[ponjohn]

The video link is "private"

[Mikes455Wagon]

Sorry about that, it should be fixed now.

[David Holmberg]

Nice, pretty quiet too!

[68hotbird]

Looks like dad and little brother are doing well with good old pontiac engineered parts and a little modern day cam and converter. Who says you need a qudrajet or holley. That old carter AFB seems to be doing ok.

[Cliff R]

Nice video. You are coming up a bit too hard on the converter, making it difficult to hold the car in the lights. Experiment with different launch rpm's, until you are able to get the R/T's where you want them.

The car will run equally as hard from leaving off idle or building up the converter. It may even run quicker as it will allow the vehicle to transfer weight when it "hits" the stall speed. I usually stage around 1100-1200rpm's for most tracks, staging shallow and leaving on the last yellow. On "soft" tracks I may come up to 1700-1800rpm's so it moves out a tad quicker. Runs exactly the same everyplace otherwise, looks more impressive leaving off idle as I can lift the front higher, but R/T's are all over the place.

For drag racing only, the carburetor just has to act like a big toilette, and get your engine thru transition, then deliver an acceptable A/F ratio for the rest of the run. There is little if any ET or MPH improvment swapping around carburetors, provided the ones you are using have sufficient CFM and are tuned pretty close for the application.

One of our customers just ran a Q-jet that he prepared himself against a very expensive Eagle Claw that he's been dialing in for many years, and the Q-jet runs EXACTLY the same everyplace, but it took him quite a while to get it tuned correctly......Cliff

[ponjohn]

I experienced the same thing, no performance gains (footbraking) in leaving at idle or 1500 etc.

[Tom Vaught]

Originally Posted by 65nss4spdGTO

I set of unported 225CFM D-Ports can make 1 horsepower to cubic inch on a 455ci. That can push a 3600lb car into the 11's.

Calvin Hill
Hill Performance
708-250-7420

No factory D-Ports flow 225 cfm Stock. A set of "slightly warmed over" D-Ports can flow in the 240 cfm range (Jim Butler sold the things for years advertising that the heads would flow better than a stock RA-IV head, which they would). Butler's cast iron head porter was a master at doing those head ports exactly the same, over and over, year after year.

I agree totally that a 225 cfm head can make one hp to cubic inch on a 455 engine.

Congrats.

Tom Vaught

[Mikes455Wagon]

[QUOTE=Cliff R;3967355]Nice video. You are coming up a bit too hard on the converter, making it difficult to hold the car in the lights. Experiment with different launch rpm's, until you are able to get the R/T's where you want them.

What you can't see in the video is that I am actually bumping the car into the stage light on the converter and its holding the car there fine. That is just a thing I have always done. Stall the car in the top bulb and bump into the bottom. The car did its best 60 foot stalled at about 2800 and dropped off anywhere below there for some reason. I tried it off idle, 1500, 2000, 2200, 2500, then the last pass which was the fastest I piled drived it in at 2800. My reaction times I really was not too worried about this time around because the car just needed to make it from the starting line to the finish line. We will worry about driver adjustment on the light next time out since the car is acting right. Hopefully we will get some more runs to play with it at dinwiddie in a couple weeks

[69Goat1]

I am glad to hear that you have had good success with the XE 274 cam... It is making very good power for shifting only at 5300 RPM... I am curious - does the car have a transbrake or are you guys stalling it against the footbrake?

[Mikes455Wagon]

That was leaving off the footbrake. We kicked around the idea of running a transbrake when dad built the transmission but we would have to run super pro against cars with delay boxes down here. Up north I guess you can run a transbrake in footbrake off of a button but thats a no no in this part of the world. For what it matters when the video loads up if you go to my videos I uploaded a better quality version of the same pass just got my software to cooperate with me a little more....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSlJYxYRf2I

[Cliff R]

"The car did its best 60 foot stalled at about 2800 and dropped off anywhere below there for some reason."

If you are using an AFB or AFB clone, that doesn't surprise me. You should be able to run equally as fast right off idle, or around 1100-1200rpm's.

"I am glad to hear that you have had good success with the XE 274 cam... It is making very good power for shifting only at 5300 RPM"

I didn't get a plug when my daily driver at 3860 lbs with cleaned up 6X heads and Crower RAIV camshaft went 7.64 @ 89mph shifting at 5000rpm's. Less converter, less gear, more weight, lower shift rpm, and we were running a factory iron intake with a 1977 smog era Pontiac q-jet sitting on it.....LOL.....Cliff

[69Goat1]

Cliff... I fail to figure out where any of this is about you or your car that definitely needs to be weighed on a good set of scales...

[Mikes455Wagon]

I didn't get a plug when my daily driver at 3860 lbs with cleaned up 6X heads and Crower RAIV camshaft went 7.64 @ 89mph shifting at 5000rpm's. Less converter, less gear, more weight, lower shift rpm, and we were running a factory iron intake with a 1977 smog era Pontiac q-jet sitting on it.....LOL.....Cliff[/QUOTE]

Maybe its because I am better looking than you??? LOL...

[Cliff R]

69Goat1, just pointing out facts, and I forgot the part we were running DOT tires then, not slicks. Just making sure folks are well informed, and showing once again that the XE flat hydraulic cams don't cure cancer or make our cars leap tall buildings in a single bound.

Seriously, I'm glad to see one worked OK once again, but it is not doing any better anyplace than a 30 year old outdated RAIV cam would have or could have done with less lift and "obsolete" lobe profiles.

BTW, I weigh my car every year at Norwalk on the return road (with driver), if their scales are accurate, then that's what the car actually weighed back when we had iron heads on it....FWIW...and it doesn't take much to be better looking than I am!....LOL......Cliff

[MikesOldMan]

Well, I guess it's time for me to get in all this "wagon" stuff, lol. Please allow me to introduce myself, although the name just did that. I'm Mikes old man, and I need to tell you guys that I'm old school, really old school, like 64 years old, old school, and sometimes it was a dogfight to use the parts I wanted to use in his motor. Incidentally I was going to use a 268 XE cam, but Jim LeHart talked me out of that, but I still think it'll make a ton of low RPM torque. It's going in a 428 for my 62 Grand Prix. I wanted to build an engine that I could have built in 1970. (when I couldn't dream of affording it). So, since I'm not getting a lot of credit here,(kids) lol. I built the engine and thanks to Jim Lehart for the machine work. I'm extremely happy with what it's doing so far. His much older brother that posted is also very into the Pontiac thing. He's building a small journal stroker and with my bad heart, I just hope I get to see the boys side by side on the starting line before I die. Enjoyed reading all your light hearted and informative replies. Great forum!

[Cliff R]

"Incidentally I was going to use a 268 XE cam, but Jim LeHart talked me out of that, but I still think it'll make a ton of low RPM torque."

The XE268 is not enough cam for a moderate compression 455 engine. I wouldn't even consider one for a 428 build either. I've had scores of complaints from folks who chose them for 455 builds, with two common denominators.....detonation, and DONE by about 4500rpm's.

Those cams have short seat to seat timing, and very good at cylinder filling at lower rpm's. This can/will make 455's detonation sensitive with them when we start getting close to 10 to 1 or higher compression. Probably an OK choice at lower compression ratio's, if you want to further enhance the strong mid-range characteristics of the 455 engine, but they will NOT make any respectable power in the upper mid-range and top end.

We've verified this thru LOTS of second hand information, as I get a LOT of calls in here complaining about that cam in the 455 build with well prepared iron and even Edelbrock heads. I've also had two customers drive/trailer their 455/XE268 combo's considerable distances to our shop to have us custom tune them, with little if any improvment to what they already came up with. I guess that's getting close to "first" hand information, although I didn't build either engine here, don't know where the ICL was set at, or the true SCR, etc, but those engines were still TURDS non the less....

The best 2nd hand story which we've observed FIRST hand, is one of our customers who has a 3700lb GTO with a very well prepared 455, Jim Hand style engine/drivetrain set-up with ported iron heads, 10" Continental converter, 3.73 gears, slicks, and perfect traction. Instead of running mid to high 11's in the 114-117mph range, or even low 12's at 112mph where a lot of folks end up at, he's stuck in the high 12's at 105-106 mph. He says the engine hits really hard, 60' times are mid-1.6's, but falls on it's nose about 4500rpm's. I'm pretty sure he swapped out that cam this Winter for a HR grind, and I'm certain we'll see greatly improved track number from his car this season.

Just pointing out a few FACTS. Mike and Mike's dad, glad to see you are pushing 11 second runs from your combination of parts. Sometimes things just fall together like they're supposed to, even when you don't use all the parts recomended by the "guru's" on the websites.....congrat's and let us know when you get to a 1/4 mile track and post some 11 second runs!.....Cliff

[stickboy]

Cliff, with all due respect, you're the greatest Pontiac tuner/builder ever second only to Jim Hand....OK? Hows that for a pat on the back, Mr non-modified Iron intake, non-modified Qjet, non-modified 30 year old RAIV cam, "cleaned up" 6X heads...this ain't about you or your acheivements...Mike and his dad have put together an awesome POntiac that runs it's ass off, EVEN WITH AN XE274 CAM. Not that easy to run 11's is it......those who have done it know how hard it is to put it all together and make it happen. Most of us (hobbyists like me) have incrementally moved from 13's to 12's to 11's. We do it because the journey is fun....not to simply acheive some end goal. Can we move on now?

I expect to get flamed severely, but whatever...Back to topic...

That car 60 foots awesome! Way to go guys...keep on doing just what you are! Nice job with the Carter carb too, I never had good luck with those things.

[Kyflier]

No disrespect there stickboy, but he was talking about the XE 268 that Mikesoldman was going to use, said nothing of what they did use. Plus gave them a congrats as well.
just my 2 cents

[MikesOldMan]

Originally Posted by Cliff R

"Incidentally I was going to use a 268 XE cam, but Jim LeHart talked me out of that, but I still think it'll make a ton of low RPM torque."

The XE268 is not enough cam for a moderate compression 455 engine. I wouldn't even consider one for a 428 build either. I've had scores of complaints from folks who chose them for 455 builds, with two common denominators.....detonation, and DONE by about 4500rpm's.

Those cams have short seat to seat timing, and very good at cylinder filling at lower rpm's. This can/will make 455's detonation sensitive with them when we start getting close to 10 to 1 or higher compression. Probably an OK choice at lower compression ratio's, if you want to further enhance the strong mid-range characteristics of the 455 engine, but they will NOT make any respectable power in the upper mid-range and top end.

We've verified this thru LOTS of second hand information, as I get a LOT of calls in here complaining about that cam in the 455 build with well prepared iron and even Edelbrock heads. I've also had two customers drive/trailer their 455/XE268 combo's considerable distances to our shop to have us custom tune them, with little if any improvment to what they already came up with. I guess that's getting close to "first" hand information, although I didn't build either engine here, don't know where the ICL was set at, or the true SCR, etc, but those engines were still TURDS non the less....

The best 2nd hand story which we've observed FIRST hand, is one of our customers who has a 3700lb GTO with a very well prepared 455, Jim Hand style engine/drivetrain set-up with ported iron heads, 10" Continental converter, 3.73 gears, slicks, and perfect traction. Instead of running mid to high 11's in the 114-117mph range, or even low 12's at 112mph where a lot of folks end up at, he's stuck in the high 12's at 105-106 mph. He says the engine hits really hard, 60' times are mid-1.6's, but falls on it's nose about 4500rpm's. I'm pretty sure he swapped out that cam this Winter for a HR grind, and I'm certain we'll see greatly improved track number from his car this season.

Just pointing out a few FACTS. Mike and Mike's dad, glad to see you are pushing 11 second runs from your combination of parts. Sometimes things just fall together like they're supposed to, even when you don't use all the parts recomended by the "guru's" on the websites.....congrat's and let us know when you get to a 1/4 mile track and post some 11 second runs!.....Cliff

Cliff,
We appreciate the help you've given us, the converter seems to work really well. As for the 428, I'm planning on using it for a restored 62 Grand Prix as a somewhat cheater 421. I'm going to run my 9770716 heads on it too. It's more a show car than anything else. That's the heads on it now and I love the low end torque it makes now and that's exactly what I want it to do. It's unlikely it will ever go down the strip again. It did back in 2000 at Bristol at the old Pontiac meet there. I had a ball! Thanks again to all you guys for the moral support and kind remarks. We are hoping the old wagon will continue to run well. Honestly, it ran better times than I ever expected it to Friday night and that track is generally thought of as the slowest track in these parts, but also by far the best facility within a hundred miles of us.

[grandville455]

What exactly is the convertor ... Is it the conti 4200? what are the codes on it? Inquiry minds want to know ....Cliff? lol