At 08:04 PM 7/5/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Hi, my name is George, and I'm a Dakaholic...
>
>I am posing this question to all of you. Lately I have become so obsessed with
>throwing money at my Dakota that it has become an addiction. As you all know
>I am running low to mid 15s in the qtr and just cant get it any lower, without
>some drastic changes. I have added just about as much to it as I can without
>going inside the engine, and cant get her below 15.3. I want more power, but
>without adding the supercharger, or NOS system I dont think I'm gonna get any
>lower.
>I want to know what you are running in the qtr mile with your dakotas. I know
>eric is at 14.98, but he had to transplant a 5.9 to get that. My engine has
>16k on it and is not ready to be swapped.
>Jonesin for more HP George
>
My best so far in my '96 Club Cab 318 is 14.98@90.18 (Gibson
cat-back, MP PCM, 180 degree t-stat, MSD SuperConductor wires,
14x3" open element air filter fed by a pro-glass ram-air hood (sealed
off with a prototype cardboard and duct tape airbox) and a mild
throttle body port & polish.
If I remember right, you were running with some pretty hot temps.
That can really affect things a lot. I'm sure I wouldn't get anywhere
near 14's with those 100 degree temps! My 14.98 was with 62 degrees F,
86% humidity.
>From another one of your posts:
>I have added gibson shortys, dual catback system, FIPK 14x3 MPI TBI, MP
>computer, MSD 6A, blaster 3 coil, Magnecore wires, Champian truck plugs, MP
>Brass cap& rotor, and that is it for the engine mods. Oh yeah, gallons of
>92 octane
>Gettin pissed and rapidly broke George
Based on those mods, it does sound to me that your truck has a lot more
potential than you've been seeing. Here's some thoughts that may or may
not help you out:
- Keep an eye on the weather and the humidity. (not a bad idea to keep
tabs on the barometric pressure either) the weather plays a HUGE
factor in the performance of your engine.
- Try running without the MSD ignition. Aftermarket ignitions and the
Magnum engine don't seem to get along. :-) There are three people
on this list alone who have seen performance decreases from adding
a high performance ignition. (two MSD's and one Jacobs) If your
experience is anything like theirs, you might find that you'll pick
up about 2 tenths with the stock ignition. (The blaster 3 coil is OK.)
I know, it doesn't sound like it makes much sense, but you sound
desperate enough to try it. :-) Can't hurt anything to give it a
shot! Also, are your plugs set to the correct gap? (If you try the
stock ignition, the gap should be .035", I believe.)
- Try messin' around with the computer a little bit. Leave the negative
battery cable unplugged for a few minutes. If you've had it in for a
while, it may have picked up some bad habits. That'll start it out
from square one again. You might even want to try driving the truck
hard after you plug it back in so it'll bias towards performance.
- Are you running "round robin"? A run on a hot engine will be a lot
slower than a run on an engine that has been allowed to cool off.
You might want to park the truck with the hood up for a while to let
it cool off a bit. A related topic: Do you have the stock thermostat?
A 180 degree thermostat will help to keep the engine cooler for better
performance. (It'll also help out the computer as far as pinging goes,
and it'll give you a little more breathing room if you get a bad tank
of gas.) I suppose its possible that you're getting some mild
performance-robbing pinging so you're not getting the full potential
out of the computer. With the hot temps down in the southwest, you
could probably even just go with a 160 degree t-stat. You probably
don't have to worry too much about your engine not heating up! :-)
Some Redline Water Wetter should help in this regard as well.
- Its possible some of the lost potential is due to your technique.
Do you clean off the tires with a mild spin, and drive around the
water pit (instead of through it)? I always drove around the water
pits, but I wasn't cleaning off the tires until relatively recently.
Making that one small change gave me about 2 tenths! It helped me
to hook a lot better. Last week, I got a 2.117 60' time on my
235/70 Firehawk SS10's inflated to 30psi. My average 60' time
is about 2.19; it used to be 2.3-2.4. Play with your tire pressure
a bit too. Releasing some of the pressure will help you to hook up,
but be careful not to deflate the tire too much or it will cup during
the launch and you'll start to decrease contact patch and traction
again. Every tenth you can shave off during the launch will show up
on the other end in your E/T! With all those mods, you're probably
generating quite a bit of power. Do you get wheel hop? A set of
traction bars might be in order.
Speaking of technique, do you have a 5-speed? If so, you might want
to play with your shift points. I've been shifting at 5,000 lately and
that seems to work well. If you have an auto, are you locking out
overdrive? Also, do you run with your windows up or down? Leaving
the windows up will help to reduce drag and speed you up, especially
at the top end of the track. (Although I do run with my back window
open. I don't think that window matters as much and anyway, it helps
me to hear what's going on with the truck as I go down the track. Its
also useful to keep track of where the other guy is during bracket
racing.)
- With the hot temperatures you have to deal with, you might want to
consider a ram-air of some type. Even though the outside air temp
might be considered hot, it's a heck of a lot cooler than the air
under the hood, and that's all the open element has to work with!
See if there's a way you can get it some nice fresh air... Sealing
off my open element to my ram-air hood gave me about .2 and 2 mph.
- Check your exhaust and headers to make sure there are no leaks; that
can rob power. You might want to consider wrapping your headers or
getting them coated. That'll help to scavenge spent gasses from the
engine and keep your underhood temps down.
Well, hopefully there's something in there you can use! :-) Good
luck!
-Jon-
.--- stei0302@cs.fredonia.edu ------------------------------------.
| Affiliations: DoD, EAA, MP Race Team, NMA, SPA, USUA. RP-SEL |
| '96 Dodge Dakota v8 SLT CC (14.98@90.18), '96 Kolb FireFly 447 |
`----------------------- http://www.cs.fredonia.edu/~stei0302/ ---'
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:09:03 EDT