540Hotrod, Hi Jim, What did you run at the vette race? I heard from a thread here that you have done some class winning since we last talked over on Mike Starks board. Give us internet Chevy junkies some details...

Can't claim any victories there. First they cancelled the planned rental of the track on Thursday due to mud being all over the track from the recent storms. Some guys went out Sat. night I heard during a normal race night, but I didn't go.

Plus, I had called before the race and they told me that while they are a little lenient with NHRA rules during deals like that....they figured my convertible with no cage might be pushing it a little. Go figure.....

Anyway, I really can't brag much yet. Only been to track twice with it and managed just a few runs, none that spectacular. I finally got Dana 60 IRS setup installed and got to track to try it out. Since I've never launched it on slicks with the 540 without scattering something in the rear end/halfshafts etc, I was a little easy on it.

The first was at San Antonio IHRA track. Storms everywhere and weather station was showing 3700 ft.along with 91% humidity. Made one 10.84@129 pass. Launched about 2500 rpm and shifted at about 6000 or so. I was hoping to get a few runs in, but tech guy shut me down. Was going to let me make 1/8 mile passes, but track owner came back later and literally had him pull me out of water box! Oh well....

No changes, I took it to one of the Fastest Street Vette in TX events. I entered the N/A class mainly so I could get some runs in at this non-sanctioned track. Tried launching at 3500rpm or so and blew away slicks. I guess I need new ones...been working on car so much I forgot they were like 7 years old.....don't hook well. Then I tried coming out back around 2500 rpm again and decided to rev it back to rpm range it likes. Found out the new Crane ignition module (XR-1) was deciding to kick in rev limiter at 6400 or so. I had just put it in (finally took points out!) before the San Antonio deal, but of course had never got a chance to rev it high enough to see that it was going to act up. No amount of adjusting the rotten little POS was going to get it to let me rev, so since race was beginning, I had to revert back to launching easy and shifting short around 6000 rpm.

I ended up winning the race anyway, but only ran a 10.61@133 driving that way. I couldn't experiment any...I had to go to racing! It was mainly a C-5 deal with sponsored "tuner" cars there that were VERY lightened (under 3000 with driver!) and using race gas. I stopped at Shamrock and filled up with 93 octane before the race! My car weighs 3600 with me in it. I did cut a .502 light in the final round though! Top end hp is what won the race....I had most of them by 6-8 mph!

The best part was a buddy of mine broke his car and we had to put his on my trailer. So we threw street tires on mine and drove home the 140 miles to his house passing up all the guys with transporters we had just beat! It was great!

So anyway, I can't brag any yet. I need to spend some real time working it out at the track. One of the issues at those races was the old Doug Nash street 5 speed was getting almost impossible to shift as I've added HP. My buddies were ragging on me pretty hard for having to literally let off of it to shift it SLOWLY...not very impressive!

So since then, I've added the G-Force 5 speed. REALLY sweet shifting trans. I love it. I also spec'd it with better gear ratios to get engine in its' powerband. It was getting into 4th gear just past the 1000 ft mark at the track and only turning 6200 rpm or so in the traps. I'm only using 3.07 gears (gotta be able to go Viper hunting too!) So the trans alone should help a lot.

I've also installed 2-1/8" headers. On the dyno we tried 2",2-1/8" and 2-1/4" sets. The 2" were great down below 5000-5500 rpm, but it lost 50+ hp as rpm climbed. I was using the 2" ones at the previous track sessions as that's all I had that fit the car.

I've also removed the funky Crane junk. It actually fires very well, it's just the funky integral rev limiter that blows. I recently came back from a 2000 mile road trip ( I drove it there from Houston!) to Bowling Green (12.9 mpg!) and found it was now shutting me off at 4900 rpm! So it came out and points went back in! Instant 7000 rpm again.

I'll get some new slicks before I go back to track and I really expect it to do much better with traction,headers, rpm and real driving.

For the folks who don't know combo, it's a 540, 11.06 compression, ported Brodix 2xtra's, Super Victor intake, 1050 Dominator, 272/278@.050 110 Lsa .731/.731solid roller. G-force 5 speed and 3.07 gears.

It dyno'd at 825.1hp@ 7400. That was with large headers, electric waterpump etc. In car it was using little headers, belt driven pump and flex fan. Looking at mph, it's pretty consistent with the 650-675 it may have been making in the car since at the rpm range it was working in, it was down in the well under 700 hp range most of the time. The cam/heads/intake combo was chosen to kill bottom end and put it at the top end, but rev limiter deal had me in real trouble..I didn't have the old setup's bottom end and I couldn't get to the new setup's top end!! AAArrggghhh....!!!

So that's the newest update. Not real impressive yet...the goal is to run a 9.99 on pump gas and drive home with no power adders. I'll get there, just gotta play with it some. But we did prove it's streetability with the road trip. In fact, the four of us that drove up from TX togethergot shot for a feature and then they shot a separate one on me for Corvette Enthusiast magazine. Hopefully it will be out in a few months!


JIM

Hi Jim, Glad to hear your getting some track time. The powers that be are probably going to make it hard on you about the roll cage as they are getting stricter around here also. Quite a flap on the local strip web board here as my son tried to explain the mindset of the street racing crowd, the arrogant track owner thought my son was saying he wouldn't come to the new strip thats just opened and would keep his followers away also. Not at all what my boy was trying to tell the man. I think there is a lot left in your car and don't feel it will even be hard to run 9.90s in it. I went down to see the power tour cars today and got the crap sunburned out of myself. I talked to the Tulsa car owner that finished #7 at the pump gas drags, Mel Graham, and asked if he had run it here yet. He said he was going to but hadn't yet. I think he is looking for better weather so he can duplicate the 9.85 he ran in Memphis. Lots of new cars around so i hope we don't get on the bad side of the new track owner permantly. Keep us updated as i think your vette is the coolest car i've heard of in a long time. I bet the LS1 cars couldn't imagine why you were getting away from them so bad on the big end. By the way Mel's camaro had a Jerico 4 speed, 4.29 Ford rear end, 13.5 x 30 E.T. Streets and appears to weigh about 3200 pounds as it has a lot of aluminum inside and two racing buckets. It ran 9.85 @ 137.6 which your car should come close to if the gear doesn't hurt you to much.