My new 1988 T/A

[farmington]

Cha-ching

[DynoDave]

Got our first drive of 2019 in. Car ran very well.

There was a dude in a lifted 4WD Ford who wanted to park next to me, but fortunately KITT was there to block him...a good wing man.

[MP81]

Good to hear!

Still way too much salt out by us for either of the cars to come out at this point.

[farmington]

Did my annual oil change and swapped to some
different wheels/tires. Must be getting old, this kicked my ass.

[DynoDave]

I know I am Don. I moved some bags of top soil the other day, pulled a muscle in my shoulder. They aren't even that heavy. But stretching out and lifting them off the pallet did me in.

[DynoDave]

I like to keep all my car receipts and paperwork organized. And my T/A folder was a little messy, in part because I had initially stashed a lot of car hauler paperwork into it. The car hauler has it's own folder now, so I pulled the T/A folder from the cabinet and went through it.

And I found the 1/4 mile time-slips that had been missing since...well, since I ran the car down the 1/4 mile. I'm car 256. It was just a test and tune day, went for fun, and to document where the car was as purchased, with all stock components. This is just the way I got it...original plugs, wires, cap, rotor, factory fuel filter, pump, TBI and likely leaking base gasket, etc.

I expected it to be a 16.5 second car, and with sleepy at the helm, it was even a little worse than that. Oh L03, you reliable old thing you.

[MP81]

I guess I don't feel as bad about my IROC running a 15.9.

Then again, it had the TPI LB9, Edelbrock TES headers/Y-pipe, Hypertech chip, no cat, FloPro muffler, and K&N filters. I also did way too big of a burnout for all-seasons, so that did not help.

To make us both feel worse, my Cobalt ran a 16.3 bone stock with a 148 HP 2.2L L61 Ecotec (best it's ever run was a 14.100, still on the all-seasons - so ZERO grip off the line).

[DynoDave]

I prefer to think of the pace as gentlemanly.



One of the magazines back in the day did a shootout between a Mustang 5.0 LX and an Arctic White RS with L03 and 5 speed, a car just like the '91 I had at the time. The best the mag drivers could get was a 16 flat in the 1/4 mile. When I ran my RS at Milan, that's exactly what it ran. I had always figured the L03 auto (being an auto, and having a 2.73 axle ratio Vs. the 3.08 with the 5 speed) would be about a 1/2 second slower. I was not wrong. I chalk up the rest of the additional time to driver, a touch of wheel spin, and 30 year old tuneup parts.

As for your TPI, an LB9 with auto and 2.73 is usually a mid 15 second car. With a few speed parts, I would have expected better, but you never know.

I really should jump on one of these dyno days, to document the current state, and know exactly how much progress is being made in the future.

[MP81]

I want to say mine had 3.23s out back.

Having the subs in the back, as well as doing way too big of a burnout on all-seasons, and it being my first time at the drag strip definitely contributed to the slower time, I'm sure.

[DynoDave]

It's great value...I'm getting more seconds on the track than almost anyone there.

The guy running the lights and burnout box at Lapeer was adamant that I do a burnout. 170 horse, open diff, all season radials, it was a waste of time, and I told him so. Then I proceeded to spin my one drive wheel. I get better traction on the street than on their lanes. So next time through I obliged him with a burnout. It did nothing for my traction, tore off some rubber, and planted it on my quarter and wheel-well which I later had to clean up.

[MP81]

Lapeer has been completely redone, so I'm guessing traction is a lot better now - hopefully, because I used to get better traction on the return road than I did at the starting line.

[farmington]

Unless you go on a day when there?s a serious race, the track prep, even at Milan, isn?t that good. I can dead hook on my concrete test street but spun a few revolutions at Milan.

[MP81]

We went up to Ubly once, since they supposedly prepped, but not for us (though they did for the one slingshot dragster that was running there that day) - my fastest time in the Cobalt is actually still at Lapeer.

[DynoDave]

I made a few passes at Milan back when my '91 Camaro was new. This is the first time I'd been anywhere else, so a lot of years, and no experience overall really. But still fun to do.

As a result, I have no real comment on track width, traction, etc. All I know is I have no traction issues on the street, and would spin leaving there. So if my little L03 can't plant it's 170 horsepower, then anybody with serious power is going to struggle, I would think.

[DynoDave]

While adding the winch to my car hauler a year or so back, I learned a valuable lesson. I have these nice little tools that can pierce/punch a perfect, clean hole in metal. So I used the 1" one to create a pair of holes for the cables from the dry cell battery in the diamond plate aluminum tool box to the winch. The tool made great holes, no problem.

What I didn't know was that 1" hole plugs do not fit 1" holes. They slipped right through the box. I didn't have time to address it at the time, so I've run with it that way since then.

So before an outing with the trailer this past weekend, I updated to the proper size hole plug. I punched a hole in the plug large enough for a rubber grommet to protect the insulation on the cable. The plugs didn't sit as flush as I'd like due to the diamond pattern, but after a few days they have flattened out considerably (better than pictured here).