TBucket Engine Project (Dart SHP)

87vette81big · Jun 20, 2014

I like lots of intial advance timing if possible.
Masks carb emulsion circuit problems.
Super responsive.
Typical on Chevy about 11-12 Degrees BTDC Max.

Olds V8 can tolerate 24 degrees BTDC Initial on 87. octane pee water pump gas I have found.

grumpyvette · Jun 21, 2014

you can tell a great deal about combustion chamber operational conditions,both about fuel/air ratio and ignition advance , by making a full throttle run on new spark plugs and then shutting the engine down, coasting to a stop, pulling the plugs and closely inspecting them.
(POST VERY CLEAR PICTURES OF THE SPARK PLUGS LABELED AS TO LOCATION #)
combine that with a accurate graph of both plenum vacuum,readings and ignition advance curve and collector back pressure readings and if possible a fuel/air ratio meter reading from each collector and what an infrared temp gun shows your header temps to be and you get a very good indication of what might need to be changed.
post your impression of how the car runs and any flaws you see/feel in the engine's power curve, it should pull well from about 3000rpm-to about 6300rpm where you probably should shift
you might be amazed at what a few tests with a fuel pressure gauge and vacuum gauge and timing light can tell you

87vette81big · Jun 21, 2014

You Drag Racing Today Rick ?

Post some observations tuning last few days.
Grumpy & me can help figure out difficulties if any in our heads & reply back.

grumpyvette · Jun 21, 2014

well weres the pictures, stories , thoughts, ,and bragging trophy's ,
or excuses and complaints and questions?
if you had a chance to race that T-bucket,
what did you experience? what do you want to change?
there had to be something to talk , brag or bitch about! :lol:

mathd · Jun 21, 2014

grumpyvette said:
there had to be something to talk , brag or bitch about! :lol:

yep, am waiting for it me too !

87vette81big · Jun 21, 2014

mathd said:
grumpyvette said:

there had to be something to talk , brag or bitch about! :lol:

Click to expand...

yep, am waiting for it me too !

DITTO.
Where Are You Rick ?

Indycars · Jun 21, 2014

Sorry guys, I had to rest this 61 year old body of mine first!!! Well actually we
had to have onion burger at Sid's Diner in El Reno first and download the videos
to my computer, then prepare them for YouTube.

When I read Gumpy's post about all the info he wanted, including vacuum reading
and A/F ratio on both sides .... I'm thinking when in HELL am I suppose get time
to drive this thing while taking all those damn readings in 5 seconds. :lol:

As far the the Spark Plugs go, this is what I did. I waited until I got there, then
installed the new plugs, made 7-8 passes and then removed them. Took photos
and each bank, labeled them and put them back in the boxes. So if I need a better
photo later, I can always go back and take more, maybe with my 8x magnification.
Tomorrow I will the spark plug photos.

Below are the videos posted in the order they were run. I didn't post everyone of
them, but do have five different runs out of the 7-8 I made. Well I was going to
post them, but YouTube video stabilization processing is taking a long time.

I can post an run by a very wicked GTO.

Also a very nice Blown 55 Chevy vs a Mustang video.

I will follow up tomorrow with the videos, comments and spark plug pics.

87vette81big · Jun 21, 2014

I can see the T-bucket In the background Rick.
Right behind the 1966 Pontiac GTO

philly · Jun 22, 2014

nice goat! that place looks like alot of fun

Indycars · Jun 22, 2014

You will notice that I have a hard time predicting the flag man, I was late leaving a
couple of time. So below are the links to the YouTube videos, try going FULL SCREEN
the video is still pretty clear. If anyone wants the HD mp4 file to download, just let
me know I will post a link for that file.

I said yesterday that I made 7-8 passes, actually after thinking more about, it was
6 passes.

This first video has two camera at different points, that way you can see the start
and the finish.

Made a pass by myself.

Another pass by myself. I declined to race the GTO, did not like the Curb and Concrete Barriers.
Every pass I made was in the outside lane where there NO barriers after about 50 feet and
NO curbs.

With the light weight of the TBucket, it should be hard to beat this combination off the line.
So to me it seems to be lacking something in the first 60 feet. Most of the time I came back
in the last 200 feet passing the other car. I know the torque converter is holding me back with
a 2800 RPM stall speed rating, but is that the only thing ..... any ideas?

The track was getting slippery as we got later in the day. The tires were picking up a lot trash
and the return road. The last two runs I did a short burn out to clean the tires.

87vette81big · Jun 22, 2014

What Gear is in the Ford 9" Rick again ??
3.70 Or 3.73 Or 3.75 :1 ?
Pretty fast Field.... Low 11-second cars to High 10's 1/4 mile.
Seems to me mostly wrong rear diff gears. 3.90- 4.56 required.
Lots to be had tuning.
Bigger tube headers sidepipes give more torque & HP I am sure.
Expensive for the T I know.

Rear tires spining screaching slowing you down too.
Adjust Lower Rear tires pressure 2psi at a time.

grumpyvette · Jun 22, 2014

the way the T bucket car closes and passes the other cars once you get up to speed and are not dealing with traction issues suggests the cars got decent power potential ,once the engines above about 4k rpm or so, and starts to breath effectively, (by the engine sound also), and that your not able to put that upper rpm power, you access once you build rpms, effectively to the pavement at the launch and first 100 feet or so of the run (you would get to the effective power curve faster with a 3200 stall converter.)
this suggests that your either not getting decent traction as the wheel spin also suggests or your stall speed could be higher ,but because you have that wheel spin and no big bog or loss of power, and listening to the engine, I think you need SLICKS , or at least play with tire pressure to get full contact,patch on the pavement, current air pressure may be too high,and maybe some suspension work to increase launch traction, and i don,t know what rpm the trans shifts at but it sounds like its shifting below about 5700rpm

Indycars · Jun 22, 2014

What Gear is in the Ford 9" Rick again ??
3.70 Or 3.73 Or 3.75 :1 ?
Pretty fast Field.... Low 11-second cars to High 10's 1/4 mile.
Seems to me mostly wrong rear diff gears. 3.90- 4.56 required.
Lots to be had tuning.
Bigger tube headers sidepipes give more torque & HP I am sure.
Expensive for the T I know.

Rear tires spining screaching slowing you down too.
Adjust Lower Rear tires pressure 2psi at a time.

The rear diff is a Ford 9 inch, I'm not sure exactly what Ford uses. When I rotate
the tires and count the drive shaft revs, then I get something around 3.7:1

I was surprised how many were carrying parachutes. When do they start uses them,
around 11 sec ???

The tires are at 18 psi the last time I checked, wonder how low I can go before they
spin on the rim?

mathd · Jun 22, 2014

Darn, wish i had a place like that locally.

How is the carb tuning?
It look like its pretty much in the ball pack

.

mathd · Jun 22, 2014

probably something wrong with my computer.. i have to turn the volume on full and i can barely hear the video. Its hard for me to tell how the engine sounds like.

Am just curious, how it feel when you floor in on the track? and when you give it a quick rev?.
Accelerator pump tuning can be a pita, and that will throw your launch/60 feet time to the garbage.
But maby its your stall speed/torque converter, honestly i have zero knowledges with auto's.

Edit: to me it look like, with a little more traction as stated above and more off idle throttle response it will get very interesting

87vette81big · Jun 22, 2014

Its s Ford 3.75 : 1 Gearset Rick.
Grumpy & me have similar outakes of the catchup problem.

He wants to do it with a Stall higher.
Help yes.
To rework rear suspension You Need Bobs Welding & metal fab skills.
Or bring him over again.
Nothing broke like I feared so make the best of what you have for now
4.33 or 4.56 gears with 31" tall tires be a great combo for Strip action.
You still have 200R4 overdrive. Streetable yet.
Could up stall speed.

Best Value for your $$ is a gear change. $300 bucks in parts or less.
9" Is small enough the Hogs head to ship to me & I do it.
Or do it yourself .

87vette81big · Jun 22, 2014

The Guys in Chicago are Running 6's in 1/4 mile at 205-210 mph trap speed on 10.5" wide Drag Radial Mickey Thompson Tires Grumpy.
Putting down 3,000 HP.
Ricks Fat Azzz Mickey Flame Tires not an issue to me.

philly · Jun 22, 2014

ford's a 3.73 and yea you need some more traction... the most important factors about tires is compound... mickey thompson makes the best tires on the street. next is sidewall deflection an lastly is contact patch. if you really wanted to get serious:

http://www.jegs.com/p/Mickey-Thompson/M ... 0/10002/-1

are the best on the street. period. you cant really put alot of miles on them so an extra set of wheels would likely be in order. treat them like slicks in that regard. these things take a 700 horse launch dumping the clutch at 6700 rpm in a 3000 lb car on an unprepped surface and hook. once those are mounted up and at 15-18 psi its all shock tuning to get the weight transfer you like.

philly · Jun 22, 2014

what shocks are on the bucket? are they adjustable?

Indycars · Jun 22, 2014

grumpyvette said:
the way the T bucket car closes and passes the other cars once you get up to speed and are not dealing with traction issues suggests the cars got decent power potential ,once the engines above about 4k rpm or so, and starts to breath effectively, (by the engine sound also), and that your not able to put that upper rpm power, you access once you build rpms, effectively to the pavement at the launch and first 100 feet or so of the run (you would get to the effective power curve faster with a 3200 stall converter.)
this suggests that your either not getting decent traction as the wheel spin also suggests or your stall speed could be higher ,but because you have that wheel spin and no big bog or loss of power, and listening to the engine, I think you need SLICKS , or at least play with tire pressure to get full contact,patch on the pavement, current air pressure may be too high,and maybe some suspension work to increase launch traction, and i don,t know what rpm the trans shifts at but it sounds like its shifting below about 5700rpm

Traction was an issue, especially towards the later runs. If you listen to RUN #4,
then the tires just quit squealing right before I shift to 2nd gear where you hear
the tires chirp.

I don't see myself spending money on slicks, the car is for fun and the occasional
race. The suspension changes might be possible this winter, but there are so many
things that I want to do ..... well you know the story, there are only 24 hours in a day.

I'm always shift the trans manually, if I didn't, it would shift at something terribly low
like 4000 RPM. I can't watch the tach and drive with my setup, therefore some shifts
might be low. I have to go by the sound of the engine for the 1-2 shift. The tach is
completely out of my line of sight when I'm watching the road. After the 1-2 shift, I might
be able to watch the tach for the 2-3 and 3-4 shift if I had some of those Miracle Balls
needed for high speeds with NO Roll cage.

TBucket Engine Project (Dart SHP)

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