Drove the old Plymouth to Lapeer yesterday and made a few eighth mile test and tune passes. About a 45 minute drive.
It had been many years since I had run it at the track and I've got to tell you, it felt really good to get it out again.
Brought my 15 year old stepson, younger of two, to hopefully corrup...I mean influence him even more.
I had never run eighth mile before and I dug it.

I didn't set any new personal records but the car ran really well and was consistent.
In fact it was so consistent, after I made the second change to the car I saw how it was going to be so I decided to just drive it
after that.

It ran 7.15, 7.16, 7.17, 7.17.

My R/Ts, although far from competitive, weren't horribly bad for an aging out of practice street guy.
I must have been wound up, because the first one of the day was the best.
.0128
.549
.042
.048

I had the only Mopar there at the time, lol.

Analysis?
60 foot times were a little bit mushy at 1.66, 1.67, 1.68, 1.68
It had wheel spin: Really not good. Maybe a turn or two, I would guess?
Maybe someone more well versed than me can tell from the video.
Made a couple changes, saw no change in the time slips, so that was that.
My last pass I decided to try a longer burnout, didn't make any difference. Didn't really expect it to, either.
But, it did look and sound cool...and someone got video of it
so..whatever LOL.

The many compliments the car got, given it's rough appearance, was cool. And Sam was surprised by those.
A few understand it's a luxury to not be afraid to lean on the fenders and so on.
The underlying point of it, that I sometimes get across is....I've never been a slave to it, it's always
served me first and done a good job. Someday I will give it that long overdue attention.
That day may come later than intended, but life happens.

Three best questions and comments from Sam:

"Where do you know all these people from?"
(He meant the people who just come up and talk, like you've known them for years.
Welcome to the brotherhood.)

"You seem to leave a really long time before the light turns green! Why do you do that?"

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I was kind of surprised how good the GTX did"

Lots of quality time spent and he initiated alot of the discussions like those.
I didn't have to work to keep him engaged.
This is a good sign

When done we loaded the car up, and drove it back home with no problems.
Just a huge smile on my face, glad to get it out and pound on it again.

After we came home and I got it parked back in the shop, I checked my Hoosier cheater slicks because I had
forgotten how old they were. The date code explained an awful lot....I'm a little embarrassed by how old they are.

Pics, vids, and stuff like that to follow.

Thanks for reading

Here's the video. Quality suffered a bit because YouTube + it's a copy of a copy of a copy.

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






The searchable hashtag #ZIPPYSWEDGE has ended up working out really well.

You can put it in the search box of fakebook or wherever (without the pound sign), and all the public posted stuff I did under that hashtag will come up.

Maybe someday #ZIPPYSHEMI?

pix

x

last ones...it is what it is...

Great to hear you made it to the track and good job planting a seed in the future generation. Those are some pretty consistent ET's and 60 foot times if the tires are as old as you are hinting. To me anytime you make some hits, put a smile on your face, and go home with the car still running its a great weekend.

MPH?

Don't know if it's the car or the track, but those 60s are way off where I think they should be (low 1.5s).

Nice to see you got some las in. This was opening day at Lapeer. Track may have been a little green. Why weren't they running 1/4?. Did the track being narrow bother you? The weather has been so lousy around here. I'm hoping to test Saturday at Milan.
Doug

Thx for replies. Really had a good day, no complaints.

It was 97 and change for mph.

It's run better 60 foot time than that, in worse conditions.

It's also run better mph, in worse conditions, but with a little larger cfm carburetor.....so that was interesting.

Temp was high 60s and DA was around 2200 feet if I can believe the online info.

What a neat old Plymouth.

it was Sunday or the day after opening day.

I figured I would not have that elusive combo of free time + no rain for quite awhile so we ran out there.

They're building new bleachers and have alot of construction going on, so that was why they did 1/8th mile.
It actually helped me think straight to be honest. My tolerance for the speed drug needs to be built back up.

It did feel skinny and narrow but didn't freak me out. I just had it set in my mind if it gets out of shape, abort the run.
Now if I had something a bunch faster, with a bunch nicer paint...then I would be more concerned.

The thing I had trouble with is the distance between the water box and the staging beams, it seems a little short?
But eventually got used to it.

Didn't know your GeX was a stick originally. Nice.

Love that car !!!! AWESOME

You have a good eye. Yeah, back when I first got it it was an empty shell. someone had chopped part of the tunnel out with a torch, and then crudely repaired it.
they had started on one of those 3-point roll bar installs, and gave up.

I did a slightly less crude repair to the tunnel.

There's no fender tag and no build sheet, so it will never have a pedigree other than whatever I do with it.

You know, I collected alot of the parts to return it to manual someday. Never did the work.

If I ever make it over, maybe I should re-do it with a tunnel more friendly to manual trans, just in case.
Maybe even enlarge the tunnel, since I collected a couple T56s too, which are a nice highway trans with 4-series gears
although not easy to shift at the drag strip.

I'm much more of an automatic trans person I guess.

very cool!

I have yet to make it out to Lapeer. I lived closer to Milan for the last few years, but now I'm in the middle of the two. looking forward to getting out there soon.

Very cool! Car was consistent and ran well. Great that you can introduce this stuff to your stepson. Sadly, I think less and less of the younger generation are expressing any interest in these cars. Nice numbers for a street car, and it’s definitely a sweet looking ride. Also cool that you can drive it to the track. I assume the hemi is still in the works...?

Looking good man, it's always awesome to get back to the track after a long absence.; I wish I'd have known you were going to be there I would have stopped by and said hello. We could have had a ying vs yang shootout

Awesome Zippy as its great to see you get the old girl back out. And it looks like its right there cranking out very low 11's while blowing the cobwebs off. And she is looking good. Ron

Cool deal Zipster. Not a lot of old street driven muscle cars at the track anymore. Kind of fun to see something that isn't either a full on race car or a paint dab trailer queen. The old heavy hitter muscle cars with a little wear and tear on them are getting very scarce. That car is going to be scary with a 572 inch Hemi in it! Your stepson might just freak out when you take him for his first ride behind a Hemi.

6 months for me since I’ve made a pass down the track and I swear I’m going through depression. I almost went last Saturday but with the predicted rain I bailed out. One time trial day to move the program along and it rained out during the second round. So I guess I made the right decision.