Why is my car so DAMN SLOW????

There are a lot of gains to be made in the details. Have you played around with advance curves, timing, jetting, secondary springs, etc ?

An an example, I had a '32 roadster with a 351 that went from 14.4 to 13.9 just by changing from a shitty 10" aircleaner to a 14" K&N.

I wouldn't rush out and do things like changing rear gears until you have got the best out of the combo you have now. Anyway, if you are going to race on street tyres, too much gear and stall speed will just spin the wheels.

 

My best run of the day of the HAMB drags was a 13.4. I have ran a 13.2 on that strip before and so I do not think the heat effected the track a lot. My poorest time of the day was my run against you at a 13.8 and that run was in the hotter part of the day. I am going back there to run in the Hot Rod Reunion in two weeks. I am looking for some 3:73 gears to replace the 3:23 that I currently run. I have ran in the street rod shoot out the last few years and have found that most fast daily driven hot rods run in the high 13’s to 14’s. The Model A sedan at the drags with the blower motor has been driven from OK to Indy Goodguys and ran in the street rod shoot out, before being driven back to OK. I have seen him run in the low 12’s and be street legal. These are the cars that you can drive half way across the United States without problems. A fast car that could be driven on the street is the red coupe we saw at the drags that will run in the 10’s but I would not want to drive it a long distance to an event. I think your car is probably a low 12’s car and you could still drive it daily. If you start messing with it too much, you will end up with a drag car and then kiss your street driving good bye. I will give you a year to mess with it, and then bring it back here. I want a redo.

 

why not rush out and buy GEARS?

First thing I would do...
NOT buying gears is having the same mentality that buying a bigger carb will make your car go faster... WTF?

My buddy has been trying to beat my 5 liter ever since he got his 67 firebird on the road.

Hes spent over 22 grand in his quest. The car is MINT.

The bigest single thing that made his car go faster was his GEARS???

it doesnt mater if you have 400 HP or 200 HP
you not gonna GO anywhere in the 1/4 or 1/8 if you dont have the right drive train.

He invested in strange axles and 4 different combos of gears.

He bought a 6AL, went from 350 to 455 pontiac big block... did everything you could imagine, best carb intake combo, did his research... got down in the low 12's on the "strip"

Guess what... all that money on his engine got him NOWHERE... over 400HP and MY 270HP with the right GEARS still kicked his ass by 2 car lenghs in the quarter.

WHY? b/c of gears and suspension...

that was OFF the bottle.

I agree that a 12 second car is fast. 13's is ok... that'll scare yer mom and impress your g/f... but a solid 12 et will plant your ass in the seat.

I spent alot of time Drag racing my 5.0, but i never brag about it here... Theres a drag strip 15 miles from my house. I also had NOS 150HP w/ 15# bottle.. tokyo about and I emptied the bottle in one night~ then toppers shindig where i ran it about 35 times down the 1/8 mile at there show n go~

I think there are alot of guys on this board with REAL seat time in a car that just dont talk about it here...

I was really into racing for a while then moved on... just like a stint I had with mud trucks... never wavered from rods and kustoms....

Go buy a set of gears... best investement twards a quicker ET you could make...

a stock mustang suspension alone was good for taking a 14.8 to a 13.3
Gears shaved a second and a half off my et,
NOS shaved another FULL SECOND
slicks another half...


horsepower means SHIT
Tuck

 

Flamedabone, I think your engine could be down on what actual power you think, the suggestions for tuning the advance curve and the timing, etc. are all good ones. However, the biggest improvement you can make is gears and some converter. I think you would gain a bunch even with a new good quality converter. A good converter will multiply the torque by a factor of 2 or so. The gears will help get the engine up in the power range, but at the expense of freeway rpms. A turbo 400 does take a lot of power to operate vs a turbo 350. You can also look into suspension improvements so you can plant the tires harder and get better traction even with street tires, I do not recall what your rear suspension is.

Now that we discussed ideas on going faster, do not take it so hard about your times. Compare to what almost everyone else was running and you see that your car was in tha faster 20% of cars at MoKan. Even higher if you take out the dedicated drag cars.

BTW, Pontiacs are torque motors, so use that to your advantage, they not high rpm screamers.

 

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too bad it only hauls one pussy, and hes the driver.

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Dammit, I KNEW you were gonna come back with something like that...

shitshitshit...

NO! You're just plain WRONG, ok?!

 

Ryan I think you missed what I was saying...I was not talking about a traditional hot rod running 12's. I would not say FlamedAbones hot rod is traditional, a very cool hot rod it is but not traditional.. When I was talking about 12's runs, I was talking about fast street cars (any make). I agree 12's in a traditional hot rod is fast. especially with what was available at the time...

From driving and riding in it around here I know it is quicker then what he posted at the drags...

As for your ride, I know it is fast from run times you have talked about here on the board and probably capable of whooping on most truly streetable sreet cars out there.. I only wish I had something that ran that well. Flamer was telling me how bad it sounded

 

Seriously...at 101MPH, the engine just isnt making good horsepower. I'd like to know what the engine combination is?
Cam profile, ignition, carburation,exhaust,etc.
Not to make you feel bad, but my '74 Corvette 350 I/SA ran 11.80's @ 110MPH weighting a class weight of 3610#s.
Maybe we can help!
Glenn

 

Do you want a streetable hot rod or do you want a drag car?

Don't matter to me but it seems like you chose your combo for what you knew you were going to use the car for. I think you succeeded. Why change now?

On the other hand if you want to go racing, you need to build a racing combo.

Pick your sacrafices. If you like the road manners of your car then don't change it just to brag about a few seconds.

The only car I've ever been truely scared in as a passenger (I've ridden shotgun in cafe racers etc. and even on the back of a few psycho crotch rocket bikes) was a friend of mine's hoosier sponsered, true low 12 second 67 camaro. Felt like the fucking thing was flying.

 

It's more than horsepower, it's the whole combination.
Traction, weight distribution, tire size and pressure, rear ratio and tranny gears all designed to keep the engine in it's powerband as much as possible on the track and put the power thru the tires to the track. Your engine spends much more time climbing to it's HP peak than at that peak during a race. If you're shifting to below the RPM where it makes power, you're wasting time getting back into the power band. Make sense? It's the torque curve and traction that wins races, not the peak HP. Your mother's grocery getter could beat John Force if he spins the tires!

 

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Your mother's grocery getter could beat John Force if he spins the tires!


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Sorry Joe, but I have to disagree. I have seen fuelers smoke the tires all the way down the 1/4 and run 8's!
I see where you're going with it though, and it is a valid point.
Seriously though, there should be a lot of potential in your car if if you can just get the combo optimized. I do not think you would have to sacrafice ANY streetability to gain a ton of performance. We really do need the details on your combo to be any major help though!

 

I plugged a few figures into Quarter Jr ...

1000ft elevation, 104 degrees, barometer 29.8 (guessed this one) and 75% humidity (and this one).

400 Cubes, 400 hp @ 5500, shifting at 6000 rpm, TH400 with 2000 stall speed, 3.25 gears and 30 inch tall tires, 8 inches wide and 2400 lbs.

This combination has the potential to do 12.11 at 119.3 mph (4350 rpm at the finish).

Changing the gears to 4.11 improves it to 11.60 at 121 mph (5590 rpm at the finish).

So sure, it will run faster with some 4.11's, but a big engine in a light car can also go pretty damned quick with highway friendly gears.

 

13.40 is not slow.

a little tuning, the right gears, get it to hook and I bet you can do better-

that's a given.

but how fast DO you want to go?

12's?, 11's??, 10's??!??

when is it fast enough?

if it were me I'd refine the combo and be happy with 13 flat.

(or 12.9's)

Paul

 

What were the incremental times and MPH? Shift points. Launch RPM. Trap RPM? Etc... If the car doesn't 60' you got nothing. Toss the brick or throw the brick, which goes faster and farther in the same time period? Gears always help, but you need to get to root causes of situation first. Enough fuel volume and pressure, timing, suspension set up (no binding/shaft angle/free movement and full range of motion/right shocks, tire size/pressure, weight transfer, and on and on. Do not spend dime one until the present set up is maximized. It should be a mid 12 car if it is what you say with some very cheap work.

 

I agree with Ryan on all the points he makes, but as a resident "greybeard"here , I'd have to respectfully caution him about stating he's "spent more time at the dragstrip" than any other HAMBer. More time than any other 28-year-old member maybe!

As someone with more than a 30-year headstart on the young lad, I'm guessing he still has a few (hundred) more visits to the track before his attendance figures catch up with some of the "old timers" here. (-:

All those who talked about getting the right "combination" - and taking care of the little things are absolutely on track. Also, I have to throw in with the group advising a deeper rear end gear. Decide what ratio you think you can live with on the street, and do the tuning and details to suit that gear.

 

I was watching my video of your runs last night and you didn't do as bad as you would have yourself believe. After all, a street driven, street geared car turning 13.40's on street tires with 105 degree heat ain't bad at all!
Strip gears, slicks and a super-tune would have your sedan in the 11's easily but! All at the sacrifice of streetability in your street car. Compromise costs tenths. What do you really want? A racer or a street car? After all, you DID drive the car all the way from the east coast, right? Try doing that with a dedicated race car. I agree there's a little more that can be done without loosing too much streetability but how much will you be willing to lose?
All this diatribe coming from the guy turning mid 20's in a wore out Rambler.......

 

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I agree with Ryan on all the points he makes, but as a resident "greybeard"here , I'd have to respectfully caution him about stating he's "spent more time at the dragstrip" than any other HAMBer. More time than any other 28-year-old member maybe!

As someone with more than a 30-year headstart on the young lad, I'm guessing he still has a few (hundred) more visits to the track before his attendance figures catch up with some of the "old timers" here. (-:



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Do you mean time at the strip or time in the drivers seat?

 

Okay - 2 points to make.
First- Hey Savage, is your cousin named Robert? Does he have blondish, thinning hair? If so, he owes me money. If not, sorry for the inquiry.

Next - Making a Pontiac sing is not about high rpm horsepower, its about low rpm torque. You should be shifting at 5,500 or so, and you should be running a Ram Air IV cam or a modern copy of it. Go to www.classicalpontiac.com and ask a few questions - the guys there are Poncho experts and will help you out. The 400 Pontiac is a great motor when properly equipped, but you can't build it, run it, or treat it like a small-block Chevy cuz it's a different animal altogether. Launch at low rpm (like 2,000-2,500), shift at 5,500, and you'll pick up some time. Let the grunt of the Poncho pull ya, and don't ask it to wind up real high cuz it loses power up there..which may account for your low trap speeds. Ponchos will earn your love and respect, but you have to treat em' right and run them where they like to make good power.