marks73turbota
06-27-2009, 07:01 PM
Hi everyone. Happy to be added to this site. I'm retired from a life of crime. It was a crime what they did to me, heh!! But that's in the past. I am born and raised in Wisconsin, now moved to sunny (can you spell cooooking???) Glendale Arizona. Suburb of Phoenix. Loved WI but had to get away from the cold. I'm an old car nut from way back. Turned 16 in '68 and have had several cars since. I'm a Pontiac guy in my blood but I love all cars. My present money pit ( I say that lovingly) is an ex-showcar "73 Trans Am. You can read about it here and my history with it. It also shows its present iteration, turbocharged and nasty. There are a couple of pages including a little write up about my last nitrous run before the turbo install. http://www.americantorque.com/page/0/62/ This is a vid of my TA on the dyno. The last 4 runs on the vid are my TAs. They show HP and Torque numbers at the beginning of my runs but that was at 10 pounds boost, not 15. These numbers and are rear wheel HP TQ numbers. The second and third runs were 12 pounds. The last run was 15 pounds and recorded 886.8 hp and 822.3 torque at the wheels. This corrects to 1064.16 hp and 986.76 pounds torque at the wheels. The last 2 runs on the video have the sound and video out of sync. http://videos.streetfire.net/video/FAT-DYNO-DAY_643621.htm . Now to the good stuff. Now that I have the TA running strong I have entered a racing assocciation--Arizonas Fastest Street Cars--and am running the Outlaw class. 9.99 and faster. I ran 10.6 @ 129 my best run that first race and am doing some things to tune it faster. If you listen to the dyno runs it sounds like the engine stops pulling at the top of the runs. It did the same thing at the strip. I believe its one of two things. In the pics of the turbo install you can see the air to water intercooler next to the passenger head. I never imagined that I would actually achieve 1000 hp so I used this small intercooler. I feel it is restricting my top end. I'm presently installing a large front mount air to air incercooler in the grill to see if that makes any difference. Next race is September. My next thought is possible valve spring bounce. The previous N/A--nitrous cam was much more radical than this turbo cam so I felt the old cams springs would work OK. But the added Boost pressure on the back of the valves may be pushing enough on the valve to make it soft on the closing and allowing some bounce. So that is where I am now. This TA runs on the street as well. This is a vid of it at the Pontiac heaven drags going to tech. http://s601.photobucket.com/albums/tt97/marks73turbota/?action=view¤t=RobbsVisit012.flv and a run on the street http://s601.photobucket.com/albums/tt97/marks73turbota/?action=view¤t=RobbsVisit014.flv. My present intention with the TA is to build a early gasser type rod out of the TA. But it would be as if the 60's gasser kept evolving instead of dying out due to the Funny Cars. They would be a near stock bodied blown or turbo'd or nitroused steel body but lengthened front end with still using the tube or dropped tubed front end. I already have a '57 chevy pick up front axle, a full rear 4 link frame and hardware assembly that I will add to 2x3 steel tubing to make a full frame integrated into the TA flooring. But lengthened 2 feet with a good engine set back into the firewall like the old gassers. Just a crazy note. I have 2 full '58 Pontiac 370 blocks and their forged cranks. I'm actually contemplating building a twin engine version. Either a freight train configuration (2 engines in a row) or a side by side twin combination. Waiting to get my garage funtioning as a speed shop so I can start playing with these ideas. Will run the TA as is until I can make it work. Oh, man. Thanks for having me and I hope I didn't get too long winded. It was good talking at ya and hope to be a regular here. Mark L