After all we've done it was about time to head to a real racetrack for some testing. Carlsbad Raceway is one of
the strangest dragstrips I've ever seen. It's in an industrial area, off the main road. The strip is in a
valley. You drive up a hill in the staging lanes, and then race down the track. You then drive up another hill
to the pit area and around again. It was a long wait between each run but plenty of fun.
We're all wondering about the accuracy of the timing system at Carlsbad. Many people at the strip felt that
their trap speed was too slow. I managed to get the G-Tech/Pro running for one pass and recorded some
interesting data. The trap time was almost the same, 14.748 track time and 14.79 G-Tech/Pro time. The trap
speed however, was very different. The track reported 84.12 MPH and the G-Tech/Pro indicated 99.5 MPH. This
is a significant margin, much more than the G-Tech/Pro's realword accuracy of +/- 1 MPH in the quarter mile.
My informal late night testing netted speeds of 99.5 MPH and 103.1 MPH. A friend will be doing some more
testing at the Battle of the Imports in Palmdale next week. I hope to have some additional data then to shed
some light on this problem.
The car was run in street trim with a quarter of a tank of gas. On the first pass I noticed some detonation
at the top end. I adjusted the timing from 12 degrees to 10 degrees and reduced the fuel pressure from 40 psi
to 38 psi for the second and third runs. All shifting was done at 5500 RPM according to the factory tach. It
was fairly warm for the first pass and had cooled down plenty for the second and third.
Time and Date
60 Foot
Track 1/4 Mile
G-Tech 1/4 Mile
2/22/97 @ 15:34
2.371 Sec.
14.856 @ 83.92
N/A
2/22/97 @ 17:36
2.391 Sec.
14.748 @ 84.12
14.79 @ 99.5
2/22/97 @ 18:27
2.495 Sec.
14.993 @ 83.79
N/A
