Slow 1/8 with 74 440 dart

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318willrun said:
I'll just say, without disrespect to anyone else ...... You do NOT need to start buying a bunch of new parts and throw them at it to go faster than 9.1 @ 78 mph. Let's forget what's under the hood for a minute and look at the rest of the car.
  • A-body with 4.56 gears, 3000 stall
That alone sets up basically a stock 318 4bbl to about run those numbers. This is why I would not start ordering new converters, or swapping anything. Yes, probably there are better pieces, but certainly not needed to go faster than 9.1. Just work with what you got and dissect it all. You'll be in the deep 7's. That's my take.
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i agree too, i've seen much more streetable cars run same ET or better. i think once i throw in my A/F ratio gauge next spring and dial in my carb/ timing curve i'll be a lot happier. don't get me wrong this car is a blast to drive. minus MS/MB lolz
 
NoahSewal said:
150+ psi on all cylinders. i made the newbie mistake of not degreeing the cam when i put it together, this was my first engine build after all. but double checked dots are lined up. at some point i want to rebuild the engine with better heads, higher lift roller cam and maybe some stroke lol. at that point i'll start degreeing all my engines. but for now it is what it is
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So when you degree it in you may want to put a little more advance into it. I knew from the sound of it that it wasn't degreed in....it just didn't sound right from your description. That cam has probably more overlap than the 264-268 @.050 cam I have in my 470 but you can make it work.
 
318willrun said:
I'll just say, without disrespect to anyone else ...... You do NOT need to start buying a bunch of new parts and throw them at it to go faster than 9.1 @ 78 mph. Let's forget what's under the hood for a minute and look at the rest of the car.
  • A-body with 4.56 gears, 3000 stall
That alone sets up basically a stock 318 4bbl to about run those numbers. This is why I would not start ordering new converters, or swapping anything. Yes, probably there are better pieces, but certainly not needed to go faster than 9.1. Just work with what you got and dissect it all. You'll be in the deep 7's. That's my take.
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But it’s not a stock 318. It’s a 440 lol
 
71Demon528 said:
Awesome. Did that help it pretty good?
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yes it revs to 6k very smoothly now. i was so impressed how much of a difference that made. i think based off of my plug readings though i've got a bit of tuning to do with my carb. i've got pretty mild jets and a 3.5hg power valve to accommodate my 7 pounds of vacuum at idle and one step lighter secondary spring. something's gotta be up though.
 
MOPARMAGA said:
Did you degree in the cam correctly, that should be a tire frier on second thought you probably only have 9.3:1 compression and that cam is 244 @ .050.....you need way more stall, should be flashing atleast 3800 to make everything work properly
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definitely has the torque to roast the tires. spins through 2nd with no foot brake on the street. but absolutely no spin when i hit the track. i have a feeling my poor timing curve at the time had something to do with that though. wish i could've gotten out again before it got so cold
 
NoahSewal said:
yes it revs to 6k very smoothly now. i was so impressed how much of a difference that made. i think based off of my plug readings though i've got a bit of tuning to do with my carb. i've got pretty mild jets and a 3.5hg power valve to accommodate my 7 pounds of vacuum at idle and one step lighter secondary spring. something's gotta be up though.
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That’s good. Sucks you gotta wait til next season to try it out though. And I’m not saying start buying all this stuff, I’m simply saying I agree with converter being part of what’s holding it back. In bracket racing, converter and carb make or break a good setup. So since you got the timing figured out and it revs smooth, now you can focus attention elsewhere. With having all winter ahead of you, you can always a call a converter manufacturer and get their recommendation on what you should have for your setup being that it’s a street strip car. And at least get an idea of how close or how far off your current converter is.
 
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71Demon528 said:
That’s good. Sucks you gotta wait til next season to try it out though.
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it does ha. i live in iowa and half the year it's too cold to do anything outside. i've got a 68 torino gt i gotta get busy on body work wise (ford i know i know) so i've got plenty to keep me busy this winter though. next year i want to get to the track a lot more. and yea i understand that it's just a recommendation. used to have an even tighter converter in it and it was terrible. so i'm sure if i went looser than 3000 it would only get better
 
318willrun said:
I'll just say, without disrespect to anyone else ...... You do NOT need to start buying a bunch of new parts and throw them at it to go faster than 9.1 @ 78 mph. Let's forget what's under the hood for a minute and look at the rest of the car.
  • A-body with 4.56 gears, 3000 stall
That alone sets up basically a stock 318 4bbl to about run those numbers. This is why I would not start ordering new converters, or swapping anything. Yes, probably there are better pieces, but certainly not needed to go faster than 9.1. Just work with what you got and dissect it all. You'll be in the deep 7's. That's my take.
Click to expand...
i know this is not what this thread is about but do you think my plug readings are so black because of my engine wanting so much initial timing?
 
NoahSewal said:
it does ha. i live in iowa and half the year it's too cold to do anything outside. i've got a 68 torino gt i gotta get busy on body work wise (ford i know i know) so i've got plenty to keep me busy this winter though. next year i want to get to the track a lot more
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Well that gives you all winter to go over the car and make it race ready come next season.

Ford Torino GT is a sweet car. I dc if it’s not a mopar lol.
 
NoahSewal said:
i know this is not what this thread is about but do you think my plug readings are so black because of my engine wanting so much initial timing?
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It's hard to see from the pictures, but you could have a bad ignition system component, along with bad timing, and a carb that's not right either. I personally would inspect all of those components and make sure each of those was working properly. Is that carb from a known good running car? Or was it new? Are the metering blocks warped? I mean, I think you have more than one contributing factor here. Have you verified TDC ? Or is the balancer reading wrong on your timing.....
 
71Demon528 said:
Well that gives you all winter to go over the car and make it race ready come next season.

Ford Torino GT is a sweet car. I dc if it’s not a mopar lol.
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glad to see people on here can appreciate non mopar stuff. i've got an s10 too that i want to make a stick drag truck out of. but only so much time to do what i want. my dart right now is definitely priority
 
What type of exhaust manifolds or headers are you running?
 
318willrun said:
It's hard to see from the pictures, but you could have a bad ignition system component, along with bad timing, and a carb that's not right either. I personally would inspect all of those components and make sure each of those was working properly. Is that carb from a known good running car? Or was it new? Are the metering blocks warped? I mean, I think you have more than one contributing factor here. Have you verified TDC ? Or is the balancer reading wrong on your timing.....
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yea verified balancer is reading right with TDC. and i've got a few carbs to play with to troubleshoot it out. i'd also like to swap to HEI or an msd box of the sorts at some point
 
NoahSewal said:
definitely has the torque to roast the tires. spins through 2nd with no foot brake on the street. but absolutely no spin when i hit the track. i have a feeling my poor timing curve at the time had something to do with that though. wish i could've gotten out again before it got so cold
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You'll get it there. I wish I was your age again lol.
 
MOPARMAGA said:
Try adding a little more pipe you might be killing your bottom end for the track
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i agree, when i had my 318 still in it and i went from full exhaust with manifolds to open headers it was a very noticeable difference in the bottom end. this next spring i hope to get full exhaust on it as well. should make it a bit more lively in low rpm
 
If it's running a 2+ second 60 ft, without spinning a tire, thats where I would look for a solution. With 4.56 gear, and traction, that should be at least a 1.75. Save 2.5 tenths off the 60, and you'll be .75 quicker at the quarter, at least a half second to the eighth.
I don't know about solid sevens, but I would sure expect very low eights out of your combo.
There is a serious case of missing power, somewhere.
 
33IMP said:
If it's running a 2+ second 60 ft, without spinning a tire, thats where I would look for a solution. With 4.56 gear, and traction, that should be at least a 1.75. Save 2.5 tenths off the 60, and you'll be .75 quicker at the quarter, at least a half second to the eighth.
I don't know about solid sevens, but I would sure expect very low eights out of your combo.
There is a serious case of missing power, somewhere.
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I agree, but the MPH is really soft as well which indicates it's not making power (for a hopped up 440 anyways) ..lol
My D150 long bed runs low 8's with less gear, less converter, more weight and more wind resistance and a 200,000 mile 5.9. I see lower 7's with his combo
 
NoahSewal said:
150+ psi on all cylinders. i made the newbie mistake of not degreeing the cam when i put it together, this was my first engine build after all. but double checked dots are lined up. at some point i want to rebuild the engine with better heads, higher lift roller cam and maybe some stroke lol. at that point i'll start degreeing all my engines. but for now it is what it is
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That's a very simple engine to take back apart and degree the cam.
 
318willrun said:
I'll just say, without disrespect to anyone else ...... You do NOT need to start buying a bunch of new parts and throw them at it to go faster than 9.1 @ 78 mph. Let's forget what's under the hood for a minute and look at the rest of the car.
  • A-body with 4.56 gears, 3000 stall
That alone sets up basically a stock 318 4bbl to about run those numbers. This is why I would not start ordering new converters, or swapping anything. Yes, probably there are better pieces, but certainly not needed to go faster than 9.1. Just work with what you got and dissect it all. You'll be in the deep 7's. That's my take.
Click to expand...
I agree 100% the lowest cost solution is always to tune what's "there".
 
RustyRatRod said:
That's a very simple engine to take back apart and degree the cam.
Click to expand...
i have never degrees a cam yet so i'm sure it would be a learning curve. do you have to get tdc by pulling the head on the ds or could i just stick something through the spark plug hole and have someone rotate the engine?
 
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