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Originally Posted by Jim Rotella
These Pure Stock cars are not bone showroom stock. They are allowed some minor modifications, but nothing really radical. If you look at the article closely, you'll see that Mark's bottom end was balanced, the compression ratio was increased to 9.63:1, the carb was rejetted, the distributor was recurved, and the exhaust was upgraded with a 2.5" mandrel bent Pypes system and an X pipe. These engines really respond to those legal PS tweaks. Just look at Paul Glasco's '70 Knafel Magnum 400 clone in that same article. With similiar modifications, it ran a corrected best time of 12.29 at 112.80. There are several Ram Air IV and SD455 cars running mid-to-high 12 seconds in these PS races. It's really amazing what they are doing with these cars.
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Guys, I am sure everyone will start screaming at me. But I am sceptical at heart. A 71 HO engine just doesn't run low 12's in stock form with re jetting and distributor re curving. These cars never were Quarter mile cars. Pontiac 455's torque/HP curves fall like a rock past 4500 RPM.They were always red light to red light monsters,still are!! But the stock valve train just doesn't suite high rpm full throttle service.Have any of you guys ever gone over 100mph in one of these cars with a 3.73 rear?? something like 4500 rom or more,brutal. I would be a believer if they did a random tear down ,or at least removal of valve covers after a race. It is so easy to hide internal modifications now a days. And like I said, these engines weren't designed to run the high RPM"s that a 12.40 QM would indicate.Ask any engine builder,like the guys at Butler, if they think a stock(which essentially that what this engine is-minus a dist. and carb tune) 71 455 could run a TA into the low 12's.They own their local track and I know without a doubt their answer is yes with internal modifications to the heads and valve train, but no using stock heads with stock ,non adjustable valve train.And guys ..think about this. The technology of rejetting a Quadrajet and re curving a distributor have been around since these cars were new. I don't even thinkthe 70 hemi 'cuda's ran low 12's in near stock form.They were the absolute King of the QM in their day. If TA's in stock form could do this, we would have seen articles proclaiming these cars the new king of the track.
And guys, I am sure I will get a bunch of trash talk back at me for suggesting this. But I just don't get it. I am not super expert engine builder, but I do build all of my own engines here at my shop ,by myself. SO I know a bit about the chacteristics of these engines. Granted I have NEVER ran a QM in one of these, so I could be dead wrong here. Just doesn't make sense to me that simple jetting and re curving could slice almost a full second off generally accepted stock times. Heck the Motion Camaros were only guaranteed to run 13's...we are supposed to believe that near stock TA's are running 12.40's without internal modifications?? I am still skptical.. Please someone help me see what I am missing. I am not too much of a smarta$$ that I can not accept when I am wrong.To the contrary...I would love for someone to show me where i am wrong.