Quote:
Originally Posted by Qwikpony
We need to remember that NHRA's horsepower comittee needs to be given some respect in the sense that basically...... they were told a HUGE LIE by both Ford and Chrysler about these new cars. It is well known the amount of money that foth Ford and Mopar are putting into NHRA events and etc. So when NHRA asked these manufacturers to give them an HONEST set of power figures ( IN GOOD FAITH), they expected to be told the truth. I can't blame either Ford or Mopar for trying to "one up" the other, but it has come at the expense of too many racers. Ford and Mopar should be ashamed to even think that for a second NHRA and it's sportsman racers are so naive and ignorant as to not know the power potential right away. We are talking about 40+ years of R&D, technology and yes... EFI. The main difference between the "old" LT and LS cars is that they were actually built to be street cars with VIN's and license plates. Now it is up to NHRA to take the necessary action to level the playing field for everyone else while still allowing Ford and Mopar to slug it out in the HP wars. I don't advocate taking HP off of the older combos because many racers have spent countless hours finding the optimum place for the ballast. This could severely hurt the higher horsepower cars on the marginal tracks we routinely race on. I think that a separate class is the best answer at this point. The re-establishment of the EFI classes would be a great step. I was a dealership mechanic for over 10 years, so I know how awesome the EFI tuning parameters are.
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2 issues with this line of thought; 1) any idiot could have done a 10 minute internet search ( or read a brochure) and known that the FR500CJ engine was basically a GT500 motor, and would make much more than 425 hp, the same could be said for the Hemi's after looking at the specs. It just goes to show that no due dilligence was done by NHRA, and that's unacceptable. 2) one of the big differences (which NHRA never took into acount) in the HP factors of the previous EFI cars was the switch from gross to net SAE HP ratings just after the muscle car era in the early 70's. Since the late 80's-early 90's was the begining of the factories' starting to really build muscle cars again, it wasn't until then that this decades old change reared its ugly head. So many combos of the mid-late 70's and early 80's were smog choked dogs that when the factories started to control emissions through EFI and put compression and performance back into them it looked as if they were intentionally under rated.