Drag Racing Results!!!

[Alec]

Well, Splat and I visited the semi-local drag strip tonight and had a lot of fun. The strip is about 80 miles away from my apartment and it took us about 2 hours to get there during Friday rush hour. Needless to say, for all the runs the motor was hot. The blower acts as a heat sink for the motor and it takes a good 2 hours for the motor to become cool enough to rest your hand on it for more than a few moments. But, during normal use the motor is hot and I wanted to see how Splat runs normally. Going along with that, I did not remove any excess weight from the truck: I left the rear seats, my subs, the skid plates, and most other stuff that I normally drive with on. I also did not run any octane booster, although it might have helped with the outside temperature (80F) and I could have advanced the timing just a little bit. I exceeded my expectations for the truck, but can see where some work could be done. I feel the Eaton posi really made a big difference as I never had a problem with traction at the launch or during shifts. The automatic tranny is a liability though, and I feel I'd be at least .4 seconds quicker with a manual, or at least with 300 RPM higher shift points. I made a total of 8 runs over the course of about an hour and a half.

I made a spreadsheet (and a jpg of it) of all the runs and numbers, but photopoint is being slow right now. I'll get that pic up by tomorrow. But here's my best run:

60': 2.2564
330': 6.5255
1/8ET: 10.1388
1/8MPH: 68.44
1/4ET: 15.7602
1/4MPH: 86.12

I was aiming for anything under 16 seconds. Being 80F and semi-loaded, I think Splat did very well. Besides, not many people can take their sub 16 second sub $30k truck to the strip one night and use it to move out of an apartment the next! Yup, I'm starting the move back to Houston tomorrow and making the final trip back a week from Monday. It's kinda sad to be graduating and moving away from most of my friends, but on to bigger and better things, like MOAB!

 

[Alec]

The total spreadsheet. Hope the image looks ok.

 

[JDraper]

Nice Runs!!It's good to see an X that can post respectable times while still in street clothes!! I'd like to see what an X like yours could do with the ambient temp down around 60°, a high stall converter w/shift kit, and some weight off!! (Yeah, I know, more $$$) Last buggy I had to the strip was my '83 Monte. I ran a worked over 383 stroker and nitro. We were turning low 11's at 118, but I'll still take my X over that any day!!

Nice Job!!

 

[Robert]

Originally posted by Alec
But here's my best run:

60': 2.2564
330': 6.5255
1/8ET: 10.1388
1/8MPH: 68.44
1/4ET: 15.7602
1/4MPH: 86.12

Congratulations on a very good run. I am including the data from my '97 4x4 SOHC Sport so you have something to compare against. Mine was stock, 50K miles, air temp was in the low 70s.

60': 2.342
330': 6.808
1/8 ET: 10.487
1/8 MPH: 66.78
1/4 ET: 16.374
1/4 MPH: 83.24

It looks like yours gets a slight lead to the 1/8 mile by about .3 seconds, however from the 1/8 mile to the 1/4 mile you gained another .3 seconds for a total of .6 seconds. It looks like you gained probably 1.5 seconds in the 1/4 mile. Now if someone would get a Supercharger out for my SOHC I would love to see what it would do. If I could get the same gain as you, that would put me around 14.8 in the 1/4 mile. Again, great times.

 

[Cameron]

What, no reaction times? LOL
Very impressive. I like the consistency. You should run brackets.

Splat isn’t intercooler is it? You might want to think about that.

Congrats…

 

[Alec]

Robert, thanks for the comparo to your SOHC. If you could adapt the supercharger to work on the SOHC, I'm sure it would haul some serious booty. I wonder what Ford did to supercharge that 375 hp SOHC concept buggy? Hmmm, forget about the roots blower, could a centrifugal blower be plumbed to work on the SOHC? It probably wouldn't be that hard, you'd just have to get the fuel and timing setup right.

Cameron, my reaction times all sucked bigtime. A lot of racers were red-lighting and I wasn't really there to race others, I was there to race the clock. Thus, I concentrated on consistent launches rather than fast ones. So I basically used the lights as a guide on when to launch, not an imperative to launch. The times are triggered by motion anyway, not the lights.

Splat is not intercooled. It would be very difficult to figure an intercooler system. There are a few options I have though. One is to jacket the intake tube to cool the air before the TB. Not true intercooling, but it would help. Another option is to rig a water injection system to inject into the lower intake manifold at the blower flange. This would help cool and compress the intake charge but could cause many problems if it malfunctions, and it would require serious engineering and machining. The third option is to try to adapt an intercooler from an SLK 230. The 4 banger Mercedes Kompressor motor uses the same blower as my kit, MP62. If I could see how that engine is intercooled, I might be able to adapt it. I think it is a thin cooler sandwiched between the blower and the block that has cooling fins running across the intake openings. It might also be a fancy water injection system. Sandwiching an intercooler in there though would require a new hood for clearance, relocation of sensors, and calibration of both engine computers. All in all, a whole sh!+load of work!

Thanks for the kind words all!