Where did my reply go, it was not nearly as offensive as cnuts. The car Cnut describes would be a duck at a bracket race.
Where did my reply go, it was not nearly as offensive as cnuts. The car Cnut describes would be a duck at a bracket race.
Last edited by markm; 07-12-2018 at 06:30 AM.
You probably already know this but you can do a brake stall speed test. I don't think its as accurate as the method I described but it'll get you within a few hundred. You pump up the brake pedal, hold it as tight as you can and get on the throttle - this is with the trans sitting in high or Drive. Only do this for a few seconds - it's pretty rough heat-wise on the converter.
Glad you got the ignition squared away. 6500 on a stockish BBC is probably a good, safe limit. And yes most of us have chased them well into the 7000+ range but we probably paid for it somewhere along the line.
I have done that before but I can't recall what it went to at the moment? I've read that you can and you can't with that method. The biggest problem is that it will be in first gear, plus I think with all my long burnouts before I knew any better, I have to adjust the rear brakes. To help, I first put the parking brake on tight then pump the pedal.
I took it out today to check the shift points and it's pretty good from what I can tell, I think I need a tach that responds faster. If you have ever used the MSD rev limiter, they also have a function so that when you turn on the ignition without starting the engine, the tach goes up to what rpm limit you have it set to. My tach is so slow that it almost gets there then it falls back down again before reading the limiter setting. The tach I had before would swing real fast, I forget what happened to it. This one is an Equis or something close to that. Being that I'm leaving the automatic to shift, I don't think I need a large one. I hope to look tomorrow, and if I get one that's slow I'll send it back.
My timing lights were reading all wacky the other week. It's done that before with 3 different timing lights and suddenly stopped. Then at various times acted up again. I had no clue what was going on. A local garage with a Snap On light tried to tell me my balancer was on wrong and at the time I didn't think of the key and keyway. Pretty hard to put it on wrong unless you forget the key. Anyway today it dawned on me that maybe with the new pickup, it would work, and it did. No idea if it was a coincidence or what? My timing was at 22 static and I backed it off to 18. Then with the mechanical it went up to 44, so I think I need to lower that also? It's running darn good, chirps 3rd most everytime.
Tony
1955 Bel Air Sport Coupe
fyi Tony my 454 with 10-1 slugs, .595/.621 solid cam , 781 castings with 2.19/1.88s with a 4K stall in th400 ran its best in my Camaro shifting at 5500, current combo much wilder 6-6.2.First combo was good for 7.0 in 1/8 or 11.06 in 1/4. yes it cost a lot to beat this basic combo.
Hmm, should I know what 10-1 slugs are? With a stall that high and shifting at 5500, does that ... not sure how to put it, narrow the power band. What gears? A friend told me that at the finish I should be in 3rd and close to my shift rpm's. It sounds like it makes sense, is it true?
What I can not fathom is why some use power glides to race. Would you need a really wide power band?
I have to run out, then I'm stopping by the track if anyone is there this early and asking what they need done for the timer. I have a small Kubota with a sub soiler that a lot of people use to pull wires underground.
Tony
1955 Bel Air Sport Coupe
10-1 pistons and a 4.10 Dana 60 Powerlock, usually hit third just before the finish line in 1/8. A powerglide weighs about half what a 400 does and takes half the hp to rotate. a Ford C6 is a super heavy pig and takes 3 times the hp to turn.
Most of us race glides simply because they're simple for the most part and it doesn't take a whole lot of money to make them bullet-proof below the 1000 HP mark. When we first raced the Camaro, we used a TH350, several of them in fact and while the extra gear ratio helped move the car, it also pushed us in the air a lot. That looks great in the photo but isn't the best way to be consistent. We switched to a glide and the car of course calmed down and we immediately started going more rounds. My newest '55 already has a nice glide going together for it although I still have two TH350 units that are race-ready.
The nice thing about a Powerglide is that it's relatively light both in dead weight and in rotating weight. For racing, for the most part a proper converter choice makes up for the lack of gearing.
The NHRA Comp guys use a highly modified Chrysler 3 speed auto with closer gear ratios and light components to get the best of gearing and light weight. Expensive but effective.
Last night I was at the track and I just couldn't hook like in that video. I don't think I've made any changes.
For some reason it wasn't shifting properly into 2nd so the governor is now set at close to how it was. I think my tach is a couple hundred off and I'm shifting at 5700 now. Felt really good today with street tires on the highway. If it doesn't rain, I'll be there tonight again.
Tony
1955 Bel Air Sport Coupe
I was going to guess flat top pistons that gave you 10:1. My first set were flat with a large chamfer around the outside edge. Don't know what the compression ratio was but a compression test averaged 140psi. 1978 smog motor and a slug in it's own right. Back then I thought it had some power, but I'd never had a fast car and certainly nothing like the torque it had.
Last night I challenged a trans am that beat me by a half a car a few weeks ago, he said he wasn't tuned in yet and I said neither was I. I was running darn good but he was running much much better. Then I found out he doesn't exactly advertise the bottle. I guess that's what he meant about not being tuned in yet.
Also that looseness/oversteer in the rear from the slicks is still there but I just got used to it I guess. Only noticed it once.
Tony
1955 Bel Air Sport Coupe