My trip to the track...
Right off the bat, I have to say..I am having fun! Last time at the track we played with the timing and managed to whittle a 13.50 down to a 13.23 @ 102.58. Over the last few weeks I have made some changes to the car. The first change was to the lightest secondary spring Holley makes which is the white spring. I though it might cause a bog, but with the 3200 stall converter and 3.91 gears it was not a problem.
The second change I made was to the pinion angle. Seems I swapped in the 8 3/4 without a single pinion angle wedge in between the perch and the spring. When I checked the pinion angle I found it was pointing up 1 degree. I swapped in 4 degree wedges and now the pinion is pointing down 3 degrees. I think it needs more downward angle and I have 6 degree wedges waiting in the wings for another day.
The third change is one that is not highly regarded on this board and I have to admit my first attempt at it last year was a dismal failure. This time around I went with the "Taurus" fan to replace my 7 paddle fixed fan. I want to say that this mod was not trivial by any means. In order to fit the fan I had to trim the shroud to make it thinner. I also had to recess the radiator into the radiator support and shift it to the driver's side and inch to get the fan motor to clear the water pump pulley. I wired the fan to a soft start controller the starts the fan at 60% speed at your set temperature and ramps the fan speed up to 100% when the engine reaches 10 degrees over the set temperature. The controller also has a manual over-ride to shut down the fans with a switch. I bought a throttle switch and planned to have the throttle switch shut off the fans at WOT. As it turns out I never got around to wiring up this switch. The controller also runs the fans for an additional 30 seconds after you turn off the car. This turned out to be very handy in the staging lanes to cool off the engine.
Now to the good stuff>>>
My first pass resulted in the following:
I hung the shifts out a little further then intended as I saw the tach hit 6300 rpm. I think the pinion angle change helped out the 60 foot times as the 1.86 beats my old record of 1.89.
The next pass I got the shifts in at 6000 RPM which resulted in:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-...AAAAAAD8/dtb8grz8d6s/s640/Dart090314_1302.jpg
The follow up pass resulted in....
I am so close at this point.... I decided to pull the spare tire and jack out of the trunk and remove my tool bag to reduce weight. The problem is I was pulling weight over the back wheels. Back at the starting line for what was likely my last pass of the night, I got a little eager off the starting line and blew the tires away resulting in a 13.22 @ 105 MPH.
Based off the MPH, I had more then enough power to run as 12.99x if only I could hook it up. I slipped into the back of the staging lanes for one more pass. I really took my time staging and EASED into the throttle leaving the starting line resulting in...
And just like that....another milestone!
Right off the bat, I have to say..I am having fun! Last time at the track we played with the timing and managed to whittle a 13.50 down to a 13.23 @ 102.58. Over the last few weeks I have made some changes to the car. The first change was to the lightest secondary spring Holley makes which is the white spring. I though it might cause a bog, but with the 3200 stall converter and 3.91 gears it was not a problem.
The second change I made was to the pinion angle. Seems I swapped in the 8 3/4 without a single pinion angle wedge in between the perch and the spring. When I checked the pinion angle I found it was pointing up 1 degree. I swapped in 4 degree wedges and now the pinion is pointing down 3 degrees. I think it needs more downward angle and I have 6 degree wedges waiting in the wings for another day.
The third change is one that is not highly regarded on this board and I have to admit my first attempt at it last year was a dismal failure. This time around I went with the "Taurus" fan to replace my 7 paddle fixed fan. I want to say that this mod was not trivial by any means. In order to fit the fan I had to trim the shroud to make it thinner. I also had to recess the radiator into the radiator support and shift it to the driver's side and inch to get the fan motor to clear the water pump pulley. I wired the fan to a soft start controller the starts the fan at 60% speed at your set temperature and ramps the fan speed up to 100% when the engine reaches 10 degrees over the set temperature. The controller also has a manual over-ride to shut down the fans with a switch. I bought a throttle switch and planned to have the throttle switch shut off the fans at WOT. As it turns out I never got around to wiring up this switch. The controller also runs the fans for an additional 30 seconds after you turn off the car. This turned out to be very handy in the staging lanes to cool off the engine.
Now to the good stuff>>>
My first pass resulted in the following:
I hung the shifts out a little further then intended as I saw the tach hit 6300 rpm. I think the pinion angle change helped out the 60 foot times as the 1.86 beats my old record of 1.89.
The next pass I got the shifts in at 6000 RPM which resulted in:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-...AAAAAAD8/dtb8grz8d6s/s640/Dart090314_1302.jpg
The follow up pass resulted in....
I am so close at this point.... I decided to pull the spare tire and jack out of the trunk and remove my tool bag to reduce weight. The problem is I was pulling weight over the back wheels. Back at the starting line for what was likely my last pass of the night, I got a little eager off the starting line and blew the tires away resulting in a 13.22 @ 105 MPH.
Based off the MPH, I had more then enough power to run as 12.99x if only I could hook it up. I slipped into the back of the staging lanes for one more pass. I really took my time staging and EASED into the throttle leaving the starting line resulting in...
And just like that....another milestone!