tfeverfred said:
I have talked a lot with Brian at TP also and the stories he tells of his big block T are words to remember. 130-140 MPH at the track and not even trying! Main problem, hooking up.
I saw the videos. The car was not anywhere close to getting the shovel in the dirt. The excessive wheel speed so early in the run was likely what made his MPH number so big.
Nailbomb, boys will be boys, so we all know there will be those times we'll be getting after it. But a 10 second ride wants a 6 point bar, at an absolute minimum. (At least if I'm driving it does!
) And seats bolted securely and sandwiching metal floor pans. With safety harnesses bolted to tabs welded to frames, crossmembers and rollbars.
Fred, I think the low-mileage, high HP cars are a result of poor planning. I see guys doing it every day of the week at the shop. They know high compression means high octane and they don't want to be paying $6-$8 for racing fuel. So they try to build 9.0:1 motors with huge camshafts and tunnel rams. The low static compression ratio pistons and the long duration cams equal low cylinder pressures and the long intake runners with the huge plenum want to work at 6500 RPM, not 1500 RPM. Put all that in front of an automatic trans and you're suddenly trying to get a converter that stall high enough to get the motor up where it's happy in a vehicle with very low curb weights.
A few weeks back I had a customer talk to me about a cam for a computer-controlled 350 Chevy 4X4 pick-up with an automatic. He wanted a 'rough idle' and I explained the stock computer wasn't going allow it. So, he went and talked to his mechanic, 'who builds all kinds of motors for race cars' and came back to me wanting some outlandish cam. I can't recall the exact numbers but it was something like advertised duration figures up around 280. I kept trying to explain it would run like a sad sack and he would have to drive the truck in 2nd, just to keep RPM's up high enough to pull the truck down the road. But he insisted his guy was right, so you know what happened. I sold him a cam.
A week later, he's on the phone. The truck won't idle in gear and if he's on an open highway and floors it, it slows down when it hits high gear until it's barely running at all. He's all depressed about life. I reminded him that his guy was the engine expert, offered to order him a second cam that WOULD work in his truck and cut him loose. <shrug> I've only been doing this stuff for 34 years, what could I possibly know, right?
The 'behind the scenes joke' at the shop is if all you want is a rough idle, unplug a vacuum line.
And yes, I do have a cam we cut the front four lobes from, so I can provide that 3/4 cam that so many people want to buy.
