More on "Slower" cars beating "Faster" ones....

Following up on the last post I wanted to add a few things. There's more to winning a drag race than just horsepower. Besides power to weight ratio and gearing, there's a lot of other factors that come into play that people don't think of. The state of tune of the cars,traction, driver ability and how much testing has the driver done to maximize his car's performance. Here's a few more real-world examples or how supposedly "slower" cars walked away from "faster" ones. A friend of mine had a 1970 340 Dart Swinger. It had a Torqueflite and 3.55:1 gears. Being a light car-about 2,900 lbs, it was really quick. He worked on his launch and driving technique. He figured out the car launched quickest if he just punched it from a stop. If he "powerbraked" it-i.e. loaded the converter against the brakes-it would do an impressive burnout but that wasn't conducive to a quick 0-60 time. By just flooring it off-idle it would spin the tires for maybe 30 ft, just enough to get the engine up on it's torque curve and the car moving with alarcity. He also found it ran quickest if he shifted manually between 5,800-6,200 rpm. He beat a lot of big-block cars like SS396  Chevelles, 400 Firebirds, and even a 428 Mustang because the drivers of those cars totally fried their tires off the line. By the time they were done smoking the tires, he had a two or three car length lead that they couldn't get back. The 428 Mustang actually pulled almost even with a serious top-end push, but still couldn't overcome the "holeshot" to pass him! Another guy we knew had a 304 Gremlin that he stuffed a 401 out of a wrecked Matador police car into that was really quick, and he got beat by the Dart for the same reason. He fried his tires on launch and couldn't make it up on the top-end. My 403 Olds / TH350 powered '77 T/A beat many a shocked "5.0" Mustang driver in stoplight gran prix's. My T/A did have headers and a Holley Street Dominator intake and a TransGo shift kit which helped-drop the T/A's 1/4 mile time from something like 16.3 stock to consistent 14.9s. However-if you read old road tests of '87-93 "5.0" Mustangs Hot Rod was the quickest with a 14.72 and Road and Track was the slowest with a 15.29. My T/A's time falls smack-dab in the middle of those. I should have got beat once in a while. I never did-and it's the same reason. The Mustang drivers would pop the clutch about three grand,incinerate their tires for 200 feet, and shift at or near their 5,700 rpm redline. By the time their wheelspin stopped, I was too far ahead. Give anything 400 cubes a 2 or 3 car length lead and unless you've got something REALLY strong-i.e.-427 Stingray,LS6 Chevelle, Hemi 'Cuda-your not getting it back. I even told a couple of these guys to read Car Craft's test of a "5.0". CC testers discovered that if you popped the clutch at anything over 2,500 rpm, you were going to fry the tires. They found they got the best launch by slipping the clutch at 1,800-2,200 rpm and then hitting it. They also discovered that while the 302 would rev to 5,500 or so,it's tractor-like torque curve gave the best times when they short-shifted about 4,800-5,000 rpm. These Mustang driver's wouldn't listen-they'd continue to fry their tires anytime they raced someone, and if they got beat they'd talk about getting a performance prom chip or a bigger cam, or swapping the 3.08:1 gears for some 3.73:1s. They weren't grasping the problem. It doesn't matter how much power you have, if you can't put it to the ground!! Another guy I knew had an LB9 TPI 305 IROC-Z. He blew the doors off many shocked "5.0" owners, and gave some Corvette and Grand National owners a run for the money they'd never forget. How? The first thing he did was get a Hypertech High-Performance PROM chip-which bumped the timing and upped the fuel curve. He also installed a 160 degree thermostat and a fan switch that kicked the fan on at 185 degrees instead of 220. These two simple mods made a HUGE improvement. Stock LB9's with 195 T-stats and the fan not kicking on until 220-would run ok cold. When they got hot-they'd be on the verge of vapor lock-sometimes stumbling on acceleration. Swapping the t-stat and the fan switch allowed the engine to run cooler, and take full advantage of the cooler, denser fuel charge. He also had a TransGo shift kit that made a HUGE difference. Stock Camaros and Firebirds with LG4 / L69 /LB9 305s and TH700R4's had a problem. The transmissions would not upshift from 3rd to 4th above about 2/3 throttle. This prevented you from making a balls-out top-end run. If you had your foot to the floor, the trans would stay in 3rd gear. Let off, and it would upshift into 4th. Ugh! Further, they would only kick down to second from third. The only time the trans would go into low gear is if you came to a complete, dead stop. If you were going 5 mph-and punched it, you'd still be in 2nd!!  The shift kit solved this and allowed automatic kickdown into 1st gear below 15-20 mph, and it allowed full-throttle upshifts into 4th. It may sound simple-but if you drove a stocker-and then drove this car-you'd swear it was a chipped L98 350 model, not a 305!!  It ran that good. In fact-he beat some utterly shocked stock L98 IROC / T/A owners. I had a guy who came in my shop with a nice 396 / TH400 '66 Impala SS. He just bought the car, and was very disappointed in the car's performance. He said it couldn't even spin the tires on dry pavement. My dad and I had the rep as "The" musclecar guys to go to, so he came to us. I assured him we could fix his Ills. Upon inspection I found that the car was suffering from major neglect. The points were closing up, the vacuum advance was unplugged, the timing was way too slow,the carburator was way too rich,the kickdown wasn't hooked up. All simple fixes. I put new points in and set the dwell, cleaned and hooked up the vacuum advance,set the timing to factory specs,and leaned out the carb, and hooked up the kickdown. The difference was huge. Now the car would smoke the tires as long as you wanted to stay on the throttle,lay 15-20 ft of rubber on the 1-2 shift,and pull hard to about 5,500 rpm. The owner was blown away. "What did you do?" "Swap in new 427 crate engine?" He was so happy that he tipped me $100 over the bill I charged him. The point I'm making is-if someone spends the time to fine-tune their car and their driving technique, they are going to be very hard to beat. Especially if their opponent in the "faster" car has neglected his car's state of tune, and / or just punches it and has no idea what shift points or launch technique is best for his car. Mastermind      

It's all about power to weight ratio and mechanical advantage...

I've had a lot of people call me out for telling stories about "slower" cars beating "faster" ones in a drag race. These people are often abusive and insulting in their language, and it's kind of funny, because they don't realize how ignorant they sound. Most of them are only going on factory hp ratings and nothing else. Any experienced racer knows that the real formula is power to weight ratio. All other things being equal-a 3,000 lb car with a 300 hp engine will run just as fast as a 4,000 lb car with a 400 hp engine. The "all other things being equal" is important too. What about mechanical advantage? What if the 3,000 lb car had a 4-speed and 4.11:1 gears and the 4,000 lb car had an automatic and 3.23:1 gears?  Or vice-versa?  Remember when I talked about the L79 327 '66 Nova beating the W30 455 1970 442?  That's a perfect example. Here's a couple about mechanical advantage. One of these geniuses said I was lying when I said my dad's 1965 376 hp Tri-Power 421 Catalina 2+2 beat a friends 1967 390 hp 427 Impala SS in a drag race, both from a light and from a 20 mph roll. Why would I lie? 1st off-the power was totally equal-( 14 hp won't make any difference in real-world conditions ) 421 cubes vs 427 completely equal. Weight? Both cars weighed about 4,400 lbs. However-the Impala had 3.31:1 gears and the 2+2 had 3.90:1 gears. Both cars had TH400 automatics. However-the 2+2 had a TransGo shift kit. Not only would it shift automatically at 5,600 rpm under full-throttle acceleration, it would automatically kick down to low gear if you floored it under 15-20 mph. This made a huge difference if you were coming up to a red light, preparing to stop,and the light suddenly turns green and you punch it. Most other cars with stock automatics will drop from 3rd to 2nd under these conditions. It's simple-the 2+2, being in low gear is going to accelerate harder than the Impala which is still in 2nd. That's exactly how the race from a 20 mph roll went. When we tried again from a dead stop, I jumped him a car length and a half off the line. At the top of second gear-by now both the 421 and the 427 were pulling like locomotives on the mountain of torque they both posessed and he made up about half of that. And that was it. I held on to that half a car length lead until well over 100 mph when we both let off. That's the 3.90:1 gears advantage over the 3.31:1s. People don't realize it-but gears give you a boost all through the range, not just off the line. I learned this when I swapped the 3.23:1 gears in my Hurst / Olds for some 4.10:1s. I honestly didn't notice a difference in low gear. The 455 had enough torque to launch the car regardless of gearing. However-the difference was HUGE in 2nd and 3rd!!  So hopefully-anyone with common sense can see how the 2+2 could beat the Impala. The other one was probably the same idiot who said there was no way My Ram Air III 400 1969 GTO Judge could beat my buddy's 1969 440 Six-Pack Super Bee. The GTO was rated at 366 hp, the Super Bee at 390. Again-not enough to make a difference. Both cars weighed about 3,700 lbs. However-my GTO had a 4-speed and 4.33:1 gears. The Super Bee had a Torqueflite and 3.23:1 gears. Any racer would say that right there gives me the win. But wait-I also had N50X15 Mickey Thompson "Hot-n-Sticky" tires on the back of my car, and I had Lakewood coil-spring traction bars. The Super Bee had stock suspension, and GR70-15 Sears Radials. Stiffer gears,larger, stickier tires,and a drag-race oriented suspension would give me a substantial advantage. But wait-my engine wasn't stock. I had a larger than stock Crane Cam, Hooker headers,and an Offenhauser dual-quad intake with two Carter AFBs. So yeah,buddy-I'm lying. There's no way my hopped up,traction barred,4.33:1 geared, 4-speed GTO could beat a bone-stock, automatic, 3.23:1 geared Super Bee!!  As Ditka said- "Come on Man!!"  Some Ford guys I know had a drag race and I had to laugh at the loser. He had a nice 1972 Mustang Mach 1 with a 351CJ, rated at 266 hp, an automatic and 3.00:1 gears. He talked trash incessantly to his buddy-who had a nice 1966 Mustang GT with the 225 hp 289, a C4 and unkown gearing.       They finally raced, and the '66 beat him by about two car lengths. How? Power to weight ratio. The '66 Mustang weighed about 2,900 lbs. The '72 weighed about 3,700. 41 rated hp wasn't enough to overcome 800 extra pounds!!! Further-the '66 launched with very little wheelspin. The '72 lit up the tires off the line which also hurt. Any way-the owner of the '72 was fixated on two things-351 cubes vs 289, and 266 hp vs 225. He didn't think of anything else while he was trash-talking. Like a weight difference of 800 lbs, and traction!!  So think of the total packages before you start trash talking based only on hp ratings! You might be surprised and embarrased.  Mastermind

Mick, Waylon and Dennis and why musclecar drivers get in trouble....

"Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste...."  The opening line of "Sympathy for the Devil." sung by Mick Jagger...                                                                                                                      ""Not guilty I said" "You've got the wrong man, no one touched that pistol but the Devil's Right Hand..." Excerpt from "The Devil's Right Hand" sung by Waylon Jennings.                                                                    HR relations counselor-"So what seems to be the problem, Mr. Leary?" "My boss thinks I'm having trouble getting along with my co-workers." "You fuckin' asshole!"  Comedy skit by Dennis Leary.                   These three things will tell you how musclecars have their irresistable allure,and why they can't be driven slow, and why-Stephen King's "Christine" aside-they are definitely male, and malevolent, and "Jules Wallet" from "Pulp Fiction". ( The one that says "Bad Mo$#%6ucker on it ). It doesn't start when your 16 or 25 or 45. It starts when your about six or eight. All little boys are aware of and interested in cars, and if their dad or big brother or uncle or cousin is a gear head-their cursed for life. I remember my dad's 1964 GTO. It was green, which wasn't particularly cool. But it had black interior with bucket seats and those round guages in that engine-turned panel, and that chrome console with the chrome Hurst shifter sticking up through it. It had American Racing Torq-Thrust mags on it, and glasspacks and loud exhaust. That thing sounded SO nasty. It wasn't a tri-power-just the 325 hp 4bbl 389, but with the Muncie 4-speed and 4.33:1 gears it was ungodly fast. All the boys in the neighborhood wanted to ride in it. When my mom drove it and picked me up from school sometimes she'd work the clutch and let me shift it. That was so damn cool!!  I've driven all kinds musclecars and sports cars over the course of my life, and nothing gets my blood up like the feel of Hurst-shifted "Rock Crusher". The feeling of power is like racking the slide on a 12-guage shotgun. A lot of my dad's friends were gearheads. His buddy Paul had a 340 hp / 4-speed '63 Split Window Corvette Stingray. Dave had a 400, 4-speed '67 Firebird convertible that I thought was awesome, even though the GTO could beat it in a drag race. ( I think the 'Bird had 3.36:1 gears; no match for the Goat's 4.33:1s in a drag ) and his pal Jan had a for-real 289 Shelby Cobra. My mom's best friend's brother had a 409 Impala. I remember when my dad's pal Sonny got a brand-new 1970 SS396 Chevelle. It was silver with black stripes. I loved how the "Cowl Induction" hood flap would open and close when he revved the engine. It was an automatic, but I loved that chrome console and the "Horseshoe" shifter. And it would smoke those F70-14 Firestone Wide Ovals as long as he wanted to stay on the throttle. So cool. I said in an earlier post that my dad was an expert on multi-carb setups and that people brought him GTOs,Hemis, 406 Galaxies, and Porsche 911s and Datsun 240Z's-anything with multiple carbs-he had the rep as "The Man" to bring it to for maximum performance. I wrote about staying at the shop with him til midnight tuning a 440 / Six-Pack GTX and a Hemi Road Runner that were going to have a match race the next day.  Growing up around those guys-there was no way I was going to be a VW or Toyota driver!!  And the Movies-"Bullitt", "Vanishing Point","The Seven-Ups", "White Lightning", "The Last American Hero". "Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry". What boy could watch those flicks and NOT fantasize about being a badass-with your foot to the floor  and a hot chick beside you? When I got my Judge I lost my driver's liscence in less than a year. "No one touched that Hurst shifter but the Devil's right hand...."   Musclecars are so sexy.....Just sitting in one idling-it's like your holding the leash on a 120 lb Rotwieler who wants to run. You can barely hold it back. And god help you if another musclecar or a rice-rocket or BMW pulls up next to you at a light and gives you a look of disdain. Mick's word's ring in your ears-"If you meet me, show some courtesy, some sympathy and respect." "Use all your well learned politics, or I'll lay your soul to waste!!"  Dennis Leary's mouth starts going. "You gonna take that shit?"  "Blow that yuppie scum's doors off."  "Your not?" "Then trade me in for a Honda Civic you pussy." "Maybe someone with balls will buy me." Then he starts quoting Jules from "Pulp Fiction" "I will strike down with great vengenance and furious anger, anyone who threatens the righteous man who is my driver...." Your left foot slams the clutch to the floor, cha-ching-the shifter slams from neutral into first, your right foot brings the revs up,Dennis and Sam Jackson start high-fiving each other.....The light turns green and you smite the infidel challenger in biblical fashion. If your lucky. If your not lucky their will be sirens coming up behind you, and you'll have to explain about the Devil's right hand. But going to court and traffic school and paying the fine won't stop you the next time.....Mick and Dennis and Sam and Waylon won't let you.....Mastermind      

One Piece at a time...

Johnny Cash had a hit song about an auto worker who stole parts over his long career and built a car for no cost. It was called "One Piece at a Time." I've always thought it would be cool to build a hot rod with various parts and not worry about what was "correct" or "original."  Like maybe a Pontiac Ventura ( Pontiac's version of the Nova ) built with a snarling 455 Pontiac under hood with Trans-Am suspension and 4-wheel disc brakes-( any suspension or brake parts that fit the F-bodies-Camaro / Firebird will fit the X-bodies-Nova / Ventura / Omega ). I'd also put cool stuff in the interior like swivel bucket seats out of '73-77 "A" bodies, a Formula steering wheel and a Mopar Pistol-Grip Hurst shifter stick on the Muncie 4-speed or Richmond 5-speed. Some radiused and flared fenders to clear huge tires all around, and some front and rear spoilers, and maybe a Trans-Am style "Shaker" hood scoop, and a sinister monochromatic black paint job. Or maybe a '70-71 Ford Torino with all the chrome removed and hidden door handles and front and rear spoilers, with huge tires and side-exit exhaust and a snarling 351C under the hood-sort of a "Mad Max" interceptor tribute. Or a '71-74 AMC Javelin done in red, white and blue with side-pipes and Minilite wheels like Mark Donohue's Trans-Am champion. With an Edelbrock headed, nasty 360 AMC V8 or a 440 Mopar swapped in-AMC's use Torqueflite trannys anyway. Or a '67-70 Cougar done in Nascar style with a "Mock Boss" 351 ( Edelbrock and Trick Flow offer hi-performance aluminum heads that fit Windsor blocks and Edelbrock makes a compatible manifold so you could build a "Boss" 302 or 351 ) under the hood and a 5-speed manual, a Shaker Hood and some monochromatic paint. A change from the cookie-cutter Chevelles, Camaros and Mustangs, etc. Mastermind