The blue Nova is my car also. It's driven by my son Tom. It ran 13.47 on street tires spinning all the way into third gear. Kinda neat that we ran together.
Yep.. worked for me too. That is cool that you get to race against your boy like that. I hope to someday get the same opportunity with my two boys as well. Not dissing your driving skills at all here.. but you have some easier ET shaving coming your way once you get that "green light to right foot" timing thing dialed in a bit tighter. An easy 1 - 2 tenths from what I see in the video. Hard to tell in the video but do you leave up on the converter?.. or just let the converter flash after you mash the pedal? Reason I ask is that it seems to come off the line a bit soft as if lacking timing and/or fuel and/or flash speed. Do you know what the timing number is at the leave rpm/converter flash speed?
I'm launching it at 2500 rpm. The converter is locking up at 32-3300. Yes, my reaction times suck. I'll work on that this weekend. And, yes it's soft off the line. It's low on torque at 3000 rpm. I checked the dyno runs at 32, 34, 36, and 38 degrees of timing and there's no appreciable difference in either of them. The distributor is locked at 38 degrees now, so timing is the same at all rpm. I know I need a looser converter, but it will have to wait. First thing I'm going to upgrade is the stock lifters to short-throw race lifters. That should let me rev to 6500. That may lower the ETs a bit and will certainly keep me off the rev limiter going through the lights. Next will be a Quick Fuel 650 double-pumper carb. I really think it needs more fuel even though the dyno sheets say it's only using 490 cfm at 6100. The true flow of the 3310 Holley 750 vacuum secondary carb is 530 cfm if I can believe what I read on several sites. I think the double accelerator pump shot of a double-pumper will help it leave harder. A little bit at a time.
Got five runs on the car today at the test and tune. 12.52, 12.52, 12.63, 12,53, 12.525. The 12.63 was because it spun the slicks about one revolution. Guess I didn't do a good burnout on that pass. Bumped the rev limiter in the water and let it out early. My reaction times were from .200 to .037. Staging deep helped cut the reaction times, but just indicates that I'm not quite there on my ability.
Nice job. Let us know how the Quick Fuel experiment turns out. My machinist is also a circle track racer and he swears by them.
Set your timing at 34 deg & unlock the dist. so it can advance on its own,but have it fully advanced by 3000rpm.That should give you a little more torque down low to help get you off the line.You will have to experiment with how quickly the dizzy is allowed to advance to get the best reaction out of the mtr,just something to try.Good luck & have fun,I`m to busy right now trying to dig out from under hospital bills right now to spend any money on race stuff.
I assume you meant.. "unlock it and set total timing lead to 34° and then allow the centrifugal to come all in by 3,000 rpm"? Wouldn't that result in him having less timing advance at his sub-3,000 leave rpm? Seems a bit counter-intuitive to achieving the hardest converter hit. Especially so if the throttle isn't wide open and there is still manifold vacuum allowing more timing lead to improve part throttle torque production. Personally, I'd be trying to pump a tad more timing into it for stronger 60' times with that tighter low stall converter. Adjusting timing lead for maximum manifold vacuum level at the leave rpm will tell the real story. PS. there are many times where adding extra timing lead will not help peak power output.. but it tends to spread the distance between peak torque and peak horsepower to allow a braoder power range. This is especially helpful with lower stall converters and lighter cars that can tolerate the extra timing lead before peak torque. Trick is to give it what it wants based on manifold vacuum and ET.. not what a dyno says "it liked for best peak power".
Several folks have suggested that I unlock the distributor and allow the distributor to advance to max at some rpm, usually 2500 to 3000. I'm no expert and I'm certainly willing to learn, but....... This is not a street car. It leaves on the converter at 3300 rpm. What the distributor does at 2500-3000 "all in by" rpm will have no effect on the engine/car/power above that rpm unless by chance the rpm drop when shifting to a higher gear drops it below that rpm. In my case it does not. As for timing the engine on the dyno made: 247 fp/tq at 3200 rpm at 34* timing 278 fp/tq at 3200 rpm at 36* timing 281 fp/tq at 3200 rpm at 38* timing 283 fp/tq at 3200 rpm at 40* timing That shows negligible change once the timing is above 34* The dyno sheets also show a 60 hp difference between 32* timing and 40* timing, although just like torque the biggest jump is between 32* and 34*. We all know an engine dyno is not a drag strip so I intend to move the timing around a bit to see what, if any, improvement I can find. But, right now I need more seat time so I'm going to leave it as until I can get my reaction times down.
To Robs reply,that is what I also thought,did not realize you were getting off the line above 3 grand.
