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