The Walmart Effect

-
Mrmopartech

Mrmopartech

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 5, 2005
Messages
2,149
Reaction score
90
Location
St.Lazare Quebec Canada
Today we stand here arguing mine is bigger than yours and has to be better and I have more high price parts thans your so mine must be faster!In the world of HP we are lead to believe that the next thing in the new magazine is the best part for my car.And you know what,some is,but it only gains you little Hp,because you have not done your home work.At the start of being on this site,I stated that if you want to make your car go faster,look at the super stock class that your car is closest too and try to come as close to that as possible.Now alot of understanding has to go along with this,and a huge amount of thinking and creativety to come this level of performance,but it can be done.How many times do you see the 440 car get beat by a seemingly stock 360 and would WHY?If every thing is equal the 440 should win,but does not.The reason,the person behide the building of the car,and the details.Most,but not all people want to just buy of the self parts and go fast and claim victory at the track,when they don,t have a clue what,s going on at all.Performance from a motor,tranny,differential,comes from maching of the parts you have and blueprinting them to the maximume performance they can deliver.You can watch a stock and super stock cars pull off times that are unreal,and make wheels stands a 1/4 of the track,and we stand there with jaws wide open,saying how the hell do they do that.Your best freind in the performance world is not your local High Performance dealer,its your local race engine machinist and the small details they do to make your engine hit that sweet spot where every thing is in perfect tune.To many of us are over cammed,over carbed,parts that are on the car, that should never even seen a 100ft of street use.Too many of us use parts that are the deal of the week,which can be ok,if thats the part to make your combo correct.What good is a intake that can go to 8500rpm,when you never go higher than 6500,more wasted money,and a low performance engine,and this goes for many parts,that actually cause you to loss more than what you gain.The smart person that can sit back listen,ask question on who,what where,why,it is done,and wonders how is it a smaller motor is doing more than a bigger motor,and gets to know how its done is going to be the better person.If you think a engine builder is going to spill his or her guts on their combo to make things run great,your out of your mind.You will get a bit,just to make you want more.If I told you every part in my combo,or even bought you the parts and you did the work,you would still be miles behind me at the track,WHY,because of machining and detail to every little item in the car.How many of us have a library of over 50or 100 or 500 on mopar engines,trannys diffys?How many race manuals?Books on understanding the workings of a motor?How many of us have worked as a crew cheif,raced,and still race and build motors and cars for people to make others have a blast at the track with little cost and long lasting.The biggest thing to get through most peoples heads is you do not need mega dollar parts,to go fast,most of what you need is in your driveway and is just waiting for you to find it and machine it.Mrmopartech
 
All good points, especially the the details, we took a stock GTS `68 340 car, goal was to remain as stock as poss, internally the car was never touched, just the addition of 391 gears, hedders, and pinion snubber, the rest was attention to (detail) dist curve, carb jetting, and a lot of little tricks, low or no cost, when we first took the dart out first few runs the best we could muster was 14.50`s, rather embarrassing I thought, somewhere 100 mph mark, afterward we were running low 12.90`s / 110 mph, on street tires, which for a dailey driver back in `72 was relatively quick...!
 
Mrmopartech,
You must work at Walmart...............automotive service Eh?...................lol
Very well put!
 
Just my thought. When I bought my Duster. The first time I tookj it to the
strip i could only muster a 14.95. To much cam!! brought it back home and
have been improving on it sense. The cam- 484 lift. Did not touch inside the
engine. Changed the gears( 3.91), also had a trans with a 3000 stall vertor.
I ran a 13.78. It had 3.23s to start. Not bad. Changed the Intake to a Eddy
RPM Airgap and an x-pipe. Also changed the gears to 4.30s and ran a good
13.35. I am going to open the exhaust and tune the Carb. Hope to go into
the 12.9?. It don't take a lot of money, just a little tuning. Beat on those
ricers!!! Green Duster.
 
Well said. I love those Stock and Super Stock cars. I was lucky, my 340 was built by a engine builder for his car. It has very little in it. No trick anything just good machine work and dyno and track time. It has a re-worked stock forged crank and rods, light pins and pistons, well ported stock heads and a good intake and cam. Thats it.
 
We have a local legend(read douchbag dipshit) we call Pro Street Jeff. Jeff is about 4'9'' tall and has the attitude of a jackass twice his size. Now Jeff owns a trailor queen blown 440 cuda and to him it is the badest most unbeatable car that has ever been owned. Problem is that if he ever runs it and it doesnt break, then the best he could get out of it is a mid 13second pass. But something always went wrong where he let out of it or it isnt running right (even when he trailors it to the track 40 miles away then refuses to run it).
Yeah build a simple effective combo and go beat people like Pro Street Jeff. Thats a good time.
 
Thrashard340 said:
It's ironic how some people with less brain come up with more money.
Click to expand...
yeah it is ironic isnt it, very well put Mrmopartech, and it is very cool with a little tunning and some though/effort you can make a car run faster without spending more just by tweaking :toothy7:
 
I totaly agree with what your saying but,here I was going to build a nice humble 440 68 barracuda just sorted well no glammy stuff, happy to do 12.5s .And then (you know what is going to happen)some guy just pisses me right off and says his car is better than mine...you hearin me??

So now its going all the way (with OJ) just to stick it to that one guy .............noooo :pain10: w what Im talkin bout yeah!!!!!!

Cant wait to see his face ....(ill probably have to look in my rear view mirror)
Ps thought you yanks would like the OJ, joke or is that a sore talking point..

CAN ANY ONE RELATE ???
 
This is too funny!.......KUDO'S Mr Mopartech!
But it's true, nice to see a old school racer teach these new kid's something hopefully they will listen, but we'll see.............something about a 10 second 318..........
 
BJR Racing said:
This is too funny!.......KUDO'S Mr Mopartech!
But it's true, nice to see a old school racer teach these new kid's something hopefully they will listen, but we'll see.............something about a 10 second 318..........
Click to expand...

I wish I had the money right now cause I'd be working on that 10 sec 318....but a new house and wife doesn't leave much for a engine building budget. Everything you guys have said is right......this year I am spending no money on the car other than for gas and oil and I am hoping to get to the 11.50's or faster.
 
Duster, you're not seeing what the intent of this post is. The details..not the parts bought, are what makes a CAR outstanding. I capitalized "car" on purpose. to get a result of elapsed time takes more than an engine. Much more. Only about 30% of a car's result can be directly attributed to the power plant alone. Much more imortant is the other parts, that maximize the efect of that power plant. Engines dont make ETs. They only make "X" amount of power. Read that as MPH. How that power is controlled and directed is what makes ETs. The attention to details on the controlling of every ounce of power that engine makes defines (at leas tin my opinion) how "good" one racer is. Notice I didnt mention the engine builder. In some cases, the engine builder is the car's tech too. In those rare instances, almost "magic" things can happen.
 
I see what you are saying and I agree....but my point is I made the mistake the first time around of just buying some parts and putting them together......With the knowledge that I have now I would have chosen different parts. I can't afford to start over so I am now am going to tweak and optimize what I have and squeeze every bit I can out of my combo. My engine is running great but now I have to work on the rest of the "system" to get the best times. My suspension is what I have to work on now.....putting the power to the ground to get the best ET I can. I think we are saying the same thing just coming from different starting points.
 
moper said:
Duster, you're not seeing what the intent of this post is. The details..not the parts bought, are what makes a CAR outstanding. I capitalized "car" on purpose. to get a result of elapsed time takes more than an engine. Much more. Only about 30% of a car's result can be directly attributed to the power plant alone. Much more imortant is the other parts, that maximize the efect of that power plant. Engines dont make ETs. They only make "X" amount of power. Read that as MPH. How that power is controlled and directed is what makes ETs. The attention to details on the controlling of every ounce of power that engine makes defines (at leas tin my opinion) how "good" one racer is. Notice I didnt mention the engine builder. In some cases, the engine builder is the car's tech too. In those rare instances, almost "magic" things can happen.
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree with you more Moper, you could sum it all up by saying that attention to detail is one of the most important mind sets when it comes to building these cars. I've been building my own BB's for over 30 years and it's what I know. I've always started at the engine and worked my way to the tires but since I build them as stock "appearing" street machines primarily I have to temper my enthusiasm to keep from building something that turns into a trailer queen. I'm not saying trailer queens are bad it's just not my cup of tea. As an example, I can afford to go out and buy the aluminum heads for max. performance but choose instead to port my own heads cause they're mine. The other point I want to make is to tell the guys and gals to build what you want, get the advise and guidance and then go do it. My latest adventure is a perfect example of what goes against the grain of some car enthusiasts. They come up to me at shows and remark that that Demon shouldn't have a BB in it to which I reply that I am not a conformist and Barrett Jackson can kiss my :butthead:. My motto is simple "eyes open and learn from your mistakes"

Terry :burnout:
 
Its completely true. Like i've said before, im 21, and have a 340 Formula S Barracuda and a 73 Duster. The Duster is my nickel and dime car, basically i fix something on it everytime I get more money. I like it like this. I could never afford to do a concours restoration or super high budget build, nor would I really want to. I have learned from my dad about doing things the 'old way'. Besides, a feel proud of what I have done on what I have. I'm actually building the cuda' for my longtime girl of 5 years. She has been turned into a mopar fanatic as well. But i digress. I added the edelbrock 4 bbl setup, the comp 260 cam, lifters,roller timing chain,new valve seals,valvesprings, magnaflow 2.5 inch dual exhaust, Trans-Go improved 904,and other cosmetic work,including new hemi orange paint. Its not perfect, but it looks great for what it is and runs great. Im proud of it. With the current,well taken care of, but soon to be replaced 7.25 rear and 2.76 gears, it still runs 15.0 e.t.s. I consider that to be very good for the combo. The key is that i knew that you need to build for torque on 318's,due to the heads and compression. If you know this stuff, you can avoid dumping tons of money into a motor that will be as slow as a greyhound bus, relative to the money that is spent. It just takes a little thinking and a little know-how.The cuda runs 14.1, but I have a lot of tuning to due still, just so hard to find time with work and school. Good luck to you all and keep Ma Mopar going. :salute:
 
Well, years ago i moved my hobby shop to 1/2 of a 4 bay heavy truck garage. I had the office, the bathroom, a storage room, and a 30x50 open floor. My neighbors were there already, and had two smaller bays. And no bathroom...So I got to see a lot of them. Over several years, I learned a lot. One raced Super Gas once in a blue moon with a 500" FE ina Fox mustang. The other ran Stock Eliminator running in classes from D to M. He held NHRA national records for 5 classes at one point. He also happens to be one of the most honest guys you'll ever meet. To the point of saying he "gave up" a little power just to make sure the tech inspector had a little room for error when inspecting his engine. I ended up doing the repairs on the SE guy's daily driver, and we spent many nights talking about heads and stock port designs. He now has a nice house, and an SF600 bench in the garage. But more than heads, I learned about dialing in the bellhousing, chassis set up (he ran a 4sp), fuel system tesing and requirements, wiring hints (the other guy there still wires race cars on the side), reading slicks, keeping a log book, you name it. He needed one pass and his weather station and the tune was spot on. In fact, he trailered my car to the track for me the very first time I raced. Now just so you dont think he's the automotive messiah, he got a Mustang from Ford (yes, ford gave him a '96 mustang cobra test mule body) and he went to Super Stock. The first time he went to test, he broke both his Jericho 4sps, plus one he borrowed from a friend at the track. With the big tires and race suspension, you cant dump a tight clutch at 6800 and expect not to break things...lol. It's an all new learing curve. I guess that was where I was going here. We hear only a fragment of each car's story. I'm always willing to believe as long as the science says it could happen. But it takes a certain type of person to get the sciencing done and have the result look better than it "should".
 
MtNemoMopar said:
Damn, I thought you were going to tell us about a good deal at Walmart.

But you are right.
Click to expand...

I agree. I thought he was going to tell us about the Walmart discount Hemi motor
 
Geesh, all this talk about matching and tuning and tweaking.

I'll just be happy when I can put the car in passing gear without ending up on the side of the road with an overheated transmission.
:burnout:
 
I just bought a 70 Dart Swinger 318 car all stock.My plan with it right now is to just clean/tune it up right and drive it.

Well I have completed the tune up (plugs,wires,points,cap,filters,timing advance) etc.....

The other day I picked up a buddy to do some x-mas shopping.Wouldnt you know it we pulled up to a red light right next to a brand new norstar cadalac.I explained to my friend what a norstar cad was and that they were pretty quick cars.Sure enough the light turned green and this guy wanted to go.So we both stomped on it.We were door handle to door handle with this guy for about a 1/8 mile, much to his shurgrin.He ended up turning left at the next light with a big thumbs up to us.Classic!!

I looked at my buddy and told him if I didnt have his 220 pound :butthead: in the car I could have taken him.

Tune it!!!!!
Good stuff. :thumbup:

oh walmart=rotella
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
-

Back
Top