F-Body Europe

At last. Took the car to Avon Park on 21st April. There was a bad flip from an Outlaw Anglia that shut the track for an hour and reminded everyone how dangerous this can be. I wanted to run mine as near standard as I could and was well pleased with the results, breaking into the 13's on my second run with an appalling 1.22 reaction time. Considering its an A4 with 2.73 gears, I was more than happy with that. I was handing out beatings like I had a red-headed stepchild, opening a can of whup-ass all over the MaxiPants boys in their ricemobiles. All in near silence. That damned engine never stops pulling. Mind you, it's vastly better since I drained about a litre of overfill from the tranny. Skyline GT's, the "tool of choice" for a new generation were running mid to high 15's, a Mitsub Evo IV ran mid 15's. There was even a rich kid in a BMW M Coupe who couldn't break 14.2. Wish I'd pulled against him to take his "Look what I've got" look off his face.
Needless to say there were faster cars there but they were things like lumpy Capri V8's running 11's and a Cortina MkII with a Rover V8, a supercharger AND twin turbos which ran mid 12's. There were quite a few running 10's but even the AC Cobra kit cars with their V8's and open headers were only running low 14's which puts the LS1 into perspective. A daily driver, race car and posh car all rolled into one.
My best reaction was 1.06 so theoretically, I should be able to get it to 13.8 withjout mods. Now where's that loud exhaust.....

Sounds like good action there.

Theoretically, you should be able to wake up earlier next time, and hit a 13.2 or .3!!

Strangely, I concentrated extremely hard on the third and final run and instead of taking it from idle, I held it on the brake and went from 2000rpm. I was convinced I'd done a humdinger of a run but it was a 14.1 so the extra revs counted against it. I went home then as it was an hour queue for the track and I didn't think it would improve much. The last meet I went to in the '87 was a double flash amber then green but as this was a test and tune with proper drag cars, they used the 1-2-3 amber then green which I found it harder to react to.

just shallow stage and leave as soon as the 3rd amber comes on should lower your rt. Dont worry about it killing your et because the clocks dont start until you cross the beam. Its the 60' you want to whittle down for time.

Good job!

Thanks for the advice. With my last car I got a 0.301 reaction time by hitting it on the amber but the car was slow enough not to red light. I was a bit more paranoid this time, especially with an hour wait to get back through the queue...well, maybe 40 minutes. I'm going back for the Classic American RWYB on 18/19 May so hope to improve. I'll have to wrestle with the moral dilemma of sticking the new exhaust on the credit card and to hell with it because I'll need two front tyres in the next two months. I'd be gutted if it was no faster!! By the way, I also rate the GSC's for traction on take-off.

What kind of tires are you running?

Just the standard 245/50 Goodyear GSC's. I wasn't entirely happy with them until I raced my mate's TA and mine hooked far better than his Avons, albeit they were only CR228's but at the track, I also found they hooked pretty well although perhaps the extra revs highlighted their limitations. Trouble is I can't afford to put mega-expensive tyres on at present as the Child Support Agency seem to be taking all my money to build a dragster of their own. Hehe.

I'm please you beat the Jap stuff.

Not to be a d1ck, but some might take offense to that!

The clock does not start till you move so R.T does not matter. Thats a real good time for a stock euro well done.Time to go for that cat back .Im going to try to make that meeting at avonpark but if not I,ll be at the mopar nats at the pod in july hope to see ya there.
Ian.

Cheers Ian. Hope to see you there. I went to try and get a Loudmouth replica put on the car but the MOT regs apparently limit noise to 105Db and the exhaust guy said (a) he wouldn't be happy doing it for a road car and
(b)he thought it would rasp and still suggested I have two cans, one each side. I had that set-up on my '87 Z and didn't think it was quite loud enough for that "unk unk" effect in the fire-up lane. Trouble is I want it just louder than extreme!

Lusifer
Sounds like you need an exhaust cutout for the track.
Jr. and Jack had em on there cars and they are loud.

The difficulty with a cut-out is that you still need to position it presumably where the Y pipe is and then you gotta get under the car to get it off which is a giant PITA. You're also forgetting that this is the UK where every such request is met by a sharp intake of breath, a catalogue of all the problems that could occur, a quote at £30 per hour and a bill for at least £200, after which you've still got a V6 exhaust....so I might as well bite the bullet for the system. Amazing how little tread there always is on your tyres too when you want a new exhaust. There are also precious few exhaust shops that can cater for 3" pipes and most would just look at you blankly. I'm sure there are places but that would cost £50 in petrol just to get there! LOL.

Sounds alot like alot of places in Germany....

Thought about this vs the manual cutout?




http://dmhperfproducts.homestead.com/borlaplate.html

http://www.quicktimeperformance.com/qtec.htm

right at the y is a good place but the bend going in the muffler offers more ground clearance and is easier to get to.

My car is U.S spec but I,ve put a Flowmaster on it just for the sound ,I got it from summit no problem.As I run a garage you can guess I fit a lot of exhaust systems and I can say the flowmaster fitted fine with no mods to my suprise.Roys suggestion for the cutout is ideal,you could get that from summit to .I,m just about to move into a new workshop and will be having a grand opening/american car day soon (may be june).So if you get the stuff and want to make a day of it you could come down and I,ll fit it for you,just a idear.P.S the noise issue on the mot is a gray area I would not worry about that.

Thanks Ian. Much appreciated. However, I've got that bug now where I have to do something to the car before the Classic American event so I'm not racing the same car. I feel that exhaust is going to be a ncessity. thanks for the info about the noise. I do know someone who would pass it on the noise but I'm less sure the local Constabulary would be quite so benificent when they hear it at full howl!

Booked the car in for Thursday 3rd May. Loudmouth replica but with a small silencer where the resonator is. Had big second thoughts when I got up this morning. The street outside was so quiet and I wonder what the neighbours will think of a Loudmouth alarm call. Then I read a post on LS1.com about how good they sound and the neighbours doidn't seem to matter any more. The £550 quote for a twin can system tumbled to £450, stainless steel. I think that's reasonable given I'd have to pay transit costs on any other system. We'll see.