ok, so I know it has been a while since I've posted and I apologize for not being around much, but my current job doesn't allow alot of "off" time to post. At any rate, I do appreciate everyone here as a resource that have helped me get my project to where it is. I do have a Question but I will save it for the end if you wanna skip the "update" on the van. Here goes:

I've been tweaking on the van a bit here and there and posted recently the best run of 13.2 on the nitrous. I was really happy with that but still knew that there was something wrong with the hole setup. I figured the engine and carb alone should be good for a mid 13 sec pass (4450 lbs race weight). I just wasn't getting all of the power. So about a week before I got home from my job this last time my brother took my van to a local Chassis dyno with a guy familiar with holley carb tuning to tweak the carb in. Sure enough, found that the secondaries weren't even openning! It has probably been like this for the past 2+ years as that was the last time I played aroun with that part of the carb, oops! Somehow the diaphragm was in wrong. Anyway, that made the van go from 300 rwhp on just the primaries to 340 whp. There's the missing horsepower I was looking for, had always thought the combo was good for 320-330 whp. Ok, so I get home and already am very happy with the results but think, maybe that's why I wasn't getting all my nitrous shot too? Just not enough air/fuel flowing. OK.. So I take the van to the dyno last Saturday to do some nitrous pulls. I start out with 333 whp on motor (aparently I was running with the air cleaner on and the operator was running with no air cleaner before). Then I back it up with a 433 whp pull on the nitrous, and almost 500 ft-lbs at the wheels. Sweet! 100 whp gain is much better than what I have seen out of my kit so far, but I have the full 175 hp jets in the plate. I'll save the question for the end like I said earlier. Alright well 433 whp... that's awesome! about 75 - 80 whp more than I've ever seen out of my combo.

Sunday arrives and it is the Woodburn Dragstrip, Mopar Nationals so of course I go, since I haven't been able to run at this race in several years. I pull into PRO immediately, hoping that I'll be not only in the 12's but better than the 12.80 minimum for this bracket at this race. First time trial I run 12.506 @ 110.53. Sweet! I did it! and a 12.5! I'm halfway into the 12's on my first 12 second pass, right on! Ok so I drop the nitrous activation pill from 3600 rpm to 3200 rpm. Second time trial, 12.409 @ 111.59. Right on, gained a tenth. So I drop the nitrous pill to the lowest one I have, 3000 rpm, which is what my converter should stall at (though it seems to be stalling about 300 - 400 rpm lower for some reason... another problem to figure out later). Third time trial, 12.416 @ 110.76. Ok so no big change but I think the bottle pressure was about 50 psi lower than the previous run. Luckily they are giving us one more time trial so I keep the bottle heater on longer and get her up to 950 psi instead of 900, and she runs 12.338 @ 111.35 for the fourth time trial. Damn, I've gained almost 2 tenths so far from the first 12 second pass. Not bad at all! I'm deep in the 12's knockin on 11's in a brick. I'm extremely happy. Ok, first round of eliminations I go up against a '70 charger (big block I assume?), 12.08 dial for him, 12.31 for me. I tree him with a .007 r/t to his .098 and win with a 12.472 @ 110.67 to his 12.170 @ 113.79, win by .0193. It was close! Bottle seems like its dying to I swap to the second bottle. It's been in the back seat of my SRT-4 that my brother drove down and its at 1200 psi! dang. Ok well lets run it anyway no need for the heater. I line up in round 2 eliminations against a '63 Dart with a 440. He dials in 12.17 to my 12.31 dial. R/T's almost identicle with his .075 to my .072. But the nitrous hits just out of the hole harder than it has, and whoa... I start pulling on him... the entire rest of the track. He's not catching me at all so I lift just before the end in hopes I'm not breaking out too bad, I assumed he had a crappy light or something. Doh! he gets the win light with his 12.202 @ 111.78 to my 12.130 @ 107.06. Break out! Well it doesn't suck to get a new best ET if you are gonna lose. Had I not lifted I probably could have run a 12.07 or 12.08! As it stands, my van has now run a bottom 12 second quarter mile and I'm on cloud 12!

Here is a link to the video montage my brother put together from the drags, keep in mind tho not every pass is here and it is a BIG file, 13mb so slow connections beware!
CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO

I've also recently added 18" wheels to the van as I couldn't find 16" rubber to fit the old wheels anymore! Expensive but they look nice .

Now to the question: Ok the nitrous is only getting me 100 whp out of what should be 175. After 4200 rpm the fuel just dumps it seems, dropping the AF ratio to like below 10:1. Before that, from the activation point, which was 3600 rpm, the AF ratio looks great. I do have a digital timing retard pulling 8 degrees of timing for the shot and and feeding the nitrous off of a holley blue pump (only thing the pump is feeding). Is it possible the pump is overpowering the dead head fuel pressure regulator set for 6 psi that holley provided with the pump? Admittedly the kit I have is an older generation of NOS Super Powershot, the bottle that came with it had the old medical valve and was FULL when I got the kit! It was a dusty old kit from the back of the warehouse I think, lol. I'm not complaining about only getting 100 real rwhp out of the kit, mind you, I'm almost as fast as I'd ever want the van to go anyway, but I just wanna learn from those here with more experience if they've seen something like this before possibly so that if I would know how to fix it given the opportunity. Any help or comments or questions about my setup and the recent results are appreciated and thanks in advance!

Can't help you but that thing is haulin'

Don't waste your time,PM Monte Smith and don't question his advise.

Glad to see your still around!

Time for a Dana!

I would have a Dana already but I have a Dutchman Motorsport built ford 9" under the rear, so she's handling it all without a hic-up. 31 splines Dutchman axles and Detroit locker with 3.70 rear gears make for a nice street/strip setup for me. With the new 18 x 9.5 rear wheels and 28 x 12 x 18 rear mickey thompson street radials keeps the revs a little lower for freeway cruising, though the engine seems to love singing along at 3500 rpm (75 or so).

Also, I was just on several of those horsepower calculator websites and given the trap speed and vehicle weight, maybe I am getting more of my nitrous shot than I was on the dyno? They are almost unanimously saying that my WHP is somewhere in the neighborhood of 480 to 500. That would just about be the whole nitrous shot then. Maybe I'm not missing as much as I thought?

3:70's in the shoe box at that speed? Overdrive, more converter, lock up and some 4:11's would be interesting!

Awesome man! Sounds like you'd be outrunning me in that thing most of the time (my junk ran an easy 11.66 the first time out and hasn't dropped into the 11's since ). I'm glad you finally got it ironed out, I remember the first dyno trip with nitrous and it wasn't even kicking in. I can't imagine what that would be running in a light little a-bod.

On another note, my wife and I (got married earlier this month) are looking to move back out west in the next year or two. Maybe you'll still be around and can help iron out this danged Dart.

Oh boy, that is a tight little A-body you got there. I'd love to help out if I'm home and I don't plan on moving any time soon, but I do work offshore a lot yanno. Also, my brother's shop in Oregon City is right next to the Dyno that helped figure out my secondaries not openning problem. The guys is a great old school motor head, used to have a chevelle that ran 9's. Would love to see ya when/if you move back tho, its been a while.

After talking to the dyno operator guy he thinks I may be right that I am getting more of the shot at the strip than we saw on the dyno. Also, that my torque converter is probably the culprit for the not as good 60' times as I used to have. May have to finally shell out for a custom built unit... oh well, not in the near future as she is running and quite good at the moment. I do wanna hit a late night drags sometime maybe next time i'm home just to see what she does "off" the bottle. I'm hoping for a mid 13 sec pass.

The Merc is for sale by the way if you know anyone interested, as is the SRT-4. I gotta make room for a new Challenger when the '09's come out. Also I think my brother's car and your Dart could duke it out so long as he's only running pump gas. He's run an 11.71 @ 115 mph in his MR2 on pump gas (2.2L turbo'd) and is heading to the dyno over the next week or so to put it on a race gas diet and up the power a bit for his race-gas tune (currently 400 whp on pump, thinking somewhere between 500-550 whp on race gas, approx.). Anyway, I'm sure he'd love to see the dart too. If you need a place to crash for a visit out here let me know. Bought a condo with my sister last Oct.

Peace out bro.

-Alik

Oregon City! Ihad some crappy mechanical work done there at a place that specialized in Mopars. I had them pull the wheels and check the brakes. They didn't tighten the lug nuts!!

I met my soon to be exwife from there. Her kids live there.
Pretty out there. I love a restaurant there called Flambe? Their calamari is fnatastic!

Man, I thought I had a van hualin @ 14.20's. (bigblock no bottle).

I love seeing these bricks fly.


Throw a little more in it and shoot for the 11's

If I come across anyone interested in the Merc, I'll let ya know. Are you still running the Hughes converter? The one I had in the Satellite worked great right up until the point it self-destructed on the highway. Maybe yours is beginning to show its age.

Sounds like your brother really has the MR2 running well. My buddy Manning has been putting down some serious power with his MR2, but can't keep transmissions or rears in the thing. Every trip to the strip he rips something out of it.

""It's been in the back seat of my SRT-4 that my brother drove down and its at ""1200 psi!"" dang. Ok well lets run it anyway no need for the heater. I line up in round 2 eliminations against a '63 Dart with a 440. He dials in 12.17 to my 12.31 dial. R/T's almost identicle with his .075 to my .072. But the nitrous hits just out of the hole harder than it has, and whoa...""


This is why it was pulling harder ( "1200psi" ) you are rich on the fuel.

what kit are you using? what is fuel psi, and jet numbers?

I know its rich on the fuel, but below 4200 rpm its not "that" rich, about 12:1. I'm running a NOS Super Powershot kit, 82 Fuel jet, 73 Nitrous Jet. I did try on the dyno to go to a .0785 (or 78.5) fuel jet and it did lean it out but didn't make any more power up top, just leaned out before 4200 rpm, closer to 13.5:1, which for nitrous was leaner than I wanted to go. All said and done, on the chassis dyno, fuel seems to be dumping above 4200 rpm and the AF ratio goes to richer than 10:1 and stays there the entire rest of the pull. I have the fuel pressure regulator set at 6psi. Appreciate the help!

Does your MR2 buddy deal with my brother's business? Just curious Seems that most people that are really into MR2's know of KO Racing. At any rate, I'm sure my brother could help him figure out what he needed to do to keep that thing in one piece. And as for the current converter, its a newer Hughes than when you lived here. I bought one with anti-ballooning plates, same stall as previous, but think that the difference of off the shelf converter to converter is probably part of the culprit for my slow 60' times (only hitting 2.0's to 1.9's with nitrous activating at 3000 rpm). The merc still has the same converter as when you drove it (also Hughes 3000 stall). Talk to you later Darrah.

one thing is thats to big of a jet for that system as the nitrous solenoid orifice is only .072 as Monte pointed that out to me on this same kit, so i upgraded my nitrous solenoid to a cheater, orifice size is .090".

but you should tune NA first, then tune the nitrous in, if you are rich on nitrous you will hurt stuff more then being lean.

A .073 nitrous jet would make around 200hp to the wheels but only need around a .067 fuel jet.

starting point

now to the jets. put a .061 nitrous jet and a fuel jet of .056 ( should be around 140hp to the wheels ) or square them up to start off with, this is set at 6psi fuel ( make sure fuel psi does not drop when nitrous is on ) and a true 950 psi bottle pressure, bottle temp should be 91-93 degs no cold spots so shake it up as the bottle psi will make it rich or lean if not set to the jets you are using. Like Monte told me with out flowing the whole kit it's a guess.

and here is a link to a nitrous Calculator, i have used a few of them and they all say the same thing.

http://www.ny-trex.com/calculator.php

As I stated in my original post, I'm using the dead head holley fuel pressure regulator to control the fuel pressure. Its directly connected to the nitrous system fuel solenoid.

I can see where puddling in the intake would definitely be bad as well as washing the cylinder walls, but I don't think i'm at that rich state yet, would have a LOT of black smoke out the back which I don't have (unburnt fuel). Just the AF ratio is quite rich. Thanks again for all the information and I'll have to see about getting some more dyno time to play with it after picking up a few more jets.

-Alik aka Alikazam

My dial-up is too slow for video, but I'd love to see an action shot of this....van thing!

When I get a chance I'll pull a sequence of stills off of one of the runs so you can sorta "slideshow" see it for the low speed dial-up guys. See ya.