Re: to all 85-92 efi racers
 

Whew! It's good that something redeeming has come out of this thread. This one hit the crapper real quick and I thought it was going to be another high school smackover.

Bill D. - I read your entire post. I know you have a lot of time one your hands, but I didn't know you knew that many words to be able type that long without going to sleep.

Re: to all 85-92 efi racers
 

I hope somone at NHRA reads this post and gives this combo 15 hp. This is what is wrong with stock to day. What are you saving it for 2020? This combo is so under factored, My 305 wagon is rated @253 and your 350 is rated @ 260 or something crazy like that. Give me a brake. You guys are a joke!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: to all 85-92 efi racers
 

Dwight,

Your grasp of the gist of that boost problem is impressive. Thanks for telling us what you know about it.

Ferreting out the more subtle nuances of the way this business is being run cannot always be done in 100 words, or less...

Bobby had some No-Doz left over from Memphis... I took those. :)

Re: to all 85-92 efi racers
 

The problem with turbo cars is the staging and launch with an auto trans. The racers that have these do so either because they are not willing to drive a stick or believe that you need to brake stall and balance the brakes and boost level while staging for"maximum boost". That's all well and good but I'll tell you that as soon as you drop the clutch on a turbo car and put a load on the engine / turbo, that the boost gauge climbs faster than the tach needle. So if you have the engine set for 20 PSI boost, it's there instantly. I suppose that's assuming the car will launch properly.
With an auto trans they make every effort to stage without over-riding the brakes while trying to obtain a certain level of boost; most likely less than maximum boost especially if the engine is heavily boosted. Then you hae the transition from launch boost to max boost. All of which leads to launch consistancy problems and ET will suffer accordingly.
The problems I had with consistancy would be attributed to the racer (me) playing with the car, naturally that would be inconsistant. Also, things like blowing off vacuum lines or having not enough fuel and melting heads & pistons. That also made the car inconsistant. But most of the time it was as consistant as anybody else's car at the track.

Regarding the comparrison to a 350 TPI and a 305 TPI, addmitedly I have never messed with one. And I don't know and won't even bother learning all the specs that seperate the two. However, I feel confident that ANY Stock Eliminator should produce in excess of .75 HP per CID with regard to NHRA factored HP levels. Do the math on any engine out there and you'll see that .75 is extremely conservative. An AMC 390 with an anemic Autolite shows 292 HP. A 302 Chevy shows 226 HP with a good carb. A 427/425 shows 320 HP with a good carb, same even if it was a 427/335 small carb. No regards to equipment, only cubic inch and it's only a starting point.
Now I'm reading the 305 / 350 TPI is basically the same other than CID. Stands to reason the 350 is underrated if accessed the same HP factor. But by how much? Since the 350 TPI racers have apparently held back performance showings and the 305 TPI racers have apparently shown their potential, you have something to go off. Assuming the 260 +/- HP on the 305 TPI is reasonably accurate then I can't see an argument for keeping the 350 TPI at it's present level. The question is how much? Then I believe an arbitrary number based on the CID difference is acceptable. Remember these two engines are in the same class.
Really good stock engines produce in excess of 1.25 HP per CID. I can't imagine any well thought out / well built engine in stock that only makes .75 per CID. Maybe a few but not the norm. Or use .50 per CID. Doesn't really matter. There just should be some basis for assigning HP factors as obviously some are trying to skew the averages by asking others to lay down and play dead.
Sorry to offend, but this is supposed to be a performance based class, not a statistical average class.

Re: to all 85-92 efi racers
 

I really was not going to respond to this but since Jeff did I feel I must once again set the record straight. Jeff your over simplification of the lack of consistency with the turbo cars astounds me. Especially since you used to race one. Maybe your answer was meant to be a joke but it did not come across as such. A stick car is more consistant than an auto? I don't think so, maybe if you run a clutchless Jerico such as yours but certainly not a FWD manual tranny. Also both you and Bill are dead wrong about boost lowering when you improve air flow. It increases boost, up to the maximum efficiency of the turbo. Example: If I change from a 2.5" downpipe to a 3" boost will increase by about 2lbs. without changing anything else. Better flow = more boost. Just an example.
Bill said:
"I realize that this is a gross over-simplification, but the idea is this:
The guy with the tuurbo car has EVERY OPTION afforded the normally-aspirated car, to make his car faster, PLUS, possibly one the normally-aspirated car does NOT have: BOOST INCREASE"

Really Bill? EVERY OPTION? How fast do you think RWD combos would run if they had to run the stock rear gear ratio? Say a 3.73 as compared to a 5.13? How about tranny ratios? FWD cars are forced to use STOCK transmission gear ratios which hinder them greatly. Most came with a 3.23 final ratio. This is just one example. There are many, but this is not the thread for this and I am sorry if this has hijacked a good thread for this kind of BS. Bottom line, if you think it is so easy and adventageous to run a turbo car, what's stopping you? Why do you think there are so few of them out there? Hmmm? I never realized you guys were such "turbophobes". You both are intelligent guys and this is very disappointing to me. Jim

Re: to all 85-92 efi racers
 

Jeff,
Thanks for the Turbo/Transmission explanation. What you said makes sense that keeping a consistent boost pressure on launch would be more difficult.
The 350 TBIs also have bigger valves so flow should be better than the 305. But giving them horsepower just because some 305s are rated at about 260 is not the way to do it. Based on your theory, using year 1990, rating of horsepower the 350 should be: 241/305 = 0.79 Therefore 350x 0.79 = 277 hp
Bumping up the horsepower to 277 for the 350 TPI seems like a fair number, but that's not how NHRA arrives at these ratings. They would have to completely revise the way they factor engines. If they did that nobody would be happy. Just think if they rated the 302 based on the 327s or the 350's.
I think that the way it's done now is the best way to make it fair. If it runs too fast, give it horsepower and make it run in the next higher class. The problem is the people that intentionally run slow just to stay in their class.

Also, the Corvette has a 350 TPI but that one has aluminum heads and more compression. It was also rated at 260 up until this year. This year the automatic was bumped up to 273 hp, manual version is still 260 hp.

Re: to all 85-92 efi racers
 

Bill - You know I was funnin' with you. I'm glad to see you post and I read what you said with interest. These threads always seem to to get people "testy" and I was just trying to lighten things up a bit.

Jim - Please don't take offense. The paradigm of a Stock Eliminator car (V8 with lots of stuff you can buy from Moroso, Strange Engineering, and 600 other aftermarket suppliers) can narrow the vision of most racers so they really don't know the issues involved when stepping out of the paradigm. I think there are some fringe combinations that operate so handicapped that their performance is quite remarkable.

Re: to all 85-92 efi racers
 

I guess Cecil gave up on trying to save his 350 TPI combo. He qualified 3rd at Atco so far.

3 1137 I/SA Cecil Frazier, Canton MA, '91 Camaro 11.265 12.60 -1.335

Re: to all 85-92 efi racers
 

A FWD car with a stick is just as consistant as a RWD car with a stick. I know as I ran one for several years. I had many passes that were within a few hundreths of each other. That was with a stock Getrag 5-speed with 3.91 final drive ratio and your basic Centerforce II
clutch. There have been numerous world championships with stick cars in stock eliminator.

Back to the TPI, what I'm trying to empasize is this particular combination. If all else is equal (but apparently one or more 350 TPI's have even better specs) other than CID, you should be able to use a pre-determined ratio of HP increase (or decrease) from one engine to the other. I have successfully used that argument with NHRA for a HP decrease on a friends V-8 engine. And it was an engine that had seen little to none in competition in 30+ years. It was for a decrease of the 318-2bbl DCP and I used the 273 2bbl as a standard. Arguably, the 318 may need a further reduction but at least it got the ball rolling. I've asked for and received other HP decreases with NHRA. NHRA has been known to follow some degree of logic. At least that's my experience.

Re: to all 85-92 efi racers
 

Jim Wahl posted, " Also, both you and Bill are dead wrong about boost lowering when you improve air flow. It increases boost, up to the maximum efficiency of the turbo."

Now, we have two opinions; Jim, who currently runs a turbo car and Jeff, who ran one for "years," accorfing to one of his previous posts. Who ya gonna believe?

I'll defer to the guy currently running one,for the time being.

Increased boost from engine mods could create a problem, unless you control the boost to factory specs, which is the logical thing to do, if you want to remain legal. Excessive boost (beyond facxtory specs) should only be allowed after the normally-aspirated cars figure out how to manipulate the weather to increase barometric pressure, since that's all they have pushing past the intake valve to accomplish cylinder filling.

Your mileage may vary.... that's just my opinion, again....

Insofar as chassis considerations are concerned (tranny gear ratios, and the poor (limited) final drive ratio selection), it seems to me that this "problem" hasn't manifested itself in ways that you can tell from here.

By that, I mean, if the performance-killing gearing is all that bad, WHY do turbo cars continue to domainte the #1 qualifying spot at many national events?

THEY DO!

Jim, you mentioned "the bottom line." You are also a very intellligent guy, yet, you read my post and pointed out the error in my assumption in the boost question (up, or down, with mods), and spoke of the gear ratio problems that FWD cars have that are not suffered by RWD cars, but never once mentioned the problem that was the crux of my post: IE: WHY do turbo cars, which make up probably less than two percent of the cars competing at national events, consistently nail down over twenty percent of the #1 qualifying slots, annually (and have for the last 4-5 years)???

THAT was the burning queston.... but, you chose to ignore it. At least you didn't dispute it. It's true.

It's very easy (though time-consuming) to access the archives at Fast News on the Summit website and look up the Final Qualifying for any national event within the last several years, and check to see who's the #1 qualifier at that race.. The Class will identify the car as a turbo car, if you are familiar at all with the type cars that run those classes (and, I know that you are.) I encourage anyone who doubts this scenario (the over 20-percent turbo qualifiers) to do their own investigation. If I am wrong, I will publicly apologize on this forum. I haven't investigated this year yet, since it's not over, yet.

In the spirit of fairness, how can you justify allowing ANY BOOST you can wring out of a turbo combination, when those forced induction cars are already garnering virtually ten times the number of #1 qualifying slots they would logically and numerically be entitled to, given ther "population" in Stock Eliminator????

Just tell me that, please.

On a lighter note; I go to breakfast with a bunch of Buick Grand National and T-Type racers (hobbyists), every Saturday. Many of them wear tee shirts that say:
"I KNEW THE LIGHT WAS GREEN; I WAS WAITING FOR THE BOOST!!!" :)