I need to apologize!!

[Billy Nees]

Originally Posted by Richard Grant

Tim, I have waited 20 years to see the 255 competitive again.

Not fer nuthin' but IMHO if I had a 350/255 car I would be getting to work on a set of 350/300 heads. Again, IMHO (and we know what opinions are like) by the end of this year, the 350/255, the '90s LT-1 and the 396/375 will be "not all that competitive" (I don't want to say dead) players.

[Doug Hoven]

Originally Posted by Billy Nees

Not fer nuthin' but IMHO if I had a 350/255 car I would be getting to work on a set of 350/300 heads. Again, IMHO (and we know what opinions are like) by the end of this year, the 350/255, the '90s LT-1 and the 396/375 will be "not all that competitive" (I don't want to say dead) players.

IMHO, even if the 255hp combo gets, let’s say 8 hp, that’s only 88lb in F/SA, which in most cars is probably only about a tenth. So the 1.20 under cars become 1.10 under? Before going around saying the sky is falling, it’s always good to make sure it’s not just a little rain. Even if the 255 combo becomes rated higher than the 300, I think a good set of 441 heads will outperform a set of good 461, 186, or 041 heads.

[Billy Nees]

What I should have said instead of "not all that competitive" would have been to say "probably not all that capable of winning a heads-up race against a different combo".

[442OLDS]

Originally Posted by Billy Nees

What I should have said instead of "not all that competitive" would have been to say "probably not all that capable of winning a heads-up race against a different combo".

No,even with the additional horsepower, they will still have no issues winning heads up races against some combos.

[Mike Gray]

Originally Posted by Doug Hoven

IMHO, even if the 255hp combo gets, let’s say 8 hp, that’s only 88lb in F/SA, which in most cars is probably only about a tenth. So the 1.20 under cars become 1.10 under? Before going around saying the sky is falling, it’s always good to make sure it’s not just a little rain. Even if the 255 combo becomes rated higher than the 300, I think a good set of 441 heads will outperform a set of good 461, 186, or 041 heads.

Okay I think your rounding it off and I may need help figuring this out. (I’m a super-gas racer and building a stocker) and I wanted to get this math figured correctly.
If his 1.127 holds as the fastest run and the average is .850 or better he gets 2.25% hit on the 280hp base or 6.3hp that I think is rounded up to 7hp? Then 11.00 x 287 + 170 new weight of 3327 or + 77lbs?
Thanks

[Brent Kopejtka]

Originally Posted by Mike Gray

Okay I think your rounding it off and I may need help figuring this out. (I’m a super-gas racer and building a stocker) and I wanted to get this math figured correctly.
If his 1.127 holds as the fastest run and the average is .850 or better he gets 2.25% hit on the 280hp base or 6.3hp that I think is rounded up to 7hp? Then 11.00 x 287 + 170 new weight of 3327 or + 77lbs?
Thanks

Mike I didn’t do the math just going off your figures. If 3327 lbs is where it ends up NHRA always rounds up so it would be 3330 lbs for new minimum weight. So would be 80 lbs but if -1.125 is in fact the fastest run.

[James Perrone]

Originally Posted by Doug Hoven

IMHO, even if the 255hp combo gets, let’s say 8 hp, that’s only 88lb in F/SA, which in most cars is probably only about a tenth. So the 1.20 under cars become 1.10 under? Before going around saying the sky is falling, it’s always good to make sure it’s not just a little rain. Even if the 255 combo becomes rated higher than the 300, I think a good set of 441 heads will outperform a set of good 461, 186, or 041 heads.

o
Only 88 lbs
Really?
Hears the problem young man.
People spend a lot of time and $ to do these race car things
And I agree It’s your car ..race it how you want .
But when someone’s actions cause harm to other competitors cars and combos
It tends to piss people off .
What’s funny is I know a few people that run this combo but there to polite to complain to the person who causes this possible HP problem
I’ve seen this before when someone is not fast and gets a GOOD PiECE and bangs said combo yet pleads well I didn’t know it would go this fast ..
Well guess what?
This same person will complain about the 88 lbs earned for their decisions to go fast win Class ..And guess what There slow once again.
So when you make a mess of your combo ..you need to clean up your mess
Because you ain’t making friends by making others clean up The Mess

[Billy Nees]

Originally Posted by James Perrone

o
Only 88 lbs
Really?
Hears the problem young man.
People spend a lot of time and $ to do these race car things
And I agree It’s your car ..race it how you want .
But when someone’s actions cause harm to other competitors cars and combos
It tends to piss people off .
What’s funny is I know a few people that run this combo but there to polite to complain to the person who causes this possible HP problem
I’ve seen this before when someone is not fast and gets a GOOD PiECE and bangs said combo yet pleads well I didn’t know it would go this fast ..
Well guess what?
This same person will complain about the 88 lbs earned for their decisions to go fast win Class ..And guess what There slow once again.
So when you make a mess of your combo ..you need to clean up your mess
Because you ain’t making friends by making others clean up The Mess

Ya know, I can agree with everything that you've said here Ponko. I may not relate to it but I can see your points.
Story-telling time, I got a phone call from a Racer on Friday. He wanted to know if I had any Dime Rocket P.O.S. stuff laying around that he could use or throw together to run this year. Now this Racer has some VERY fast stuff of his own but he doesn't want to run his own stuff because it's "too fast" and he doesn't want to slow it down. He also likes working and tuning his stuff to try and make it faster and now he can't. He wants a P.O.S. that he can tinker with and go as fast as possible without having to worry about it.
Here's the point of this story, the Racer is pushing 80 years old! How long does he plan on racing and who or why is he trying to "save" his combo? He has legitimately worked and spent what it took to get his stuff to this point only to be afraid to go too fast. WHY? IMHO, he should be out enjoying every bit of the fruits of his labor while he still can.

[Larry Hill]

It will only be a two pound gift but NHRA will round the 3327# down to 3325#

[Robin Lawrence]

Originally Posted by Billy Nees

Ya know, I can agree with everything that you've said here Ponko. I may not relate to it but I can see your points.
Story-telling time, I got a phone call from a Racer on Friday. He wanted to know if I had any Dime Rocket P.O.S. stuff laying around that he could use or throw together to run this year. Now this Racer has some VERY fast stuff of his own but he doesn't want to run his own stuff because it's "too fast" and he doesn't want to slow it down. He also likes working and tuning his stuff to try and make it faster and now he can't. He wants a P.O.S. that he can tinker with and go as fast as possible without having to worry about it.
Here's the point of this story, the Racer is pushing 80 years old! How long does he plan on racing and who or why is he trying to "save" his combo? He has legitimately worked and spent what it took to get his stuff to this point only to be afraid to go too fast. WHY? IMHO, he should be out enjoying every bit of the fruits of his labor while he still can.

Boom!! This right here!! I have been watching this thread waiting for the right moment to chime in. After talking to Daren Poole-Adams (who drives a slow 302 COPO hahahaaha) I’ve been thinking again.

I came from racing heads up NMRA and NMCA. It was a lot of work to stay top of the heap because others were working as hard or harder than I was. Really very gratifying that we were able to hang with some great racers. I had many friends that ran NHRA Stock and Super Stock. I had grown used to a .400 Pro tree and heads up racing. Like Biily’s buddy here I enjoy working on and improving the performance of my race car. After driving a bunch of Daren’s COPO’s I decided to take the plunge and build my own Stocker.

I had several racers tell me to scour the guide sheets for fast combinations. They also said look at combinations that no one else wants to run. Stick cars, Fords or Mopar’s have less racers and some fast combinations.
Any late 60’s to early 70’s Chevy product had a ton of racers and the indexes have been beat up.

I settled on a 2010 to 2014 Cobra-Jet platform. Jesse Kershaw had done a great job getting a lot of combinations in the guide for that platform. I had attended many races watching the racers with these combinations and how they qualified at Indy without an AHFS in place.

I really like the COPO’s but it was a big up front cost for me. The COPOO’s that were raced were getting hit on their index’s within a year of their release. You would need to spend big $$$ to hang with the fast guys.

I went with a stick shifter 4 valve Ford Coyote Combination . I chose a slower combination (2012 302/ 325HP) to get my car sorted out for the first year. That turned into 2 years. After George went -1.21 under at Vegas we are now at 336HP. I was planning on jumping to the 2013 302/350HP combination so that made the decision easy. Now the problem is that that combination is softer than the 325 now 336 deal. I had to slow my car down to try to preserve the index.

Looking at what Mike Fuller and Charlie Downing have done I will run mostly in Super Stock this year. I might be slow there but I can work on my performance without having to slow the car down.

There will always be racers to work harder, spend more money and or time to be fast. With the value of some of the older cars it might be more cost effective to change combinations.

Robin