Skinny's '73

Cool, what's your total race weight with driver? I put the 294S cam in my 472 a couple of years ago and it shaved 1/2 a second off my 1/4 mile time.  

I remember how excited I was to hit 13.99, anything faster seemed trivial until I made it into the 11 second club. My GTS is 4070 lbs. including driver & full exhaust. I bought a wide band O2 to dial in the fuel and hopefully hit 11.50, all motor. Everybody likes to see these big cars fly and your right they're tons of fun to drive.         

It was Labor Day weekend in '93 when I joined the 11-sec club. I had made a 12.12 pass using the nitrous in high gear in the first time trial, so when I lined up against my friends low 12 second Camaro the next pass, I decided to use it right out of the hole. Well, the mini-spool had other plans when it decided to rip the carrier in half with the pin! After driving 250 miles round trip back home to grab another carrier, I had it back together that night and decided to leave the bottle off for the rest on the weekend.
I had been catching it all weekend from a hometown guy with a Nova (who was running 11.90's) that my car was still behind even with the bottle.  I was just about ready to load up the last day, when they had some time between the final rounds for test and tune. I drove up and decided to go for it. It usually bounces the tires a little on the motor, but this time it carried them for a while and drifted to the right a little, so I had to steer back when they touched down. That kinda surprised me and then the factory tach buried before I had a chance to shift. Second gear came nearly as quick and I knew something was different! I made it to the last set of grandstands (about the 1000' mark) in high gear and it started to break up as it found the bottom of the tach again! I just stayed in it and hoped for the best. I picked up my time slip and about tipped over, 11.68! With the hot weather, I had only been running 12.70's all weekend, so a full second+ was great. The guy with the Nova who had been giving me a bad time all weekend jumped in his car and made a pass figuring I hit some good air and ran a 12.00 - he was quiet for the rest of the day.

I factored in my best time (12.57)  for a sea level track (not factoring weather) and it should go in the 12.30's on the motor and probably go at least 11.40's with my 150 shot, but might not make it with the same gearing. 

Edited by Skinnys Garage - 13-March-2010 at 5:10AM

Nice Torino,Very Respectable times ,What Nitrous Kit are you running? My 72  is knockng on the 11.50 door with a very similar build . Little less compression and a bigger cam.  Any problems leaning out ? What type of fuel pump do you have?  I would like to make a 10.9 pass on smallest shot possible.  If BTW what tires do you run? 60' times .   Love the story about your 11 sec pass. Blew up my 351C racing a 70 Nova.  That was the birth of  my quest for speed.  Rich

No E85 around here, I'm to cheap to run race gas so playing with 87 octane dirt from Alberta tar sands is what I'll be working with for the next few years.    

Good running cars in this thread. Have any of you that are running in the 12's done it on street tires or are they all on Slicks?

[QUOTE=RPM]Good running cars in this thread. Have any of you that are running in the 12's done it on street tires or are they all on Slicks?

Edited by GranTorinoMan - 03-April-2010 at 6:12AM

I've never tried street tires with my current combo. My next big purchase will probably be a set of MT ET street drag radials. I know that the bias ET streets will work better, but I want the radial for cruising. My car runs mid-12s with slicks and open headers, so I'm hoping that with my 3" exhaust, 40 series Flowmasters and a set of those drag radials I can still dip in the 12s. If not, I've got the great equalizer in the trunk- no problem then.

If you run one race a year find a buddy or another racer with a pair of used tires ,Throw them on a cheap pair of extra rims and go have fun, At 110 you should get a few 10ths out of the deal ,I was running  1.79 to 1.89s on my 12.9 @ 105 mph combo.  most guys would sell you there used tires for $100 bucks with about 5-10 races left in them.  Rich

Man  that kinda sucks, The only thing I coud sugestions is treating your M/T  sportsman with  a traction compound.  I would have thought you could hook just from the size  alone, I guess size dose not matter as much as compound. Not sure I understand having such a large tire if not for traction.  Most of us are running around an 10.5- 11.5 tire. Rich