[70RAlll]

Originally Posted by Mark Weymouth

70 RA III I will try and not make this to long of a discussion as most of what has been stated is correct so forgive me for any reiteration of facts above.

First and foremost I love RA III's hence your moniker brings a smile and we are just about ready to dyno tune one for a Goat to race in the PS races. You would be amazed by the potential they have and mid 12's is not just a goal but I will make sure a reality! Also the pictures in HPP of a torn down motor are of this motor. Look closely at those heads and you will see how virgin they are.

To start Jody is correct if you review the last two issues of HPP Dan and I tried to carefully and fully explain the terms and guide lines into building 12 and 13 second Pontiacs. Not to mention the several cars that will show up this year that are reaching for the elusive 11's.

We did our best to leave no stone unturned in heading people in the direction of achieving these times. Of course I MAYBE left the last 5% of knowledge out that I had to earn at the track and dyno. The competitive spirit and all keeps me from giving up that very last 0.1 of a second...

Before we start I would also like to state that we have friends up here with Butler and Taylor motors (modified). Amazing pieces and I have dyno tuned a Butler FAST motor. The Butler FAST motor struggled to make 500 hp and did not hit 600 tq. We took their ported intake off for a stocker and kept tuning and with more stock parts moved the motor up to 550+ hp and 630+ tq. Unfortunately most people/companies do not understand these motors in particular stock motors well. This is understandable as most people are not as nuts as we PS racers are. And often it is easier to take the aftermarket route then fight the stock route. Of course the rewards of a well thought out carefully done stock program can be seen by all these fast time slips.

A good example is a roller stroker 400 (461 CID now) motor in my brother '79 400 4 spd T/A now matched to a 3.42 gear. We dyno'd it this winter after several years of him driving it. The impetus to dyno it was when both my PS HO T/A and 440+6 bird kicked its arse at Woodward. In the end his roller cam/rockers, stroker crank, ported heads and intake with 800 cfm quadra jet ran great but did gain a bunch on the dyno. The end result was it made a bit less tq then the HO and a bit more hp with an extra 300 rpm of rev. Not very impressive for all the effort/expense. The irony is that when he had it stock with a functional hood scoop, rejetted carb, recurved timing, 1.65 rockers and '73 down pipes replacing the stock down pipes and cat the car went almost as fast on the 3.23's. It would run 13's @ 104 mph back the 1980's.

First let me INFATICALLY STATE that there is ZERO AND I ME ZERO head mods allowed on these cars. I am also a tech at the races and I have several times torn my motors down to prove such. Each time you qualify for the Quick 8 in the Factory Stock class at FAST races you must get P&G'd, take off valve covers etc.

My Judge has also gone through that process at PS races and any car Scott/Dan/Bob or I believe is cheating gets pulled at the PS races for extended tech. One L88 racer went so far as to tear his motor down in front of everyone and hand over his cam shaft to Scott to keep and check after being accused of cheating while his wife set the fastest ET ever that weekend. The fastest racers for the most part pride themselves on being way beyond honest and are all willing to tear things apart to prove it. COPO Pete even has gone so far as to by all NOS ZL1 parts and assemble them untouched, and he ran in the 11's occasionally on that combo.

Jody also commented on the effectiveness of new parts. The repop bias ply's return 60' times that slicks did back in the 1960's. Glued tracks are amazing as you can do 6000 rpm powershifts in my Judge and it will hold. By the way the Judge has the shocks and springs it left the factory with!!! We were given the opportunity to tune and take a little mild 350 HO bird Tom Miller owned to the HPP shoot out and it was driven by Rich Rinke who had never even raced a PS car before. We knocked several tenths out of the cars best ever time and Rich was lifting the left front tire on luanch. Glue and tires, simply amazing.

Now onto the exhaust. The Judge which has this stuff stated in the HPP articles was struggling to hit low 14's with a correct factory exhaust on a correct factory motor. With just an exhuast change it ultimately worked its way down into the low low 13's. A good exhuast on these cars alone can be a tremendous amount.

As too the 455 HO. There are no tricks just good thoughtful effort. First you are right about stock HO valve trains to a degree. Pontiac used lifters that would pump up early to protect against over reving. A set of RA IV lifters back in the day was the trick and fixed them up just fine. For us we use Crane lifters. They have let us turn as high as 6800 on the dyno with a RA IV. The HO's do not drop like a rock at 4500 when correctly setup. Scott was shifting mine at 5200 and it holds power until 5500 just fine. We run 3.73 gears and an M22. A bit long for great short times but still hanging in there at 111+ mph at the traps. Scott was still hitting 1.90 short times with this combo. Also of utmost importance for max ET's is the gear. The HO would run very low 13's with the 3.42 in the butt but now is going 12.6's with a 3.73. The improvement of a perfectly matched gear is amazing.

It really boils down to simplicity. Make sure you do not miss any items. Balance the motor, we do to less then one gram per all 8 rod/piston sets. You do not have to touch the heads, do not port, do not gasket match, run good valve springs that will take the rpm but not have excessive seat and open pressures, run high quality SS valves such as Manley, have your stock valve seat angles retained but ground to perfection. A lot of power is saved in that step alone. Do not run more oil pressure than needed. Use a general guide line of 10 lbs for every 1000 rpm. We have gained in Pontiacs/Mopars...as much as 6-7 hp on just getting the oil pump at the correct PSI from being to high like a high flow unit is. Do not skimp on the exhuast system. Pypes makes a good ready to bolt in system that will allow 12's all day long. Lastly take time getting the chassis setup perfectly. We are not allowed drag shocks or spring changes but my 455 HO will not spin on the street. I can luanch at 2000 rpm on the street and power shift with only small barks off the tires. I outlined how to do this in the article. The RA IV's are another item all together. My RA IV cars are useless on the street. They are violent and make a mess of the tires but are crowd pleasers. The HO's meter out power so nicely they could hold onto almost anything.

We have invited many people to our dyno sessions and our engine builds. We want everyone to see how stock motors can amaze. We are building a HO, SD and RA III currently on the Pontiac end and all will race and hopefully surprise a few more people who have not seen our form of racing.

Do not discount the dyno time, tuning and driving abilities to help also. We have several different NHRA/IHRA class winners or National Champions competeing with us. A good driver can knock off a lot of time. I took an AMX I had only driven to the staging lanes as experience this fall and set the fastest time it has ever gone on the first pass. I did not even get a good run and purposely did not power shift. That car has had several drivers try and make it go and they were becoming disheartened. We showed that they just had not found the potential yet. The car is capable of now turning 0.3 faster then it had gone on just driving alone. My ET was much quicker but my MPH was barely higher then the past. You have to feel these cars and do what they want not what you want.

On the dyno even with all our experience and pre-setup we still find another 20-30 hp every time. Every motor/carb has its own desires. That much hp gain equates to a .25 second improvement at the track. With a bit of further tuning each outing at the track you keep it perfect. We dyno with the air cleaner, water pump, fuel pump, alternator (unplugged) and exhaust systems on. This gives us real world as bolted into the car results and it shows. Take your time and if you need help let us know. We have no problem sharing.

Back to the RA III wait till you see this thing dyno. We believe no one has made a serious effort with a RA III and we are trying to fix that. My brothers RA III '69 T/A was a national show resto with Tieman and Dan and was never meant to race. That car has a/c, auto, 3.23 gears, ps, pdb...it shocked everyone with its ET's. Which was enough motivation to start a project for the PS races.

I have certified several cars now to show how they meet all the rules and each car became a record holder and none were pushed anywhere near the NHRA compression limits. I hope this truly helps 70 RA III. If not PM me. I will do whatever I can to help you build your motor. Keep them stock and go out and shock all the header and slick guys. Nothing is more fun then killing a gutted noise maker on slicks at the local track. They just stand there in disbelief.

Mark

Mark-
I can not thank you enough for the time it took to type this response.We all are busy people and I am sure it took 15-20 minutes,if not longer, of your time... thanks. This is exactly what I was looking for when I initially posted on this thread. So I thank you.
Yes, I have found the high oil pump deal. So many, including me, are mesmerized by the big 80 psi high flow pumps, when the standard flow actually works better. Found that out the hard way. I will be interested in reading the results of your RAlll build up. I have a 70 RAlll plus a 71 HO. Both are original and stock. Well the 70 isn't completely stock. Had Comp Cams make me a Hyd.Roller copy of the 068 cam and use roller tip rockers. But mostly stock.
But back to getting in the 12's.If I read your post correctly. Most of this leap is from the modern tires/sticky track and the improved aftermarket exhaust systems you guys are running.right?/ With fine tuning from properly set up suspension and carb/timing curve adjustment and proper engine machining work adding the balance. I'm a believer. Great work you guys are doing.
and once again, no harm meant by my questioning..just wanted to better understand what was going on here. Thanks again for the post................