[GTO Karl]

71 T/A:

I have also found that bringing the car hard on the converter improves traction, 60 ft, and overall et. However, I will not claim this will work for all cars, converters, or of even my own applications if I change them. You have to test and tune to see what happens.

Your temp is hindering your performance and consistency. Is your thermo drilled with a couple small holes? Independent of what it does on the street, there are measures you can take at the track. After arrival, go to the cooling pit and cool everything, I run straight water and drain the radiator when I get there. Get the engine as cool as possible at least once, including your intake, carb, fuel pump.

From here on out, start the engine as little as possible, either "start and bump" in the lanes or push the car. Never let the engine idle and "hot soak". I like to start my burnout at 140 or less. By the time I'm staging, the engine is at 160-165 on the thermistat. Also, keep your hood open to let air flow through, taking unwanted heat with it. Try to plan when you start your car and do your burnout, so that there is no wasted time, especially waiting for someone else.

After your burnout, drive right up to just before the first beam, click it into nuetral, rev the engine to 3000rpm for a few seconds(maybe 10sec), then let off the gas to bring it down to idle.

This will clean off your plugs from any possible loading during your burnout, refill your float bowl, and let the fuel settle down and defoam. This alone can be worth a tenth, depending on whether this was a problem...it may not help you at all, but it has helped many, many of my friends over the years. Watch other cars do burnouts and launch, you will be amazed at how many are puking black smoke after a burnout, then go right up and stage.

Next, and this may not help you either, but it has worked for me and you should at least try. Stage into the first beam (barely),then bring the car hard on the converter, really hard. Pulse the brakes to stage the second beam, you should feel the front of the car rising, as the suspension gets preloaded from the torque. When staged, well, you should know what to do next.

The preloading will keep you from wasting engine energy raising the front end and transfering weight, during the first 60ft. Also, it will keep the drivetrain from "shocking" the tires on the launch, improving traction and consistency.

This has worked for me for all but two converters I owned, and those, I still brought them up pretty hard. I know many people say there cars work better off idle, or from a light load, might be...but I always experiment with each car I build or borrow, and this has worked best for me over the years.

Karl