60 ft issues

What could cause my slow 60 ft times? Mid 1.50's Here's my set up. 68 Barracuda fastback about 3400 w/me. 446 w/indy EZ standard port M1/ Proform 950. 590 cam. ATI 5200 convertor, torqueflite. 430 gears w/spool. Superstock springs clamped on front half 1 clamp on back and Calvert 9 way shocks. CE 3 way on front w/5 in travel. Hoosier Quick time Pro's 27x10.50 15. 17lbs air. Car doesn't spin, leaves straight. Engine is snappy. What am I missing?

[quote=carnut68 What am I missing? [/quote] the reason it is slowing ,down correct
AKA, have you thought about the air density altitude change effects on your car?
If you have it tune lean for summer heat and humidity it will get a lot leaner in better air
Does it miss or nose over anywhere during the run?
Another thing to consider is how many runs on the slicks, are they balling up and going away?
How much 60 Ft ET are you losing? How about the 330 and 660 ET?

any video of said car leaving from the back and sides? Birdtracker

the reason it is slowing ,down correct
AKA, have you thought about the air density altitude change effects on your car?
If you have it tune lean for summer heat and humidity it will get a lot leaner in better air
Does it miss or nose over anywhere during the run?
Another thing to consider is how many runs on the slicks, are they balling up and going away?
How much 60 Ft ET are you losing? How about the 330 and 660 ET? [/quote] Cab, my 60's have never been good. Tires might have 25 passes. No videos, yet. There are some pic's on Mason Dixons website. If I go tomorrow hopefully I can get a good video. The car feels good. It doesn't do anything stupid.

https://youtube.com/shorts/q7atHKg_MRU?feature=share
https://youtube.com/shorts/MdpIHWroItE?feature=share

This is the best I can do tonight.

What was the best mph? And avg mph? Any idea on HP? Dyno numbers?

Are the times consistent?
What are you goals or expectations?
Have the times been better in the past?

Best MPH 126.1. Best ET 10.82@ Cecil County. Avg 122@ Mason Dixon. WAG on HP 550. No Dyno.

The video needs to be closer and slow motion. I went through a similar thing but my car was losing 60 and I couldn’t get it back . If you search me you will find the thread . In short I ended up getting cal tracs and double adjustable shocks all the way around . In the long run Ingot it back to 1.40 . This year had the converter freshened no other changes and it’s 1.35 and .10 faster overall .

Video will help greatly.

If I go today I'll try to get a better video. The thing should 60 in the 1.40s. If I was having traction problems I would consider Cal tracs and better shocks. As for my convertor It only has about 25 passes on it, and have considered it possibly being the issue.

Realize that 60ft without spin or excess chassis movement is a pure function of power. Weather, converter, engine set up. Engine can be broken down into carb, cam, intake, heads, ignition just to start. Suspension and traction at this stage are not the issue.
Doug

That's a good perspective. Knowing how well your car works I'll take that as good advice. So I think what your saying is I'm lacking some power. Possibly in the tune?

My friend Mike sent me a short video of your car from Friday night a week ago. I don't have anywhere to post it, though. My thoughts:
- the whole car sits up rather high, typical of what I think of with bracket cars on Super Stock springs; not seeing much pitch rotation
- your front dampers may have 5" of travel, but I don't think you've got 5" of extension travel from the static ride height, unless you are using shock extensions and have trimmed down the upper control arm bumpers
- CE shocks don't move very freely; a set of Calvert's "loose as a goose" 90/10s might be a better option that won't break the bank

Questions:
- you mentioned it's a 5200 ATI; at what RPM are you leaving?
- where is your ignition set for initial & total timing?
- have you tried any different accelerator pump cams from what the Proform carb came with?
- have you measured the available front suspension travel from the static ride height?
- have you tested how the car responds from leaving off or slightly above idle vs stalling up against the converter?

I assume you have a transbrake. What rpm are you launching at? You say no tire spin. That may be one of your problems. Dead hooked on a slick leaves you “stuck” with your hard ratios. Induce some spin to get your engine in a higher rpm range. Effectively this will change the ratio the engine “feels”.
My opinion would be to raise launch rpm and stiffen the shocks. Maybe change the caltrac bar angle to induce some spin.

If it is spinning it ain't moving forward as fast as it can
Watch some of the ultraslow motion vids on Top Fuel, Funny cars and Pro Stock cars, they don't spin when leaving the starting line
They wrinkle the sidewalls as they go forward without spinning

I’d do a cranking compression test on a few cylinders(with the carb at WOT).... primarily to gauge the relationship between the compression ratio and the camshaft.
What are you running for valve lash?

Have you done a low speed, high gear, flash stall test?
Are you getting an honest 5200 out of it?

Frankly, I’d consider 5200 to be on the lower end of what I’d want for that combo.

To answer a few questions.
The flash stall is 5200.
Valve lash is .020 cold.
Initial timing was 27idle 35 total. Tried 37 total today,it picked up.
Tried leaving off idle ...leaves harder.
Up on convertor [footbrake] 2500 and 3500 no big difference. Leaves softer.
Put a known good carb on today and it picked up everywhere, but 60 ft.
Went to Keystone for tnt. Typically it's slower there than Mason Dixon [elevation] but I was 3/10ths quicker today. I had the best 60 ft 1.51 leaving off idle, 17lbs air. The car really responded to 37 degrees total timing and the carb swap. Picked up 4 mph from the first run. 119 to 123.7. A friend who was there said there's about 8 in separation on the rear suspension.
We did a compression check shortly after the engine was put together all the cylinders were around 205.

I’d try opening up the lash .004-.005 and see if that impacted the 60’ time

For perspective on the stall speed....... the Normal T/A 8” Race converter for a 440 bracket race engine would flash about 5600.
That configuration was derived long before there were Indy heads.......... so it was lotsa stall....... with small heads.
Typically, the trend would be to increase the stall speed as the heads got bigger.

My take on the 8” of rear separation is........ it takes(wastes?) energy to wind the springs up that much.
If the car didn’t lift so much........ maybe it would use that energy to move forward instead.

Now to figure how to close that separation. Clamps? Shocks? Cal Tracs?

Two screen shots from a fuzzy video showing staged and right after the green. Noticeable front extension, but it doesn't look like 8" of rear separation to me... maybe 3-4"?

Thanks Brad. Keystone will have videos up toward the end of the week.

I doubt that it separates 8”. Separation is dictated by instant center location. You run Cal tracks, so the I/C is short and high. It’s going to separate. You can slow separation with tighter rear shock rebound. As long as it doesn’t spin that will help. But it will not decrease 60 ft a great amount. You are still in the area where you need power/converter flash/tune to come in earlier. How are you checking the converter flash? Converter can make or break a combo. I would have never bet my 15-1 572 would need over 5700. 6000 flash was worth a solid .10 in ET. Why low power NHRA stockers 60 ft so well? Loose converter, optimized carb, and high starting line ratio.
Doug

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9DwCmU_WM74&feature=emb_logo

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UuOIbpqGTRE

Try more initial timing? Might hit the converter a little harder. Most people running 272 @ .050 are locked out.

Whats the CR 12:1?

Have you verified that the balancer TDC mark is correct and not off a few degrees?

No Cal Tracs just superstock springs. I check flash by slow speed in high gear then wap throttle. The convertor is an 8in ATI. single adjustable Calvert shocks set on 7. The carb is fairly new so I'm still working on it, idle and transition is pretty good, now I have to tune pumps, squirters and wot jetting. We put a known good carb on and it picked up mph it had way more jet and we played with squirters. Just ran out of time. Another all day tnt at the end of the month.
So you think I should bring it off idlefrom to flash convertor harder?
I have never heard the term high starting line ratio? Ok so I researched it. 4.30x 2.74=11.78. According to chart my car should somewhere between 10.00 and 10.25. I learned something new today thanks dvw.

CR is 13:3. Balancer was checked whenever the cam was degreed. Initial is now 29/ 37 total.

That leaves nice.

Here's a qualifying run for the car in the video during Indy qualifying. It is a very well sorted stocker running a 440. Knowing Doug I guarantee it has the best of everything from top to bottom.

Left Doug Duell 350 C/SA 11.40 .018 1.354 4.148 6.547 102.19 8.632 10.420 125.45

How old are your SS springs? I had a very similar thing happen, the engine ran fine but it kept going slower and slower. I began to break things like u joints, the yoke on the rear end, and even the 65 only extension housing. Someone finally told me that they could see the entire top of the rear tire when I launched. He suggested that I look for "witness marks" on the front of the rear shocks since the rear end wrapped up so much. The shocks were almost smashed. I would have never believed the springs would allow that, but it sure did. After speaking with some stocker friends, they said as soon as the 60's begin to fall off, get new springs. Of course, that was in the days before caltracs.

About 4 yrs old. Thanks

Here's a screen shot of a pass he made during class runoffs at Indy:

It's easy to see how much ET is tied to the 60 ft when you compare the above with my Challenger's best pass (from 2008) that ran similar MPH. My 60 was a 1.45x, a full tenth slower than Duell's C/SA car:
60' - 1.454
330 - 4.254
660' - 6.653 at 102.03
1000' - 8.745
1320' - 10.523 at 126.44

I'm losing alot. My best mph was 126.1 @ Cecil ET was 10.84. I'm going to work on the carb a little. The Proform 950 had a better 60. We swapped to a Holley 1000 it worked better up top.

Was the Holley 1000 a downleg or an annular booster version? What was the difference in ET slips between them?

You need to realize that running NHRA stocker or S/S numbers isn't the norm. Nor is it cheap. There are a fleet of experts behind the car in the example. I know Doug. He is a perfectionist. He knows how to chose people to get results. Just wanted to show what is possible.
Doug

I understand completely; the info I provided was simply to show how dependent upon the 60 ft we are, not as a "You should be running this quick, too!" to the OP. More like "Here's the Gold Standard; you have room for improvement"

Standard out of the box Holley 1000, downleg boosters pig fat at idle 86 pmj, 96smj, 35 P squirter, 37 S. The Proform has T slot restricters.081, IFR .035 moved to lower Pmj 79, Smj 86 it was lean up top. Blue pump cam 33 squirters P and S. It had a better 60.
Proform 11.14 @ 119.7
Holley 10.88 @ 123.7
Timing was 37 total for both passes and the same lane.
I appreciate the help. That's how you learn.

This is a huge difference imo.
Especially when you factor in the slower carb had a better 60’ time.

The slower carb is going to get some jet added. I'm going to increase pvrc channel size then add mj. The car responded well to idle and transition calibration.

After watching the video, I think the converter is the main reason the 60' is lazy.
If that's the case, adding some lash should help the 60'. I'd do the change back to back at the track to rule out day to day changes.

Yeah, that's a HUGE difference for a basic carb swap like that... 4 MPH?!

Is there something out of kilter w/ the Proform that hasn't been noticed?

IMO a few things i see in the OK video. First is converter converter converter...Your converter is not helping anything for sure I woudl go looser for sure there. Also I would work on "freeing" up the cars front end as well. Would also work getting the larger carb to work better, not a bug fan of the Holley"1000", I would consider a different option there(4500). IMO with what you have there I think it could benefit from more.

I have a Dominator coming already have a Super Victor 4500. I'll lower the front and make sure the shocks are full loose. Converter will have to wait till after race season is over. I'm sure ATI can loosen it some.
What effect does loosing the valve lash have? Other than lose some lift.
The 950 was basically out of the box with the exception of moving IFR down and T slot restricters. Blue cam on the primary. It was jetted 10 sizes smaller than the 1000.

Loosening the lash makes the cam smaller in duration and lift, just the opposite of tightening them up

Just an update. Went to a test n tune Friday. Got my 60 down into 1.47-1.48 from 1.54 -1.56. Lowered the front by an inch and softened the rear shocks a couple clicks. I put a new dominator on it from Dominic it worked great. Ran my best et of 10.66 twice. Jetted carb on last pass best 60 of 1.47 by the time slip it looked like 10.59 -60 pass, but dropped a valve. I have a bigger hammer with a smallish roller on the stand waiting.