[Johnny406]

I recently picked up a manual VB race prepped 1.76 PG for my car. Long story short, I broke my TH400 for the 3rd time and decided to try something different. At about 3240 race weight, I know my car is still a little heavy for a PG but I am planning on going to a full fiberglass front this offseason and will find more weight to gut. That and my next motor, a forged crank 4 bolt 428 will be much more RPM friendly for the glide.


Anyways, this past weekend was our final race of the year and I pushed hard to get the new tranny & converter in (Preacher Tom's old 3800 Coan converter) and a new driveshaft made as well as a gear swap from 3.31's to 3.73's that I had. I was able to make it to the track and we had a 4+ hour delay due to electrical problems. So on my first and only qualifying pass I did a light burnout and more of a shakedown run. The car certainly didn't launch hard, the 3.73 x 1.76 combo had nothing on the 3.31 x 2.75 first gear ratio of the TH400. For my next blunder I shifter way too soon so it took awhile to get the car back in the powerband and I passed my opponent at the line and still ran a 13.82 ( thought it would be slower). Sadly that was the only run as there was another long delay on a oil down and then my makeshift tranny cooler line failed and made a heck of a mess in the staging area


Now for comparison, the last run I did before breaking the tranny, I ran a new personal best on motor, a 12.067 @ 112.90 on a double breakout loss (oops) to the eventual race winner. Though a 1.753 second drop in performance is excessive, it would've been far less if I hadn't shifted around the 200ft mark and if I had a better starting line ratio.


Am I asking too much out of my 455 at this weight to really consider trying a glide? The TH400 is at the trans shop now, I'm trading in the lower 2.75 gearset for a stock 2.52 which should work better for hard tire racing 1/8th mile if I go back to it.