Lots of questions going on as the race approaches. So here goes................ Tech will be fairly quick, so everyone can get racing ASAP. It will be the normal drill, just checking for obvious things as well as safety things. Make sure your battery hold down is good! Every year I get about 6 that have the battery flying around the engine compartment! The quick 8 will be checked hard this year. Since no-ones certifies anymore, and there is prize money, we will be checking. You want to run the #, then prove it is legal. #9 and #10, be ready. To keep things going quickly, as soon as someone does a 11 anything, we will be coming to check out the car. Could be right after your first run. Dan will be there with "the wistler" to check out compression ratio. You can not be over the NHRA allowable. While the spark plug is out, we will be bore scoping to check out piston configuration. If it is suppose to be a dish, it better be. If it is flat top, it better be, and if it is suppose to be a dome....... well, it better be! Then valve covers will be taken off and spring pressure will be checked for excessive closed pressures. Dan and I have talked as too what should be allowable over stock. Roller tips appearantly will be allowed. Depending on time, we may take off carbs and go down with the bore scope, and we may go up the drain plug hole to have a look at the bottom end. Once the car is together, we will be visually looking at the converters and then foot braking the cars to see how much stall they have. 4 speed cars will be checked for aluminum flywheels as well. Then we will drive the car to the scales. The car will be put in drive and made sure that it shifts by itself, stopped and then drove once more to make sure it shifts all three again. The speedo must also work. Then the cars will be weighed without driver and trunk open, to check for ballist. Again... quick 8 only. If you can't pass, you will be racing in FAST class that day. Peter
Sooo I guess the number one qualifier for the quick 8 will be running about 12.90s or so.:moonu: FAST class will be gettin bigger this year:laugh:
Just watch out for the hernia your gonna get lifting that concrete filled tire into the trunk..... ou:
First Terry whips out his camshaft and now Pete is giving free a Colinoscapy to a few lucky people.:shock: :shock: SWEEETTTT.........
I like the valve spring pressure idea it has been talked about in the past. I do think bouncing people this year for it may be a bit quick as the suggestion is coming out a couple weeks before we all show up. It likely would be far more reasonable to give warnings this season and penalties next. I was told today that the pressures are subjective though. Better to the point they seem arbitrary. Solid lifter cars get 180 lbs. on the seat. Hydro lifter cars get 140 lbs on the seat. I dissagree with that point. No car that I am aware of came with anywhere near that number with solid lifters. I pulled out what AMA specs I have and noodled through a few. I will focus on Chevy's and Pontiac's here primarily as Chevy's seem to do a nice job filling out the quick eight and well I am bringing a Pontiac I hope. The max AMA spec for L78/L89/L72/L88/LS6/ZL1's is 126 lbs. on the seat with inner and outer springs/dampers combined. That should be the absolute max a Chevy solid lifter car should have. If you give them 180 lbs. then you have artificially advantaged them by about 10 ZIP codes. Using '68-'71 AMA specs for Pontiac's as that is what I had handy it is not as clear cut. Trans and motor tune vary the pressures. As only the RA cars from those years likely have a chance at the quick eight I will focus on them. RA D ports in either auto or stick have an inner spring pressure of 60.2 max and outers of 66.1 giving them the same 126 seat as a solid lifter Chevy. The exception to this is a note on '68 RA D ports getting a slight boost on the outers. RA II/IV cars get more as the outer spring goes up 80.5 giving about 141 on the seat. My question would be why do Chevy's with the new rules get to run 54 extra lbs but a RA II/IV drop down 1? The only way to honestly inforce spring pressures in a fair manner is AMA spec. If we want to pull these cars back to where the factory had them then lets do what the factory said they did. These pressures will surely slow down all the front running cars a lot. Likely it will knock nearly a second off them as they will no longer be pulling 7K shifts. I have the Mopar stuff around here somewhere in my files and I know it is well below the 180/140 rule. I especially, and with bias, love this rule. It is more seat then a Pontiac needs with its very square valve train geometry and it will absolutely kill the Chevy's. A RA II or RA IV bird would likely be at the top of the quick eight charts if the true seat specs are held. Skip what I said earlier, lets get to this right away now that I think of it. Truly though the only thing I see coming is a bunch of bent valves if you truly do this fairly. Which will chase away more people then too much seat pressure ever would. Mark
Mark In your opinion, what would be realistic numbers to stop the abuses of some. Pick a solid number for all and and hyd. number for all. I don't think Pete was trying to favor one or the other , but just to be realistic. No flaming arrows here , curious
Where's the rule on Aluminum Flywheels? What amount of stall will be allowed, and where do you get the Factory RPM rating? Re spring seat pressure: what's wrong with factory specs, period?
Tim, this is exactly where I think all the problems stem from. The original notion (as I understood it) was that the class was supposed to adhere to factory AMA specifications. Then it became necessary (because of the need to machine engines during a rebuild) to reference NHRA limits to cap improvements that were possible from boring and milling. Somewhere along the way (for some) becoming "top dog" replaced "best you can run with factory correct cars" as the goal. This is where P/S began to introduce "permitted variations" and allowed all the NHRA limits (and other stuff) to become the yard stick. Now the suggestion is maybe there should be independent standards for limiting spring pressures across all brands without reference to AMA specifications. I'm not taking sides here (and you know I'm not critical of either of you or Mark) but this in my view is just fanning the fires more. P/S will not see peace in the valley on these issues until someone finally says: the factory spec's and equipment is all that you can use (only caveat being the reasonable machining limits required to rebuild engines). ... guess I'm the only one still singing that same tired old song.
I'm surprised to see that the L78's and the L88/Zl1's have the same valve spring specs. I would have assumed that the L88/Zl1's would have had much more pressure.
I know Donny, never happen. But the rules may/ will eventually apply to all of us, and they should. Everybody should run the same regulations, top 8 or not. There is no rule against aluminum wheels, and I've never seen an RPM number for stall speeds. That needs to be clarified.:rant:
Isn't the the valve spring issue really just a quick and dirty way of saying the cam is bogus? A friend just had a stock 340-6 engine on the dyno with 70 lbs of seat pressure and it pulled all the way to 6000. Why does everyone need 140 or 180?
Tim I actually think that is a great question and I thought about it for a while last night after posting the actual AMA specs. I have a couple thoughts and I am not sure any are exactly perfect. I personally do not want to see L88 Vette's and LS6 Chevelles running rediculously slow times because of this. Is it really any fun to see an L88 Vette run 12.80's well a car that should be much slower can now go quicker? Do I want to see precious 074 heads with vavles pounded into the chambers sideways? No. A couple thoughts. The purest way is simply hold everyone to AMA specs. That though posses the durability issue immediately for some brands. Likely a safety issue also if you have motors letting lose. The next thought was something like AMA plus some %. Kind of like the cam rule of factory + 1%. Say something for conversation sake of AMA + 10% or 15% etc. Or you could go with flat values like Pete proposed. Problem there is I see a bunch of cars that get caught unfairly in a no mans land. Take a '69 Hemi Runner. Using 180 lbs on its solid cam is wonderful, but take Bob K who has invested in racing PS and his '70 hydro Hemi would have 140 lbs. I would bet a lunch that 140 would be like having 126 in the solid Chevy's. Plus the 440+6 guys I do not think can live on 140 and perform as they currently do but that 140 would be wonderful in a Pontiac. There is so many variables and so much ambiguity if you go away from AMA. Plus a lot of room for hurt feelings or feeling a particular car was singled out. From all our dyno time I know that 140 would not be sufficeint for several of these big block juice cam motors. Or atleast not enough for the performance levels to stay as is which actually might be part of Pete's point. After typing this it looks like I am not the answer guy for this question at all. I actually have a few questions also for Pete. I am not sure I understand the ballast rule. If it is secured SAFELY I am not sure I see the issue. It does not effect me but I am wondering what the thought proccess is for this rule. I am happy to live by it though. Another rule I am not sure why it is important is the speedo rule. Not sure where it has an effect. Is it the off color auto's that get caught up in that? Do these fancy auto's not use a speedo gear? The bigger issues I see then those two tiny rules is the breaking of large long established rules. I have teched several cars at Stanton that in the past have qualified or will currently make the Quick 8 at FS that have drag springs and shocks. This is against the rules but seems to be unenforced. It seems that ballast is a far smaller (and new) offense then illegal suspension. I also find it curious that people who do run auto trans seem to be held to a different standard then manual trans guys like myself. It seems to me that a couple Quick 8 cars routinely show up with Richmond manual trans'. The only reason to do so would be because they have more favorable gearinging options and shift well. It is an obvious performance inhancer just like the funny auto trans. Plus an auto car has to have a stock shifter but I see lots of manual cars with after market shifters. Again trading out a Muncie shifter for a hurst is done for only one reason. I have heard the arguement that Richmonds are more durable than the M22's. GM warrantied and had faith in the M22 and virtually all the cars made it out of the muscle era with them still in tact so that seems to be a bit hollow of an excuse to justify what is not anywhere near a correct item. Even the exchanging of M21's for an M20 when it was not available in a car seems just as incorrect. We need to treat us "man pedal" guys with the same scurtiny expected of the auto shift crowd. Fair and honest needs to travel in all directions. My last issue is cars that are super fast that do not have the proper era block. If you run a reproduction and updated block that is clearly in violation of the rules. I think that should be a big concern. It has been allowed to date to happen but if we are trying to get a handle on how fast and over board some cars have become then these surely should be considered items also. And maybe the biggest rule violation I have seen. These are simple opinions (and only oppinions) and I do not want to send any flaming arrows either. Especially as these cars have been allowed to run so I think in fairness they should have a reasonable time to correct any issues. Especially the ones I noted above as they have been permitted to run so a swift handed execution does not seem reasonable by any manner to me. A reasonable time I think is a season unless it is an obvious and egregious infraction that should send them to FAST or home. I am certain none of this really helps but I gave it a shot. Please remember I really do not want to stir any pots here and I surely do not want into any bash fests. These are my singular opinions and only worth what one vioce out of 150+ of us racers are worth. I want to keep the nice attitude that Donny spoke of intact. I like it better as it is less stressful. I am looking forward to all of us seeing each other and getting some great passes in against all the different cars I may line up with no matter how perfectly the car matches the rules. We are ultimately I hope here for the fun and freindships. Sorry long post once again. Mark
Frank on GM cars it is 2400 rpm as that was the best GM offered. I think they carry that rule over to the other brands but do not quote me on it. I only have interfaced on the GM rule with Dan and Bob. Mark
RDL--- Amen I'd be hip with factory specs. But I ain't riding this horse. Tired of voicing my opinion ( which everyone has one) and being beat up for it. Besides all of this means nothing if it falls on deaf ears!
Amen to you too Tim. Your way out in front of me as I just vioced and opinion and am likely being lined up as we speak. That is why I gave a big disclaimer, fear from the past rushing in! I agree AMA is easiest to control but I will let Rob (RDL) take the lead and I will duck now. Mark
