Tech Question
Joe, Kingston, ON, 74 Dodge Dart Swinger 360
I need to beat an ’84 Z-28 running 14.10 best e.t. Whatmods will give me the most bang for my buck? The car has an MSD Blastercoil, Holley 750 vac secondary, 1 inch spacer, Edelbrock aluminum singleplane intake and dual exhaust (manifolds) and a 2.76 gear! Help! I can’t letthis Chevy beat my Swinger… ring and pinion swap? Cam? Is a 14-sec et.realistic?
Joe-
Should be pretty easy! You didn’t say what MPH or ET you run now, or whatcam is in there now, so we’ll make a few assumptions.
First to go will have to be the 2.76 gears, as you surmised. If the car willsee lots of highway use, I’d say a 3.23:1 or 3.55 would be the best choices,otherwise, 3.90 or 4.10.
Unless the car has the pre-’71 340 exhaust manifolds, a good set of headerswill be a large improvement. Ditto a cam – if it has a “real” 340/360 hi-pocamshaft, that might not be the first thing to swap, otherwise, have at it.Something like the MP 280 (advt) deg. Purple Stripe hydraulic maybe.
You need to be sure that the car hooks and launches. The first 60 feet arethe most critical in determining ET. If it’s an automatic, the real, testedstall speed needs to be at least 2800 RPM. And you have to have enough tire,and some simple suspension mods (spring clamps, pinion snubber.)
Be sure there’s at least 34 degrees of mechanical + initial spark advance by2500 RPM, too.
And then go Chevy stomping!
Rick
Comments are closed.