On the 'mildly' Cheap SS Monte Carlo chasing a 9.0___

81cutlass said:

Good to see the car is up and running in time for race season! Hope to see it getting some time slips shortly.

What's the goal for this year? Consistent 8's?

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I’d love to see consistent 8’s, but I’m a realist as well. It should, but the crackpot behind the wheel has to be able to be just as consistent and I feel that’s a tall order 😉

I’m going to participate in several no prep races early in the season (no time and no Dragy) with the goal being to not be a 1st round duck. Again though, lots of dialing in is going to be needed. My expectations are not real high. Hopefully after I can manage 4-5 passes with chassis adjustments I think I can be competitive in the class I’m running. Time will tell. I’ll try to post a screenshot of the rules.

I’ve made it to the track twice this month. And all I can say is that I’ve successfully managed to make a mess of my car and truly embarrass myself.

I’m certain that I made too many changes at once with the expectation that I’m a suspension guru lol. News flash - I’m not. I’ve made 5 hits and I haven’t made it to the 330’ without lifting. The car has been everywhere except where it belongs - center of the lane. I’ve never came close to hitting a wall until last weekend. And it took all I had to keep from smashing into the wall.

Quick recap of winter mods - added 200hp, added adjustability to the rear arms, dropped 220lbs off the front of the car, added front suspension travel. I changed my instant center and antisquat value drastically.

Things I know for sure that went wrong - I measured bump steer incorrectly. The IC and AS value changes created a situation where both front tires are off the ground with half the power on the hit (launching). Mix that in with the bump steer issue and OMC it’s not controllable.


My solution is to change the rear arms back to the rear previous numbers, fix the bump steer and tie the front back down to put full control of the bump steer into the chassis.

All I can say is that this been humbling. And I thank God that I was blessed with the ability to drive. And to anyone that thinks drag racing is simply standing on the loud pedal and holding the steering wheel…….ummm……. NOT!!

Hopefully I have it calmed down enough to go straightish. I’ll post some results from this weekend - weather is looking good.

3rd time to the track wasn't a charm, but a bunch better. And all I can say is that I'm learning alot about bump steer, instant center, shock setting strategy and alignments.

This past weekend was successful. I made it down the track successfully multiple times on the radials with low power. We swapped to the slicks on the last two runs and it was still minorly sketchy. But I was stressed and a little more sensitive than usual to the car not going perfectly straight. So I lifted several times when I really didn't need to. But better safe than sorry.

I had the car turned down alot just to be sure it would get down the track. The 4 times that I made full runs with small amounts of pedalling, the times were OK. Definitely nothing to write home about. It's been humbling to say the least. I expected to come out and run 5.7-5.8 1/8ths 1st time out, and I'm barely within a half second of that. On a positive note, the motor/turbo combination is a beast - I just need to get it turned up without killing/wrecking myself lol.

Streetbu said:

Glad you're getting it figured out. Any idea what changes you're going to make now? I'm assuming one at a time this go around? 😉

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Still adjusting the weight distribution some. And then maybe a single rear bar angle change. I have been able to figure out how to get the left to right weight adjusted with the sway link length.

The bar angle changes are a night to night change or perhaps two nights on a setting and then try a change.

The swap from radials to bias dot (slick) is going to be my largest challenge imo. I have Hoosier QTP's for the 1st time. These are about as firm of a sidewall that's available, but they are night and day compared to the radials. Some of the issue is the difference in air pressure, but it will take some getting used to. The difference between the two tires is that when I feel the radial wiggling, then it's going away and I've always had to do a quick throttle pound to try to save the run, but the Bias tire is just grabbing well when it starts wiggling. At least this is what I've found and what I've been told when the surface is awful - it's a different feel and mindset.

I'm sure the radials are faster if the prep is good enough to get it from the starting line to the 1-2 shift, but that kind of 'fly paper' prep isn't found everywhere. Most of the bracket racing classes have slick prep rather than radial prep. But the Drag n Drive races all have radial prep. Again, it's a different mindset for setting up the car and driving.