Congrats to Charles Blossom

[Ed Fernandez]

At least the car doesn't become extinct.Just make a few under hood changes.Tire and rims and voila,a daily driver.Or put a for sale sign.Low milage,driven for short commutes.

[GarysZ24]

Originally Posted by Ed Fernandez

At least the car doesn't become extinct.Just make a few under hood changes.Tire and rims and voila,a daily driver.Or put a for sale sign.Low milage,driven for short commutes.

That's funny Ed, even though it's also true. My car isn't nearly as competitive as his, but his is probably a whole lot easier to convert back to a regular street car than mine would be!

[Scott North]

Originally Posted by GarysZ24

Scott, I'm glad to know you still have your car, and will bring it back out to play again someday, but you (and the others) talking about turbos and altitude racing had me being thankful for "Drag Race Central". Back in 2003 at the Mile Highs I had to run class against a Turbo-charged Daytona, that in spite of his car being nearly 400lbs heavier than my car/driver combo, he plastered my car by running a 15.574 @ 85.95mph (with a .249rt), against my 16.788 @ 79.08mph (with a .061rt), against an altitude corrected DF/SA index of 16.82! Needless to say he qualified 3rd in the 77 car field, and I was 76th...the only reason I wasn't dead last was Toby Lang was there, and he wanted to be the last on the list (I know him well enough now to know that he does that on purpose, because his car is much quicker than he qualifies it, and it shows during elim's)! I wish I could be that savy to be able to do such a thing, but with a fwd stocker I wouldn't even feel it wise to try....

My point in this, is if I someday get to go to Indy my focus will not be to win class (especially since class doesn't pay but $100 to my car anymore), it would be to make it into the final 128, and I need nearly .45 sec to give myself a chance to make that work!! What I'm curious about is how could a car with a 14.13lbs per hp be able to run in DF/S anyway, when my lbs per hp is 20.09, for the same class???

As you know Gary, I believe your car has been mis-classfied for years. You're a trooper for hanging in there with it!

[Owen S Quirion]

I was looking through the Classification Guide this morning and was wondering why the Guide only lists the PT Cruiser GT Convertible as having the 220/230 hp version available. I noticed that Charles' car has the GT identification badges in Tom Sheehan's pictures. Maybe someone could explain the difference between the big HP version and the one that Charles ran at Indy. Is it an intercooler?

[treessavoy]

Originally Posted by art leong

Wrong They made them in 2004 All convertibles were turbocharged

Wrong,

Just like all Cruiser's you could get them with or without the turbo. The confusion is that ALL the GT models came with a 220hp turbo motor but you could all Cruiser's with the FI 2.4, 2.4 turbo/180hp or the 2.4 turbo /220hp (gt version) and the SRT Neon was 230hp, I believe.

I was told that all the turbo motors were the same but with different computer parameters.

Girlfriend has a convertible with standard engine and I have the 180hp turbo 4 door. love it by the way!

JimR

[Owen S Quirion]

Jim, I looked at the blueprint specs and the two engines are identical from a parts standpoint. If the only difference is the computer and NHRA allows any computer anyway, then the two engines should have the same factored HP. Pretty favorable combo here.

[GarysZ24]

Originally Posted by Scott North

As you know Gary, I believe your car has been mis-classfied for years. You're a trooper for hanging in there with it!

Thanks Scott (and I hope you & yours are doing great), but I'm happier now that my combo was refactored down to 120/125hp (since they dropped those .3 from last years indexes), so I'm a solid DF/S car. Moreover, since I've pretty much removed all of the weight from my car that I legally can, then now I can enjoy not having to be concerned with my old 2640lb weight minimum! Now it is getting out to the races....

[Barnstorm]

Blossom and crew visiting Rick Johnson with his recent low qualifier pit vehicle.

[Mark Yacavone]

That hoop thing qualifies as a roll bar? The car runs in the 13s, right?

[Rob Lloyd]

Originally Posted by Owen S Quirion

Jim, I looked at the blueprint specs and the two engines are identical from a parts standpoint. If the only difference is the computer and NHRA allows any computer anyway, then the two engines should have the same factored HP. Pretty favorable combo here.

That's not the only difference. I think the 230hp version was intercooled where the 180hp is not...