by gerbsinmd » Thu Oct 03, 2013 8:13 am
I did some pretty amazing stuff with this engine in an 80 Malibu. This was all done on the drag strip, my friends rented the strip for a day so I got lots of runs in and was able to make one change at a time. Now it wasn't a rocket by any means but the change was nothing short of amazing.
I did 2 basic things to this engine over the course of about 30 runs. More air, more timing.
The car started out just as it was driven in Stock timing, stock everything. First run was 19.xx and 67 mph. I kept adding timing and adding timing till it slowed down. I have no idea where the timing was at the end of the day, I didn't have a dial back light, it was WAY advanced. I did have premium gas in it for the whole thing, I ran it down prior to going to the strip and filled it completely.
When it stopped going faster, I took the air cleaner lid off which was a typical sbc lid and did the old flip it over. this gave me .25 in the quarter and a mph or 2. then I found someone that had an extra 4 in filter and a flat air cleaner lid and put those on and it gave me another .1, then I uncorked the exhaust before the converter and found another .2
At the end of the day I was running low 17.0 at around 79 mph, if I remember right, not sure on the speed anymore that was almost 20 years ago, not a rocket at all but it was good enough to get me to 4th place in a double elimination field of 50+ cars.
1999 Saturn SL2
2017 Cruze Hatchback
2008 Town & Country - Family transport
2018 Cruze - 35mpg - avg, 49.7mpg - best so far.
2011 Impala - commuter
RIP-2002 Saturn SL2 Commuter car - burned a valve @ 234k miles
1977 Monza Mirage being Restified!!