Road Test "Ringers" revisited....

Someone asked me the other day why production examples can almost never match the blistering 0-60 and 1/4 mile times of magazine test cars. This guy was upset because two people he knew had new cars and the performance was nowhere near what the magazines claimed. One was a Turbocharged 4-cylinder Mustang. Car and Driver's test mule ripped off a blistering 13.9 second 1/4.  The best his friend's could do was a 14.5. Definitely quick for a 4-banger, but more than 1/2 a second ( about 5 car lengths ) slower than the "Prototype". The other was a Dodge Demon Challenger. The one that has 840 hp and comes from the factory with a trans-brake and drag radials. Chrysler claims a 9.65 second 1/4 mile time. The fastest ever for a production car. This guy's buddy took his to the drags and ran 10.60's. Now that's still ungodly fast-but it's a full second off the manufacturer's claims. Are the manufacturers cheating?  Yes and no. Magazine test mules are tuned flawlessly to "The top of specifiactions". In other words they run as good as they possibly can. Production examples are hit and miss. I worked for Pontiac back in 1983. I remember we had two Trans-Am's on the lot-a black one and a white one. Both had "Cross-Fire" Injected 305 V8s and TH700R4 automatics. The white one would lay 30 feet of rubber on take-off, and lay another 8-10 feet on the 1-2 shift. The black one couldn't spin the wheels at all. Why? I don't know. Anyhow my answer to this guy was this-besides being perfectly tuned, test mules are usually filled with 100 octane gas. This insures that the engine doesn't "ping" under load, and ensures that the ECM doesn't back up the timing to avoid this. Especially on Turbocharged or Supercharged cars-this alone makes a HUGE difference. The car is going to run way better on 100 octane race gas than it will on 87 or 91 octane pump gas!!  The other thing is the test is performed "under controlled conditions with a professional driver."  That means they play with tire pressure, launch technique and shift points. Sometimes it takes them 30 passes to get the best result. A recent example was one of the magazines tested a new Subaru WRX. They listed a blistering 5.4 second 0-60 time and a 13.8 second 1/4. They did disclose that they got this by lowering tire pressure to 25 psi-( factory recommendation is 36 psi, and the tires max is 44 psi ) and popping the clutch at 5,500 rpm!!  Now who drives around in their new $40,000 WRX with 25 psi in the tires ( and low tire pressure light on ) and drops the clutch at 5,500 rpm to jump someone from a light?!  They conceded that with 36 psi in the tires and a reasonable launch-say 3,000 rpm-that the 0-60 time was closer to 6 seconds and the 1/4 mile took 14.3. Still really quick for a 3,800 lb car with a 4-cylinder engine-but not what the readers are led to believe. And sometimes in the interest of selling the cars the manufacturers do cheat. Here's some of my personal favorites. # 1. 1964 Pontiac GTO. After 50 years-Jim Wangers finally admitted what we already knew. Car and Driver's May 1964 test car that ran a blistering 4.6 second 0-60 time and a 13.1 second 1/4 was a ringer. Royal Pontiac had pulled the stock 389 and replaced it with a Blueprinted 421. In addition to the extra cubes it had thin head gaskets to raise compression, loosely adjusted valves with rocker arm lock nuts to rev higher, a mechanical throttle linkage on the Tri-Power ( instead of vacuum ) custom-jetted carbs, and a re-curved distributor. Small wonder that production examples with an assembly line built 389-could only run 14.50s.  # 2. 1969 Plymouth Road Runner 440+6. Chrysler advertised the 440 Six-Pack Road Runner as a 12 second car right off the showroom floor. The ad had a list of mid-high 12 second times they had run during testing. The test mule had a blueprinted 440 with custom-jetted carbs, a custom curved distributor, a 4-speed, a 4.30 geared posi rear end with a pinion snubber, and 28 inch drag slicks. And the "Professional Driver" was Pro Stock Champion Ronnie Sox of "Sox&Martin" fame. Shocker-Hot Rod's production example with a stock engine, 3.54 gears and street tires and a writer driving could only manage a 13.56. That's damn quick-but still nearly a full second off of the advertisements claims!!  # 3. 1973 SD-455 Trans-Am. The "Prototype" Buccaneer Red T/A that ran a blistering 13.54 for Hot Rod and 13.75 for Car and Driver was a ringer. If you look closely at the pictures you'll see the numbers on the Michigan liscence plates. It's the same car. Further-although the Road tests were published in the May and June issues-the tests were done in January. This is relevant because the SD-455 was initially going to be offered in the GTO, the Grand Prix and the Grand Am as well as Trans-Am and Formula Firebirds. "High Performance Cars" magazine made a collossal goof. They named the SD-455 1973 GTO their "Car of the Year". However-the engineers had trouble with connecting rod failure, EGR valve function,and trouble passing emissions with the hot RAIV cam. The cam was swapped for the much milder RAIII cam and hp was down-rated from 310 to 290. The project was almost scrapped. Only the tireless efforts of Herb Adams saved it, and in April 1973 the engine was finally EPA certified in the Firebird line only. That's why only 295 were built-252 T/A's and another 43 Formulas. Another 943 were built in 1974. Anyway-the prototype had the hotter RAIV cam,  an EGR-less 1972 aluminum 455HO / RAIV intake and an open "Shaker" hood scoop. Production examples had the milder RAIII cam, an iron intake with an EGR valve, and the hood scoops were bolted closed because of noise regulations. Other SD-455 cars tested by other magazines in the '73-74 period ran low 14s. Awesome performance for a 3,800 lb car with only 8.4:1 compression; but nowhere near the blistering 13.50s of the "Prototype". No one knows what happened to the prototype. Some people say it was sold to a Pontiac executive, other people say it was crushed. # 4. 1973 Olds 442. Motor Trend had a "1973 Performance Car Preview". The red and silver Cutlass 442 blew the doors off all comers including an SD-455 Trans-Am, a 454 Corvette, a 440 Dodge Charger, a 401 /4-speed AMC Javelin AMX, and a 351CJ Mustang. Olds engineers admitted that "Just for Kicks" they had re-curved the distributor, re-jetted the carb and swapped the stock cam in the 455 for the hot "W30" cam out of the 1970 442. They also put a Hurst shift kit and 2,800 rpm "Shotgun" Torque converter in the TH400 and were running 3.42:1 gears. Shocker-production examples with a stock engine and tranny and 2.73:1 or 3.08:1 gears were substantially slower!!  # 5. 1978 Dodge Li'l Red Express Pickup. I touched on this one in a recent post about one or two year wonders. Car and Driver's "Prototype" blew the doors off both an L82 / 4-speed Corvette and a W72 Trans-Am. However the 360 V8 in the "Prototype" had NASCAR-style "W2" heads,a single-plane aluminum Holley "Street Dominator" intake with a 650 Double-Pumper Holley on it, a hot cam out of the old high-performance 340 V8 and catalyst-free exhaust. Needless to say-production examples with stock heads, a stock cam,an iron intake with an EGR valve and a Carter Thermo-Quad were substantially slower, and their owners shocked when a Corvette or T/A owner showed them their taillights!!  # 6. 1978 Z/28 Camaro. Popular Hot Rodding gushed over their test car that ran blistering ( for 1978 ) 1/4 mile times in the 14.30s. Since Hot Rod' magazine's Z/28  tester ran a 15.21, and Car and Driver's ran a 15.60-this merited further investigation. Dennis and Kyle Mecham of DKM inc had great success with the "Macho T/A". Pontiac Trans-Ams that they hopped up with recurved distributors, re-jetted carbs, Hooker Headers and real dual exhausts. They also had custom graphics. The buff magazines raved, and they couldn't build them fast enough to meet demand. Since they were working out of their dad's Chevrolet / Pontiac dealership in Glendale, Arizona, they got the idea to give the "Macho" treatment to a Z/28 Camaro. Well-PHR's badass test car was the "Macho Z" prototype-it had Hooker headers and dual exhausts, the custom jetted carb, re-curved distributor, open hood scoop-the full "Macho T/A" treatment. That's why it was so much faster than a stocker. The Mecham brothers also did an L82 Corvette that had a Doug Nash 5-speed that was tested by Car Craft that got rave reviews. However-for some reason Chevy dealers weren't as enthusiastic as Pontiac dealers for selling hot-rodded cars, and the "Macho Z" and the L82S never took off like the "Macho T/A's" did. The Macho Z prototype is the only one built. It's in a musclecar museum. No one knows what happened to the L82S prototype. Maybe Dennis Mecham does. There's other cases in the '80's and '90's, but that's another post for another time.....Mastermind