Hello out there. Background: A year or so ago I bought an old black Boat Tail with the idea of makeing it into some sort of a luxo BatMobile for cruising and occasional fun at the local drag strip. I told my 21 year old son that there's no match for cubic inches and 500ft#'s of torq can move montains. Here's the rub. I ain't no mecanic! Add to that there isn't a lot a money that the kids haven't spent. Right now the cars totally stock non-GS(except for all the rust and Bondo) with 225R15's all round. The carb was rebuilt by the previous owner's son and he tossed a '74 HEI distributor into the trunk(where it still resides). OK so this weekend I got enough courage to take it to the strip. Figured I'd get some "Before" times. Here in Houston the weather was perfect and the guy at the tech site said they had over 200 cars running that night. Talk about sticking out in a crowd! Even though it was dark, I wish I had sprung for tinted windows!! Looking at the slips here's what happened: 1st pass: Tromp on gas at light. Lots of one wheel drive smoke. 60'- 2.757 sec 330'- 7.511 1/8 mi- 11.174 1/4 mi- 16.876 86.56 MPH OK, I'll be tender at the line 2nd pass: Better but still alot slower than I hoped. 330'-6.970 1/4 mi- 16.143 86.96 MPH Last (best)pass:Basic "Street Start" 60'-2.559 330'-6.836 1/8mi-10.374 1/4mi- 16.001 86.83 MPH Hell, I drive a Honda that hits mid 15's all day!! (Glad you are are the only ones to see these times.) What I learned: Get a Posi or locker now!! Fill those monstrous wheel wells with some rubber!! Leaveing the better distributor rolling around the trunk is "pointless". Maybe ditch the 5MPH bumper(car was 4958# on the scale!!) Questions: What am I leaveing out. Looking for "cheap" and easy! Thanks in advance for any help, Dave
For a 5000 pound land barge, 16.00 ain't half bad, in my opinion :grin: Give the car a good tune up, make sure your timing is set right. Maybe get that electronic distributor recurved for a little more aggressive timing. Are you still running the stock air cleaner? Consider one that'll let the motor breathe. If you had the money a posi and a set of higher (numerically) gears would make a big difference getting the big boy movin'! There are a lot of cars out at our track that can barely run in the 15's and 16's, mostly imports. Keep at it, you should be able to get it down in the low 15's without a lot of work (or money) Craig
Good to see another Houston area Buick person. We have a local Buick club, and we race at Sealy every month. (I know, the wrong side of the world from you...) I think our site is houstonbuick@yahoo gropus, or something like that...
