2008 Cobra Jets belong in Stock

[Rusty Gillis]

I have read a lot of post with a lot of complaints about the new Cobra Jets and the cars belong in Stock. The problem is NHRA needs to change the factors for stock and start at 6.00 like Super Stock. If you can go to a dealer and buy a new car Ford, Chevy, or Dodge with 500 HP it should have a place to race in NHRA. As far as Stock being stock cars that went out a long time ago. I tried racing in Stock 10 years ago and I wasn't competitive because I didn't want to spent $3500 to have my heads acid ported and that didn't include the intake. Stockers that race today are far more advanced than the Super Stocker I raced in the 70's. Robert Pond went 9.76 with his AA/S 67 Fairlane which is faster than the Pro Stockers were running in 1970. NHRA needs to get with the times and change the Stock HP to weight factors.

[bill dedman]

I agree. The times have changed, but the NHRA rulebook hasn't kept pace. The move to AA/S and AA/SA was a long-overdue addition to the rules, but it didn't go far enough, I think.

You can (if you have the bucks) go to a Chevy dealer and buy a bone-stock ZR-1 Corvette right off the showroom floor with 638 advertised horsepower in a 3,200-pound package (5.02 pounds per hp); a 600 hp Viper SRT-10 in at about 3,350 pounds (5.6 pounds per hp), or several different permutations of blown Ford Mustangs with horsepowers ranging anywhere from 425 to 700+ (depending on whom you choose to believe). The new Nissan GTR is a mid-11-second ride off the showroom floor (AWD), and you're going to be seeing a LOT of those cars around... why not race 'em??? Isn't drag racing traditionally where people go to see the FAST cars???

There are no "STOCK ELIMINATOR" classes for these showroom-stock vehicles.

Why the Hell not? They're American cars (well, all but the GTR) that are readily available, would be REALLY exciting to watch run down the drag strip, and probably would be relatively easy to gain sponsorship for, since they represent the cream of the crop of new cars, so far.

I think NHRA is really dragging their heels on this deal... and, missing an opportunity to showcase the best of the best by not including these babies into the Classification Guide.

The question is: WHY?

Inertia??? I know that NHRA Tech is eaten up with it... "Don't do today, what you can put off until tomorrow.... or, next year."

[Rich Biebel]

Originally Posted by Rusty Gillis

I have read a lot of post with a lot of complaints about the new Cobra Jets and the cars belong in Stock. The problem is NHRA needs to change the factors for stock and start at 6.00 like Super Stock. If you can go to a dealer and buy a new car Ford, Chevy, or Dodge with 500 HP it should have a place to race in NHRA. As far as Stock being stock cars that went out a long time ago. I tried racing in Stock 10 years ago and I wasn't competitive because I didn't want to spent $3500 to have my heads acid ported and that didn't include the intake. Stockers that race today are far more advanced than the Super Stocker I raced in the 70's. Robert Pond went 9.76 with his AA/S 67 Fairlane which is faster than the Pro Stockers were running in 1970. NHRA needs to get with the times and change the Stock HP to weight factors.

Rusty.....you said Acid Porting was needed to be competetive 10 years ago......There seems to be a lot of people that will say you just needed to "work on your stuff more"...haha

[X-TECH MAN]

Originally Posted by Rich Biebel

Rusty.....you said Acid Porting was needed to be competetive 10 years ago......There seems to be a lot of people that will say you just needed to "work on your stuff more"...haha

Acid porting is a "misnomer". The "acid" and now today "Media blasting" just hides the port work being done. Its been more than 20 years since I first became aware of it and the "powers to be" just turned thier heads except for the S/S head rule change. Let the games begin.

[mtkawboy]

Seems to me that the 50 chosen few didnt have any problems running the Canadian CJ heads against everyone else that didnt have then at the time

[GUMP]

How much HP did a bone stock L72 or ZL1 Camaro make back in 1969? Not the published numbers.

[art leong]

Originally Posted by X-TECH MAN

Acid porting is a "misnomer". The "acid" and now today "Media blasting" just hides the port work being done. Its been more than 20 years since I first became aware of it and the "powers to be" just turned thier heads exceot for the S/S head rule change. Let the games begin.

I know it was done in 1979 I have quite a story about that. Won't get into it here.
And NO we never ran anything but a "true" stock head.( A look at our MPH could verify that).One of the main reasons we quit stock eliminator in 1981. If we continued to race in stock, we would have been forced to do it. And if we were to get caught I didn't want "the world" to think we were doing it all along.
Thats is why I get hostile when somebody talks bad about boost on the turbo cars. To raise airflow on a turbo car it costs about a dollar. How much is it to acid port, chemically clean, media blast,etc a head and intake manifold? Run a "stocker" cam? ETC. ETC.
I always thought stock should be kept as low buck as possible. I remember winning the York US 30 invitational and having to spend the Monday following the race at the track because they paid us by check and the banks weren't open till Tuesday. Once we made the semi finals we spent what gas money we had on food, knowing we were in the money.

[Jeff Lee]

Amazing how "off topic" you guys can go here!

[Tim Kish]

You think people are crying about the Cobra Jets, allow a ZR1 corvette to run Stock. Since from the factory this car has: Titanium Rods, Titanium Valves, CNC ported heads, a dry sump oil system, tubular exhaust manifolds that are as good as most headers and the same demon blower as the Cobra Jet ( different housing but same size displacement blower). And come to think of it, with all that and at a larger displacement than the Cobra Jet (6.2L vs 5.4) its only rated at 638HP. And to get that 638HP the factory exhaust system has vacuum actuated cutouts to bypass the mufflers.

The key everyone keeps missing is that NHRA's system uses what they call a HP rating but if there is a single car out there that actually only produces the rated HP level it can't run the index. These new performance cars come from the factory with a large percentage of the tricks that get Stockers to the level they are today as legal mods above and beyond the base HP rating. As such they can not be compared on the same scale.

[Rusty Gillis]

The point I was trying to make is if you can buy it new from the dealer Ford, Chevy or Dodge NHRA should have a class for it in stock if the manufacture provides HP and shipping weights. There needs to be a place in stock for these 500 +++ HP new cars.