweight Cough> Congrats Buddy - you've worked hard to get your car where it is and it shows. I just wish you'd take it on a nice long roadtrip and truely fall in love .. that deep love that only a 18 hour drive, like down to BG, gets you (along with the associated butt-ache)
I love driving my GS, but 18 hours in it might end the love affair:laugh: Driving it 3 hours each way seems just about right.
At the beginning of 2015, I contacted Mark DeConti to ask him to build me a fixed pitch THM400. Mark has been building transmissions for the club for a long time now. This year he was retiring so I knew he would have a lot more time to devote to transmissions. I brought him a 71BC longshaft core I had laying around for awhile. I had bought it from BrunoD some time ago for the valve body. Loaded it into Alan Wander's truck, and then into Mark's car at the club holiday party in January. I also contacted Lenny Croteau at Ultimate Converter Concepts for a torque converter. I gave Lenny everything I had on the car, dyno sheets, weight, gearing, and the fact that I run a Gear Vendors Overdrive. He built me a 258mm converter. He told me it would have a torque/stall ratio of about 2:1, stall at 34-3600 RPM, and that it would be fairly efficient. I drove my car up to John Csordas's shop in Chappaqua on Friday. Got there about 7PM and we put the car up on the lift and removed what we could while the car cooled down. Having the new exhaust flanged behind the mufflers allowed us to drop out the exhaust easily. John gave me a loaner Volvo, and I drove home and returned on Saturday morning. Mark drove down to help and we had everything buttoned up by 2PM. Thank you John and Mark:TU:, this would have been near impossible for me to do on my back in my cramped garage! We installed a Derale oil cooler and ran -6AN push lok hose through the frame. Filled the transmission with Valvoline Maxlife Dex6 Synthetic fluid. Transferred the GM deep pan to the new transmission. Drove the car around and it felt good. My first impression was a feel between the low and hi stall of the switch pitch,exactly what I was looking for. I do need to do some tuning to the modulator and/or governor as it shifts very quick under light throttle. It doesn't feel too loose, and up on the highway with the GV engaged, it is exactly where it was before, 2200 at 60 MPH. The highway response is great, toe tip the gas a bit and the RPM comes up a bit and the car responds instantly. I didn't get on it as I want to break everything in and tune it for awhile. It was also very hot with temperatures in the 90's. I got stuck in some traffic on the way home. The car felt great and the highest temperature I saw was 183*. If everything goes well, I will run the car again at Cecil county on September 18th and see if I can improve my times.
