Update: Car is race ready! Mounted and balanced the slicks today, dropped 7 gallons of race fuel in the tank, installed the new SFI seat belts and went for a road test with the 52/52 jets in the nitrous system.

Frankly my eldest son was not impressed, lol! Nothing like the movies he says! I knew it was hauling ass by the amount of braking required and still overshot the driveway.

To be honest I forgot how... modest a 175 hp shot is on this car, I'm thinking about tossing the 59/59 jets in tomorrow when I uncork the exhaust and load it on the trailer. The automatic also lulls you into complacency, not as violent compared to when I was rowing my own gears with a 4 speed..

Will keep you posted if we hit the track this weekend, rain may or may not be in the forecast.

Gary

I had been planning to go to LVD this Saturday for the Dover Reunion but I don't think I'm going to make it now, some other stuff came up. Hope the weather holds out for you, looks like the air will be good if it does.

Sat/Sun looking good, I'm aiming for Saturday and a 10 second pass.

There is plenty left in the current tune if you would just do it

Baby steps man, baby steps.

Let me get the baseline no nitrous/with nitrous passes in and then start dropping the fuel sizes on the system.

I know you think you are being SAFE. But the excess fuel does the motor no good. Its worse on the motor than a sharper tune........plus it eats power

Its leaner than it was 20 years ago Monte and the motor is still in good shape, baby steps man. Lets see how it does on Saturday and I'm fighting with other issues too with 24 hours to go before we pull out the driveway.. always something.

Awesome day, videos and pics soon

No real order..

https://youtu.be/0mTIPpXfRvI

Second to last pass..

Another video:

https://youtu.be/wHM4QWgcP4g

Here we go! The track was a mob scene with well over 300 cars for the Dover Drag Strip 8th reunion. Nice air but headwind again! Flag was blowing straight out at times. The track surface was excellent. Scale stated car was 3850 with me and third tank of fuel.

Pass one: 12.11 at 112.8 MPH 1.78ST SLICKS 16 psi

Right out of the box the car hooks and cranks off a 12.1 likes its nothing.

Pass two: 12.13 at 112.3 MPH 1.78ST SLICKS 16 psi

Advanced timing 2 degrees, car goes "nah bro, you had it spot on the first time" set it back to where it was. Looking at the crowded lanes it was time to turn the bottle on, 52/52 jets.

Pass three: 11.08 at 121.59 MPH 1.62 ST SLICKS 16 psi

Car comes out of the hole like a beast, treed the guy in the left lane and it turns into a real race at the top end where he just reels me in at the stripe, It was close!

Track official at the end of the track rather irate about cars sudden increase in acceleration, stern warning indicated. Since I have to come back in 2 weeks with a different car felt further shenanigans best avoided.

Pass four: 12.09 at 113.1 MPH 1.78ST SLICKS 16 psi

Changed metering one step richer since the air was cool, car said "I like that" and gave up another tenth and mph to the cause.

Pass four: 12.09 at 113.09 MPH 1.78ST SLICKS 16 psi

Changed metering rods again, pulled bottle out of car, made sure glovebox and ashtray were emptied, pulled the floormats, bumped up the slicks 2 pounds, bumped the front tires 5 pounds and went to the bathroom for good measure. 11.99 was right there....

Pass four: 12.09 at 113.09 MPH 1.80ST SLICKS 18 psi

And I blew it. Instead of focusing on running the car at its best like I had done most of the day I had started casting an eye on the tree trying to improve my light. Came out of the hole soft as I was not on the converter enough and pulled the worst ST of the day a 1.80.

Took one look at the packed staging lanes and headed home.

Only disappointment of the day was malfunction of the dash cam as it overwrote the 11.0 pass!

Here is what the last pass of the day looked like via dash cam:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1F7FkuC4j0

Next time I'll just leave the camera on and let it record the whole day, it has enough on-board storage for 14 hours of footage.

All in all I'm pleased; The car ran flawless and ran quicker than it has ever gone even though it is running an engine built back in 1992 with iron factory heads and chunky TRW forged slugs. The tune was pretty much spot on, its heavier than "back in the day" since it now has factory bumper up front (fiberglass unit with aluminum brackets hanging on wall now) the ultralight weld racing wheels are on the shelf and the crusty 2" Hooker headers were replaced with a set of Summit Racing $110 1.75" tube headers.

Not bad for an old street rat.

I'm actually considering doing some work on the car and running it up to the 11.49 mark. A fresh short block with pistons that don't weigh 5 pounds apiece and some aluminum heads would do wonders... hmm.. Got a set of them just sitting on the shelf..

The GTX's weak point as it sits is the converter in my opinion. Its just a stock 340 unit that was tossed in as an experiment back in 1995 and its been in there ever since! When 1000 CFM of AFB's pop open on the line the car is a little soft out of the hole till the rpm comes up a touch and then it comes on like gangbusters. A looser converter or even a 2.74 first gearset would help it snap out of the hole with a bit more authority.

Thanks for everyone who chimed in! Was a great weekend and now I have 2 other cars to get ready to go in the next few weeks before season ends.

Gary

Sounds like it was a great day.
How much work would it take to make it legal for 10's? A 6 point bar with swing outs isn't a major expense or a lot of weight, and will still leave the car streetable.

Not really interested in putting in a rollbar, this was the cars last trip to the track before going back to a 4-speed and power steering so I could enjoy it more on the street.

I am considering putting a roll bar in the Dart and running it hard though.

Have to give it some thought over the winter. I just might pull the motor/trans in the GTX and stuff it in the Dart and have fun with it at the track. Give me a chance to build a fresh mill for the GTX with modern stuff.

Calculating HP from ET I come up with 440 wheel hp on the motor, 571 hp on the bottle. Sound about right?

Using MPH/weight 431fwhp/540fwhp.

Well, if it was me, my last hurrah would be to really piss off the track officials, turn it up and take home that 10 second time slip.

Sounds like you had a good time for the first time out with that car in years.

The "if it were me" recipe for solid 11's would be, converter, cam & heads, headers...... In that order.
9.5" converter
Cam in the 250's @.050, 108lsa
Sidewinder/stealth heads with some bowl work and a decent valve job
Hooker competition headers(1-7/8" and still affordable)

New light weight pistons are nice but will do very little for the ET.
Not at all a good "bang for the buck" improvement.

I have to return in 2 weeks to race the CSX and a week later to race the Duster, better to keep a low profile. There is always next year, I'm in no hurry to drop the 4-speed in just yet as I have lots on my plate.

Heads are a possibility, I have a set of new stealths sitting in the box and a friend who ports heads professionally. I'm not sure what the gain would be compared to the heads done by McCandless, could have him flow the heads to find out.

Converter upgrade would help a lot, but would have to decide if I'm going to use the auto in anything here at the house. If I'm not its just money wasted on a part that will be used once and never see use again.

Headers I'm eyeballing hard, the Summit units were just something to get the car back on the road in a hurry. I know I'm losing some power there.

Cam is old tech; at a minimum I'd like a roller and I have some HS roller rockers I could install.

Yup pistons are not a great bang for the buck but those old TRW are just dead mass, some lighter slugs would help the engine wind up a touch faster..

A fresh engine would be nice as I could take the opportunity to strip the black paint out of the bay and give it the proper B5 blue.

Things to think about.

Ever see those NHRA stock eliminator 440's ripping off 10's??

Pistons have to be NHRA approved replacements..... Stock weight.
My car went 10's for years with heavy trw's...... And that was 20+ years ago.

New lightweight pistons are great, and if I were building a new motor for a 550hp+ type application that's what I'd use for sure....... But if I were looking to make the best use of my money in terms of improving my ET........ They would be very far down on the list(unless they came along with a stroker crank).

A good converter will be the biggest instant improvement to the ET.

At 3670lbs, with a 383 that also has heavy trw's in it, at that same track you were at, my car would 60' in the mid-1.50's.
Good converter.