Well, today was a good day all around. Got some tuning done on the PJ III system and decided I needed a highway pull to stretch the old girls legs. Pull onto the highway doing 45 and once I'm on the straight and narrow, drop the hammer and take her up to 5000rpm. I've never seen a speedo go to 120 and peg so quickly. After successfully holding it there for a good 15 seconds after i had the speedo pegged, I finally let off. SUCCESS. Anyway, on to the story. So there I was driving along MMOB, suns going down and I just got done hitting a bucket of balls at the local range and i see this beautiful Yellow with Black Racing Stripes Chevelle going the opposite direction of me. I take the next left hoping to meet it at the next road over to no avail...he must've turned the other way. It was right before i made my right onto the main road, i spot a black Camaro at the light to my left waiting to go the same direction. So i take my turn and get out in front of traffic and wait. Luckily, I come up to the next light first and guess who joins me in the lane to my right? This beautiful 69 Black Camaro, with a MEAN BBC lope, loud exhaust, and drag wheels. I look over and say nice car and hope he'll go for the dig run. Light tunrs green and nothing. Maybe he didn't think the Buick had any guts. So i run out first real quick and all of sudden up comes the Camaro. I enjoy the absolute terror of an exhaust he had. WOW was that thing mean. The next light is also red and I have two cars in front of me and he only has one. We cross the intersection and he's holding back waiting for me. I'm in first at this point, trying to hold it until i get up next to him. I'm creeping to 4000rpm, only 500 away from when my transmission will shift, and when my bumper gets up to his door he goes. He shots off with an immediate car and half on me. I quickly push my foot through the floorboard and change lanes to get behind him. I manually shift it into second and his lead is up to two and half cars. To my surprise, he stopped gaining at that point. Before we couldn't go much further; we had to slow for traffic. I got over to make my turn and gave the guy a thumbs up. It was fun to see a drag car like that next to my big ole Rivi. Maybe next time, I'll get to go from a dig and see how she really does. I know he'll probably win, but I bet he'll be surprised this big old boat can keep up. I will say this though, I regret switching to the SP1...the low end torque I've lost has made this heavy car FEEL heavier off the line. I can feel the power increase at higher speeds, but I almost never drive on the highway and today, that extra torque would've really helped. According to my computer dyno, I gave up close to 60 ft-lbs at peak torque and am down an average of 40 ft-lbs until 4500 rpm where the SP1 finally starting showing it's prowess. Sigh. Lesson learned...heavy street car needs low end TORQUE, not high end power. Guess it's time for that turbo project...
what converter are you running ? for years I was running a loose 11" that was approx. a 23-2500 stall. I didn't want to go any high because I do alot of highway driving and didn't want it slipping at highway rpms ... JW, board owner and Trishield Performance owner as well hooked me up with a 9.5" 3000 stall converter that is every bit as street friendly as my old one - but OMG !!! it is light years ahead as far as coming out of the hole. The thing instantly snaps me right into the powerband
