OT: The $300 Buick hit the track

THE GOOD: It did 106 mph on its very first pass down the 1/4 mile, even with 2.56 gears. THE BAD: The motor is going to come back out to figure out who was knocking

THE STORY:

I took the car to the strip on Sunday. I had made some adjustements to the governor on the TH350, but as of the last test it was shifting around

55-5600 rpm. I was hoping for something in the 53-5400 rpm range, but that wasn't too far off. Remember, I'm running the original open 2.56 rear and some 26" tall Hoosier Quick Time Pro (DOT slicks) tires. I knew going into it that I could probably approach 108-110 mph and not get into drive in 1/4 mile.

It was a great air day with temps of about 40 degrees. Unfortunately it rained the night before, so traction was marginal. Even with that I didn't have severe spin on my first ever pass in the car. I did notice, to my surprise, that it shifted itself upwards of 5800 rpm from 1-2. I crossed the finish line still in second at about 5400 rpm. Results are as follows:

60 ft: 2.309 1/8th: 8.882 @ 84.01 1/4: 13.512 @ 106.13 mph

Considering my 71 GS455 ran a best of 13.43 and a best mph of 100, that was a solid effort in my opinion. The mph is consistent with high 12's, and I'm only using two gears and have weak torque mulitiplication off the line. My GS455 had a best 60 ft of

1.855.

All seemed well, so about 30 minutes later I went out for another run.

This time I spun a little more off the launch and lifted to get traction. The 1-2 shift came in more like 5900 rpm, which is really too much for the stock/original short block, so I figured I would make this the last pass until I can get it home to put some heavier weights in the governor. I also noticed that it didn't seem to pull as well on the top end of 2nd gear, through the traps.

Sure enough, only 103.40 mph and a similar 13.525. 60 foot time was 2.314. It appears that I was gaining steam until the 1/8th mile point, then started losing ground on the previous run. That pretty much coincides with the time after the 1-2 shift.

All sounded fine and I parked in the pits. While talking to a friend who just arrived and hadn't seen the car yet, there was a strange noise from the engine compartment. I likened it to the sound of tripping the starter with the coil wire off, to try and get a timing mark lined up. We wrote it off to the extreme cold, and the fresh exhaust probably dropping temperature rapidly. I started up the car for the friend and when I got to about 2000 rpm, a bit of a knocking sound was heard. I shut it down and the guy who had it at his house, to finish it up, went and got his trailer to take it back to his place. He's got a couple of things ahead of it, but he's going to pull the motor and check out the bottom end.

We're hoping that it's just some rod bearings. I do have a spare set of rods if it needed them. It will probably be about a week until he gets to it anyhow.

Outside of the potential carnage, it was pretty encouraging though. I'm thinking that I need to advance the cam a little further to bring the peaks down lower. It still pulled up to the 5800 rpm point, which is obviously beyond what the motor should see. The seriously worked heads were definitely doing their job, and the little cam I chose worked well with the low compression. With the "right" gear ratio, some newer suspension pieces, and upgrading my ignition system (still running points), I expect speeds around 110 mph and times approaching the high 11's.

Steve

72 Skylark Custom455
Reply to
A Guy Named Steve
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I thought we only allowed GN and T-Type Buicks on here! ;)

A Guy Named Steve opined in news:vo3Sd.1532$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net:

Reply to
Backyard Mechanic

I thought I'd slip one by...

Steve

72 Skylark Custom455

Backyard Mechanic wrote:

Reply to
AGuyNamedSteve

AGuyNamedSteve opined in news:Ih5Sd.1736$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net:

Sounds like a good deal, anyway!

Congrats!

Reply to
Backyard Mechanic

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