Just wanted to give you guys a heads up! This Friday, yours truly will be motoring to the quarter mile proving grounds, to watch an expensive, long-suffering ordeal come to fruition when I trip the lights at a 12.6X. (That's a prediction, so don't hold me to it. I might be faster! HAH!:))
At any rate, I hopefully get to see it all pay off on Friday, and I'll try to snag some pics and video to post...at the very least I'll have times.:)

....pray for me.:)

Scott

.....no, better yet, pray for my car. I can heal....but I'm flat ass broke so anything that breaks isn't getting fixed in the near future.:)

WELL????

you didn't run slicks and grenade that 10 bolt did you???

how'd it go?

jason

Lol..no, there were no slicks involved, and the rear-end held together, mainly due to massive traction problems. However, I did manage to blow out another head gasket at some point during run #3, which ended my day prematurely.
It's pretty clear that,even if I could have run all day, there was no way I was getting within sniffing distance of a 12 second quarter. Until I do some massive tranny and rear-end work, I'm stuck in the high 13-low 14 range.:( I wasn't even peaking in THIRD at the end of the quarter, so the 3.23 gears have got to go. Beyond that, I learned that with street tires, you actually have a lot less traction at the track then under normal driving conditions, due to built-up rubber at the start line. WIth my gears, I couldn't try any kind of easy start because I just bogged down, and a hard start meant a serious smoke-show, even with a bunch of pedaling.
At any rate, I've decided to O-ring the heads this time and do a little flow work on them, so I'm out of comission till I have the finances for that.

Scott

sounds exactly like my el camino. same exact damn thing. wouldn't even hit third by the end of the track.

the car is probably a good 1/2 second faster on the street. mine was too, first night i went out we ran a 12.8 mustang down the street from the track and kicked his ass, then went back the next week only to find out that our car ran a 13.65. it made no sense unless you put the traction/slick pavement into the equation.

shitty about the damn head gasket. i'll get you the specs for decreasing your quench area so when you get to it, you'll have a significant benefit from the job you now have to do.

jason

I'd appreciate those specs. Jason. I just hunted up my slips for Friday night, and my first run was a 15.58! at 97.34 mph. That inlcuded a absolutely horrible start and a badly missed shift The second run was a 14.82 at 87.76, which I'm happy about. A 3/4 second improvement on the ET, with a much lower final MPH. We were ET bracket racing (that deal where you pick your dial-in) and I got on the brakes a little at the end of that second run to avoid breaking out, but I didn't scrub off `13+ mph. The last run was full on, and produced a 14.41 at 101.20 mph. Obviously, there's a ton of potential left in the the car, and that rear-end is killing me. The second and third runs were about as good a hook-up as I'm going to get with the current set-up, and the times reflect it. I can't imagine what I'll be able to do with a 4.11 posi, slicks and a 3,800 stall. hehehe:)

go 50mph on the freeway....
lol

RatTrap try some felpro perma-torque blue gaskets. They havent failed me yet and I use them on my big blocks and small blocks alike. Thats whats running on that 70chevelle and even with the blower and no o-rings they still hold up. If they don't work on your engine I'd suggest taking a couple thousandths off of your heads if you have room, to make sure your heads are not warped.

1000HP, thanks for the advice. The gasket I just blew was actually a FelPro Perma-Torque.:) The quality of the gasket isn't the issue anymore, so much as getting the right torque spec on the bolts. Some of them are so tight into the corners of the heads that my torque wrench binds, and I have to over-torque to try to compensate. The heads were checked for flatness after the first gasket blew, and they're in good shape. (And they should be, being brand-new from Trick Flow less than 3,000 miles ago.:)) At this point, i need to find a smaller bolt/nut application, or grind a little out of the heads to clearance the socket on the torque wrench.

(I knew all this the last time, but I'm pretty sure it's something in my genetic make-up that makes me try to half-ass everything.:))

No problem, maybe you should try grinding a little off the socket instead of your machine prettied aluminum heads. I always torque 75 on the longs and 65 on the shorts.

I'm takin a class on heads and my teacher just finished telling us about him buying new trick flow heads came from the factory warped they were aluminum i should say you better check again at the Horizontally - top, middle, and bottom. Diagonally - Both ways, and between each piston vertically (4) my teacher showed us how they were only curved vertically so i reccomend you check