I would have thought that this topic would be beat up by now, but nobody really talks clearly about it on any of the forums. I want to at least run a 14.50 in my car before the head/cam swap. Does anybody see this possible with a 5 speed, 3.27s and all the typical bolt ons (cai,tb,plenum,offroad x,catback,pullies,canned tune)? How about in my loaded convertible with all the options?
my step dad ran a 13.8 i think with drag radials and a completely stock npi engine with the frpp svo *cough DropTopPony* ... blower. i think if you do all that you can run what youre looking for his 98 was a vert with 373s and SFCs
Those bolt ons are a great idea! And should be considered, if you ask me, after a pi intake and cam swap. At least do the pi intake!! The pi intake and a long tube headers will be the biggest bang for the buck.
Sweet. I have a set of pi heads, pi intake, and MHS stage 2.5 cams ready to go in by next spring. I just wanted to get a run in on one of these nice fall nights.
What rpm would be best to shift at? I know we drop off by 5500rpm, but should I rev it out to the full 6000rpm?
Have you ever put the car on a dyno? If not, just use your peak torque level from the factory. Basically, you want to shift at whatever RPM would drop you back to your peak torque. To explain I will give some examples, note these are not real numbers. In this example you hit peak torque at 3000 RPM's. From 1st to 2nd, you lose 2,000 RPMS, so you would shift at 5,000 RPM 2nd to 3rd you lose 3500 so you would shift at 6,500 3rd to 4th you lose 1500 So you would shift at 4500. Again, this is going to take some practice on your part to determine what the drop is for you on a good shift, and determining where your peak torque is.
I tend to disagree. The only time I really recommend double clutching is on down shift, and even then it's more of a modified version where you just blip the throttle to get it where it needs to be. With modern syncro's there is little, if any, advantage to double clutching. Power shifting can help some (never lifting your go pedal) but I don't like the wear that tends to add.
I see where you would think that, and its actually a common misconception. I drove for a living, where most of the time i shifted without ever using the clutch at all. Ive done that in my mustang as well and it is a testiment to the developement of synchrose, but i can reduce the time in half by double clutching in anything. Try pulling a mountain with 120,000 lbs behind you. When you have to shift fast, double clutching is the way to go.
That was just for a hypothetical model. You drove a truck, that did not have the same synchros and needed to be double clutched from the sounds of it. I think we might just have to agree to disagree here lol
You have to take in alot of variables, track condition, how warm are your tires, what kind of tires, what rear ratio are you running, all this stuff plays a part. Too high youll sit there and smoke em, too low youll bog the motor to much. My suggestion, go to the track and have fun finding out.
Cut a window in the tranny bell housing. Install clutch adjusters. Buy a good clutch. Going this route allows the clutch to engage as it warms, not fully engaging when you dump it. Slipping is what you want because its more controllable. But you probably dont want to do this on a daily driven car...lol
