Yesterday:
Here's a broad overview of my day with the SS...
All went well as far as installing the diff brace. It took about 20-25 mins. It gets pretty easy after you do it a few times.
Sway bar removal was simple.
Tire swap was as easy as you'd expect it to be.
I got the time to go for a ride in it before heading to the track. By the time we rolled into the track the car was at 575 miles.
We ran into some spotty light rain a few miles from the track. If we'd been closer to home we'd have turned around and called it a night. Since we were so close we went on. When we got there there were hardly any cars(20, seriously) but the track mgr said they were going to run if they could. An ominous cloud spent a long time slowly blowing over. Eventually they sprayed a token amount of glue on the track, hit it w the dragger for about 5 mins and called us to the lanes.
I knew it was a near waste of time but thought the least I could do was make a few crap runs just to learn about this cars shifting, etc.
With so little glue I knew the 1st run would be my only decent chance of hooking. I did a decent burnout, staged at about 1600 and it left decent. Spun/shook a bit but not terrible. It went 1.50/6.98/99mph. Not earth shattering by any means but a six second pass first hit seemed acceptable.
Second pass was a total waste. Good burnout, left at 1400, didn't go 2 feet before it spun/shook like crazy. Lifted, got back in it and went 1.65/7.21/99mph.
Third pass I sort of soft footed it from an idle. 1.51/7.02/99mph.
At first the mph worried me but the humidity had to be basically 100%. On the last run there were a good many light drops of rain streaking up the windshield as I turned the windshield wipers on in the shutdown.
At that point we called it a night, aired the tires back up to 32 and headed south.
The car is in one piece. It's first trip to the track is behind it. It's been through it's first 45 minute traffic jam(whole 'nother story..).
Also, this car's 1-2 shift is MUCH more appropriate for drag racing than the '21 RE that I had. It's firm. It actually spun the tires a tick on the 1-2 on all 3 runs last night but I'm not sure there was actually any glue that far out. On a well prepped track it'll shift nicely and I don't think there'll be any unneeded harshness or spin.
I found the front end lift to be interesting. Both my RE's basically left flat, near zero frontal lift. That is NOT the case with this thing. It lifts a ton immediately at the hit. Being so used to the other it seems odd watching to hood raise that much. It seems reasonable to think the easy lift at the hit will aid weight transfer.
And, the cloud..
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