Thanks for all of the input everyone. Still waiting on delivery of my car. Freak April snowstorm here in Portland has made for yet another delay. I’m going to take it to the track as it sits now and see how it does. I have a fair bit of drag experience, but only a few passes with a manual trans. I will need to spend some time working on my 60’ times to get the best ET.

 

I take my 86 to the drags sometimes.It has headers and true dual exhaust... Thats it so far. My best time has been 14.03. I need some sticky tires...it just spins at the starting line. My goal is to get into the 13s. Good luck.

 

You got taller tires so rear end gearing is needed as Phobos said. As everyone has said put the car on a weight diet: Spare tire, jack, power seat modules, spare set of tires for drag racing only (skinny fronts/slicks rear). VikingTrad3r gave some of the best advice: normal items will wear fast or break as the car parts are old. I changed bearings/bushings/u-joints/shocks/brake pads the first year of my purchase. I still have a reel of 25 ft vacuum hoses to re-plum all the lines.

The L98 is intake manifold limited and all options are expensive versus the benefit. Just leave the intake as it is. Heads and exhaust will make dramatic improvements but you will still be limited in the RPM range due to intake. On the entire exhaust go for lightweight. Not good to add pounds of mild steel (most often called aluminized steel), generally 409/304 stainless will save you significant weight on total exhaust system. Check out aftermarket ECU for tuning. I picked up the DIY Autotune megasquirt 2 which is a cheap and easy option for L98. There are easier and more expensive options (Holley has a great self learning module).

 

my car finally arrived on Tuesday. First mod was polishing out the hazy paint. Many hours later it looks like this. Spent some time yesterday ordering misc. parts as well as a set of wheels and tires for the street. The stock wheels have new track tires on them. Next issue to sort out is the overdrive. It was rebuilt before I bought it but does not engage. Im hoping that its just a wiring issue. The light does come on when it is supposed to be engaged.

 

Oh, and it turns out that it already had a Borla cat back on it. Still pretty quiet though….

 

Hello,
my 85 with a basically stock L98 ran a best 12.215 in the quarter with a 175 hp wet shot of nitrous.
For racing I remove cat and the mufflers, The passenger seat is out ( I mount the nitrous bottles there ).
AC is removed for weight reasons, don´t forget the spare tire. Tank is filled to one third, don´t get lower,
the pump pick up will run dry. We use stock wheels, the front ones are narrowed for front runners.
Rear tire is a Hoosier QTP. I run one size larger injectors to keep it running a little on the rich side

 

^Efficiency^

What's it trap?

 

That was 181 km/h, that should be around 117 mph. I´m based in Germany.
Here is a print out from a Test & Tune in June of 2021:

 

Damn good trap speed for what I'd guess is ~400hp.

 

My estimate is she should have 235 hp,but the engine is old and stock. The original head gaskets from 1985 are still in use.
I would say 200 hp is realistic after 72.000 miles. We run a 175 hp wet shot from ZEX.
So yeah, we will be somewhere between 375 till 400 hp. I never dynoed this.

 

Still too wet here to get the track open. Doesn’t really matter, as I have spent nearly every day working on this car to get everything operating properly. Valve covers were leaking, and it smoked a bit on startup, so I dove in and did the valve seals and valve cover gaskets. While in there, I found that the harmonic balancer had failed, so I replaced that as well. This fixed only part of my oil leak. Turned out I also had a leaking oil pressure switch, so I replaced that as well as the pressure sending unit. Also found a leaking brake master cylinder and clutch slave. Replaced two masters and one slave. Lots of bleeding.

I found the problem with OD was a broken connector at the case. Fixed that and changed the filter, fluid, and resealed the pan. Also put in new plugs (cap, rotor, and wires are all good), new thermostat, and fixed some other small leaks, etc.

Having low miles seems to mean that a lot of stuff has just “aged out”. Every time I repair one thing, I find another problem. Looks like I will likely be sorting issues for some time. Hopefully by the end of summer I will be able to start adding some speed parts. Going to start with headers and exhaust as has been suggested. It has a Borla catback, and I also found a K&N filter and TB airfoil while I was working on it.

i am going to take a break from repairs for the next week or so and work on detailing. I need to clean up the engine, suspension, and barrels on the wheels. I also need to strip the failing clear coat from the wheels and polish them.

hope the weather clears up soon so I can get a baseline pass on it!

 

After months of work sorting out all of the issues on the car, I finally got it to the track last week. Ran a best of 14.3@96mph (backed it up with several passes). This was bone stock, except for K&N filter and a Borla cat back. Ran it on my street tires (Conti DWS06).

It was a bit tricky to get the launch just right. Shifting at 4500 produced the quickest times.

now I have to install my headers, rockers, and sticky tires and see if I can get into the 13’s!

 

You're only 4 tenths away. Piece of cake!!

 

can you post the timeslip or transfer the data points?[/size]

 

Sure - I will do that when I get back home today.

 

Sorry that took so long. I kept forgetting to get the timeslips out of the glovebox!