[68lemans462]

Hey guys long time no see! I've been busy having kids and the Pontiac has been collecting dust. A work contact invited me to the test & tune for free at bandimere speedway outside of Denver in the Mile high air (or lack thereof)..

I have run my car up there several times in the past and HAD some slicks but they are long gone... Car has a set of radial tires and a healthy 455 and has been running well for years since the last iteration of upgrades. I'm going to dust her off, check the timing and let-er-rip! I will probably get at least 5 passes.

I'm just going out for fun but would like to avoid completely blowing the tires off John force style . Any suggestions as to how I might salvage a respectable ET? Tire pressure? Launch technique? I've never run at the strip on radials. Combo is in my signature...

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[68lemans462]

A little eye candy!

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[Navy Horn 16]

Skip the water box, tire pressure around 20, get a 5 second or so burnout to clean the tires. Gas and brake up to about 1500-1800 RPM, drop the brake at the light and slowly press the gas to the floor. If you spin, get out of it because your time is shot anyway. Try again as required.

[STEELCITYFIREBIRD]

Fill the tank, weight behind the axle does wonders for rear weight % and traction.
A good practice is to bleed the brakes if the car has been sitting....more important than a good launch! May want to check the date codes on the tires, old tires and burnouts + high MPH can be a bad combination.
Have fun, be safe!

[Bruce Meyer]

With that motor and convertor you are going to have a really rough time hooking up. You will probably smoke them through 2nd gear. You might want to test it on the street. If you cant hook on the street there is no way you are going to get any traction at the strip. Sometimes street radials get greasy when you heat them up so you will need to do a lot of experimenting. Good luck. Be careful. That's a nice car BTW.

[Old Man Taylor]

You have to make sure you don't spin radials. Do your best to bog the engine down, until your moving good in second gear.

[grandville455]

Stay Outta the water box, Don't overheat them either and your gonna have to roll the pedal to bring it out , or its going up in smoke lol

[tempest1964]

Please let us know the results. I know I want to know! And yes, beautiful car!

[David Jones]

How old are the tires?

[MUSLCAH]

Leave on last yellow and walk it out....like grand ma would ....then put the boots to her !

[Formulajones]

How well is the car setup suspension wise?

You can make them work quite well with proper setup and practice. I use a lot of tips from the PS guys and have gone 1.8x 60 foot times on stock rubber. Limited by rules, but a mild approach with some suspension tricks to help weight transfer and finding what the car likes, keeping some weight in the trunk, a little finesse, lots of practice. Too much to explain here and most probably aren't interested in squeezing everything out of a car on stock tires anyway. Don't think we have many (if any) PS racers here.

You likely aren't going to figure it all out with one trip to the track and only 4-5 passes. Radial tires also don't work quite as well as the reproduction bias tires. Radials have a tread squirm issue that doesn't help, but I still find that a mild burnout to clean them off works better than nothing at all.

With one trip and limited passes, have fun and enjoy.

[68lemans462]

Tires are 8 yrs old. Suspension is all stock with bigger Sway bars and poly bushings.

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[jonmachota78]

Try launching in 2nd gear. 1st gear is going to be worthless

[Formulajones]

Originally Posted by 68lemans462

Tires are 8 yrs old. Suspension is all stock with bigger Sway bars and poly bushings.

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From my experience, that stuff doesn't help when trying to minimize 60 foot times on stock rubber. Too stiff.

I don't think you're going to want to go through the car and change a bunch of things for best "stock rubber" times. Just go out there and have fun

[Lee]

Maybe tighten the secondary air door tension, to keep the secondaries from opening too quickly.

[ponyakr]

The weight in the trunk deal will help.


I ran a track that was so bad I had to put lots of weight in the trunk to get my '69 Goat to hook up, even with 13" slicks. I'd put a floor jack, barbell weights, spare tires, and tool boxes in the trunk, to make it hook. Probably 300lbs of stuff.

Hey, it worked. I won lots of races at that track.

[MUSLCAH]

How to achieve a respectable ET............don't miss any gears...Have Fun !

[ta man]

Full tank of gas and adding weight over the bumper will help.Trying to figure out how to launch is the fun part..think of your gas pedal as a clutch and ease into it..With your combination it will be tricky its much like my old combo it makes a ton of torque...I have been out on marginal traction nights and would roll into the throttle to about 2/3 thinking I will have traction and when floored would go up into smoke down the track.

Have fun!But if it gets more frustrating then fun buy a second pair of rims and tires and then let er rip!

[mnfatcat]

Buy, rent. or borrow some mounted slicks, 4 3/4 bolt pattern should make it doable in a city as big as Denver. If you try and run those radials your day will be disappointing.

[66_Catalina]

I'd leave at idle like I wanted to leave a stoplight quick but not attract attention. Once up to 40 ish get in the throttle firmly but don't just mat it.