Well,

I raced a club track rental event in Jackson, SC today. The SVT Cobra Club (http://www.svtcobraclub.com) does track rentals at Carolina Dragway twice a year, once in the spring and again in the fall.

First pass off the trailer changing NOTHING from the previous weekend's new best of 10.78 went like this:

R/T - .004 :D
60' - 1.490 :eek:
330' - 4.387
1/8 - 6.822
MPH - 100.67
1/4 - 10.742
MPH - 123.94

Second pass was:

60' - 1.491
330' - 4.376
1/8 - 6.803
MPH - 100.90
1/4 - 10.725
MPH - 123.60

3rd and best pass was:

60' - 1.497
330' - 4.368
1/8 - 6.788
MPH - 101.36
1/4 - 10.685 graemlins/beers.gif
MPH - 124.64

60' times were: 1.490, 1.491, 1.497, 1.490, 1.489, 1.510, 1.540, 1.505, 1.505.

1/4 ET's were: 10.742, 10.725, 10.685, 10.706, 10.745, 11.174, 10.977, 10.780, 10.759

The last 4 1/4 passes were elimination. I made it down to the semi finals smile.gif

The weather today was good, but not great. We had a 15mph crosswind blowing all day. SCD is a 350' elevation track, so that helps.

I'm just tickled pink with the performance of my car. All the hard work, time and money are now starting to pay off. The car has been super consistent the last 4 outings. I can't wait to compete in the Summit points race next season. I'll convert some video and post it later tonight. Couldn't wait to share this with my TC buds ;)

WOW....60's are great and 10.60's ....You gotta be one happy camper........CONGRATS...... graemlins/thumbsup.gif

graemlins/beers.gif WAY-TO-GO. thats got to be scary fast for the first 60". i guess everybodys got a range that is concedered fast. for me, when ya get into the 10s.... YER THERE. and ya did it with a street car, congrats Ken. Dave

:cool: graemlins/thumbsup.gif
Ken, I'm glad to see it!
They say that Carolina is the best hooking track in the southeast.

Wow graemlins/thumbsup.gif What was the temp down there today?
Nice runs Ken!!!!

oops, double post

Simply awesome. How much does your car weigh again?

EDIT: nevermind the weight, i just read your reply on the curb weight thread.

Congrats Ken! I had a feeling the car could go 10.60's if the conditions were right...apparently the different track made enough difference as well as possibly a higher barometer, lower altitude, and/or lower humidity.

You gotta be feeling good now there bud graemlins/thumbsup.gif graemlins/hurray.gif graemlins/thumbsup.gif .

Thanks everyone. I didn't have access to a weather station today since this wasn't a points race. The guys I usually pit with at my home track have one. I've been torn about dropping $400 on one. I looked on www.anythingweather.com (http://www.anythingweather.com) and found the weather data for Columbia, SC (which is a little north and east of where I raced today). I got the temp, dew point and pressure and backed the numbers into a DA calulator I use. It had the air at the time I made my 10.68 pass at 410'. I think that is probably close give or take a couple hundred feet. My 1/4 MPH was down from the previous weekend at Commerce when I was running in +2,000' air, but I think that is because the track I raced at today runs uphill at the end.

Here is a video of the 10.68 pass from today. My wife did her usual stellar job of video taping:

http://kjett.home.mindspring.com/Images/Videos/run3.wmv

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Congratulations Ken! graemlins/beers.gif

:eek:

Most excellent! graemlins/beers.gif

Ken , congrats I have been following your progress with envy ..your 60'times are great ..what changes have you made to the rear suspension this season if any? Tire size?

Congratulations Ken! graemlins/thumbsup.gif graemlins/hurray.gif

Man, you weren't kidding about that track finishing with a little uphill run were you.

Wish I had known you were going over there!!! I started to go until I found out they the SVT club wanted a $50 entry fee! I can go down for a regular day cheaper than that! But I would have gone to see you put some of those Mudstangs in thier place!

I'm waiting to get my new Lunatidyne cam in before I run again. I'm going to run at the Jackson track since It's a much better track than the one in Elgin SC where I went last. There's another track in Orangeburg SC where a lot of the pro-mod guys go to test but I just don't like the atmosphere there at times.

Originally posted by CDN SS:
Ken , congrats I have been following your progress with envy ..your 60'times are great ..what changes have you made to the rear suspension this season if any? Tire size? CDN,

I didn't do anything to the rear suspension other than tuning the shocks. My rear setup is as follows:

Hotchkis adjustable uppers
Hotchkis lowers
Hotchkis triangulation braces
Moog factory replacement springs
Air-Lift air bags (16-20lbs right, 8-10lbs left)
QA1 12-way adjustable shocks

I used to think that the rear end needed to be firm, probably confusing cars with women again :D Anyway, after reviewing my race videos frame by frame, time after time, I realized that I wasn't getting any separation even though I was running Edelbrock no-hop bars. Up to that point I had been setting my HAL/QA1 12-way rear shocks on 6-7 clicks with 1 being the softest and 12 being the firmest setting. I now have the rear shocks set on 2. From the video in this thread you can see the separation in the rear suspension. Notice the sway bar being pounded into the ground smile.gif Once I got this part figured out all that was left was to tune the front suspension. This stuff isn't rocket science and unfortunately I have learned the hard/expensive way. I convinced myself that I needed a really high-tech trick front suspension setup to make my car launch good. Earlier this year I I ponied up the dough for some Global West upper/lower control arms and a custom QA1 coil over system. I did this because I got tired of fighting spring changes on the front end. One spring was too stiff and had the front end bound, the next was too loose and the front end sagged. I tried 5 different iterations of spring changes before making the move to the coil over. I went the coil over route because I could adjust the ride height to get the look and launch I wanted. In hindsight I believe that I could have achieved the same performance results with stock front end components if I could have found a spring combination that would have worked. What is really required in the front is to have at least 5"-6" of front end travel. You can check this by placing a jack under the front end. Jack the front end up slowly until the point just before the tires lift off the ground. Take a measurement at the front bumper and compare this to the measurement taken when the front is at rest. Next, you need a really good adjustable shock in the front. With 5"-6" of front end travel you need a way to control front end rise on launch. The only way I've found to do that is with shock valving. Too little valving and the front end will come up too quickly and the rear tires will unload. This will cause the car to "bounce" as it fights for traction. Too much valving and the car won't get adequate weight transfer and will spin the tires. I don't mean to speak down about the Global West/QA1 coil over solution. These are all super quality pieces and work GREAT for auto-crossing and drag racing when setup properly. However, most people aren't willing to drop $2k on the front suspension of a car used for drag racing and I'm simply saying that these parts arent required!

One last thing I'll mention is tires. I had been running on a 29x10 Hoosier D05 compound slick with very mixed results. These are a soft compound tire. They would work great on a well prepared track surface, however any significant change in surface temp or track prep and my 60' times were all over the place. I've since switched to an "S", or "stiff", series 28x10.5 Mickey Thompson ET Drag. I don't know of anyone else on TC using these tires but for me they have worked great. My 60' times now usually vary by .01, .02 on a terrible track, and it's not uncommon for my short times to be withing .005 on back to back passes.

Sorry to go off on a tangent but I would like to save people the frustration/expense that I went through trying to get my car to hook graemlins/clonk.gif

Originally posted by Big James 4XL:
Wish I had known you were going over there!!! I started to go until I found out they the SVT club wanted a $50 entry fee! I can go down for a regular day cheaper than that! But I would have gone to see you put some of those Mudstangs in thier place!

I'm waiting to get my new Lunatidyne cam in before I run again. I'm going to run at the Jackson track since It's a much better track than the one in Elgin SC where I went last. There's another track in Orangeburg SC where a lot of the pro-mod guys go to test but I just don't like the atmosphere there at times. James,

I'm sorry but I don't guess I knew you lived over that way otherwise I would have let you know I was planning to be there. I usually try to race in both their spring/fall events. You can save $15 (cost $35 instead) by pre-registering. The down side is they have your money if it rains, however the club president Tony is a stand up guy. I paid to race this spring and it got rained out. They had a make up date and the weather was questionable and I didn't want to make another 3 hour drive and get rained out, so I didn't go. Tony remembered that I paid and carried that money over to this past weekend's event even though I chose not to run the rain make up date. Therefore I was only out gas, eats and the $5 admission cost for my wife this weekend. Real good club with great people.

$35-$50 may seem like a steep price to race, but you really can't beat the price. I made 9 passes yesterday and could have easily made 19 had I wanted to. There were probably less than 75 cars racing total, and many of those were only running once an hour. This track is also excellent! Well run event all around. Try to make it in the spring and good luck with the cam change!

Ken ..Thanks for that info, I have had good luck with 10.5 ET streets on a couple of cars so will pbly go with them for the 66 28x10.5 I thought would need wider but if they work for you sb no problem for me
.... I have Metco adjustable uppers and their billet lowers with "instant centre brackets' ( same concept as no hops)have not installed brackets and stock coils, stock triangular braces and rear sway bar ... some had told me poly upper bushings in Metco arms would bind but would assume same in Hotchkiss?? QA1's, no air bag... hopefully I'm on right track

My front susp is all new stock with rebuilt spiral shocks .. I put shock extensions on just cause i had them, as stock shocks limit the front travel .... would really like to try QA1's new adj front shock in front ... may consider making hole in lower control arm larger to get them in .... front springs right now 5230 6cyl springs with 9/16 rubber boosters on top ???

Anyway Thanks for sharing info , it really helps ... since I'm sticking to a 4spd ( not sure which one yet)I will need all the help I can get smile.gif Your video's are a great motivator Bill

Ken, AWESOME short times! All those incremetal tweaks are really starting to come together!

And as usual, I love to watch that car run. THNX Mrs Jett!

Way to go Ken!!! graemlins/thumbsup.gif I picked up a turbo 400 this week(thanks Jakeshoe) hoping to get it in with the new converter and make a few passes before the end of november when the track closes. I sure hate rolling around on cold concrete though :mad:

Way to go Ken!

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Great car, looks tame, runs hard! graemlins/thumbsup.gif