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Marty
Marty New Reader
5/11/14 7:08 a.m.

Was watching one of those rebuild the barn find car in a week shows on Velocity last nigh. They took a stock 1970 Z-28 that had been sitting for years to the local drag strip for a test drive before they restored it. Darn thing turned a 10.3! Sure it did :)

Marty

ebonyandivory
ebonyandivory Dork
5/11/14 7:39 a.m.

1/8 Mile track? Sounds like it!

1966stang
1966stang Reader
5/11/14 8:13 a.m.

It would have to be. A zr1 won't go that fast.....

edizzle89
edizzle89 Reader
5/11/14 8:28 a.m.

90% of people who were teenagers in the 60's to 70's think that any muscle car from that time was the fastest car in the world, and they use to have a stock 1972 whatever and it would roast the tires through 3rd and ran a 6 sec quarter cuz it had a big block and big blocks never lose.

Will
Will SuperDork
5/11/14 8:43 a.m.

Is it the one with the two British guys? I saw them take a small-block powered Cobra replica to the track on one episode, and it ran 14s in the quarter. They also raced a 69ish Charger in another episode, and it was insanely slow. I'm not sure those guys can drive.

LopRacer
LopRacer HalfDork
5/11/14 9:04 a.m.

That 10.3 seems almost too slow for an 1/8 but way to fast for a 1/4. I am not a drag racer though so I may be talking more form my posterior than my brain.

Vigo
Vigo PowerDork
5/11/14 3:35 p.m.

10.3 in the 1/8 is certainly NOT too slow for a 1970 chevy in an unknown state of tune.

mad_machine
mad_machine MegaDork
5/11/14 3:42 p.m.
edizzle89 wrote: 90% of people who were teenagers in the 60's to 70's think that any muscle car from that time was the fastest car in the world, and they use to have a stock 1972 whatever and it would roast the tires through 3rd and ran a 6 sec quarter cuz it had a big block and big blocks never lose.

yes, because they were all big blocks? I only know of one personally. Co-worker has a charger with a 440 that he bored out to almost 500. he is slowly getting it street legal

dean1484
dean1484 PowerDork
5/11/14 3:43 p.m.

We were thrilled to run 10.3 in the quarter. But that was with many many $$$$$ and man hours on to the car. This was back in the late 80s.

Is i remember we were running a 400 small block with a 262new crank and were spinning it up to 8k.

bmw88rider
bmw88rider Reader
5/11/14 3:59 p.m.

Funny thing is, I had to work over my 340 just to make sure it wasn't the slowest car in my garage. The old muscle cars were quick compared to what was out there in the day. Biggest problem most of them had was not the engine but getting that horsepower to the ground.

kanaric
kanaric HalfDork
5/11/14 11:10 p.m.
edizzle89 wrote: 90% of people who were teenagers in the 60's to 70's think that any muscle car from that time was the fastest car in the world, and they use to have a stock 1972 whatever and it would roast the tires through 3rd and ran a 6 sec quarter cuz it had a big block and big blocks never lose.

lol that E36 M3 annoys me. More like a 16 in the quarter.

That and people who thinks 80s cars were "so much slower" than 60s cars. Maybe EARLY 80s, but by mid/late? Pretty much as fast aside from the highest tier of halo cars back then.

They get their info from inflated 60s horsepower numbers and whining from the late 70s.

wlkelley3
wlkelley3 SuperDork
5/12/14 11:31 a.m.

I was a teen in the 70's. It's easier to roast bias-ply tires which was the norm back then and no one factors that in the equation. Radials were around but bias-ply were more affordable and still majority until the 80's. I remember 13-14 sec in 1/4-mile being fast in those days. A very fast modified car could be in the 12 second range. Nowadays we consider those times by referring to them as calender time rather than stopwatch.

yamaha
yamaha UltimaDork
5/12/14 11:49 a.m.
kanaric wrote:
edizzle89 wrote: 90% of people who were teenagers in the 60's to 70's think that any muscle car from that time was the fastest car in the world, and they use to have a stock 1972 whatever and it would roast the tires through 3rd and ran a 6 sec quarter cuz it had a big block and big blocks never lose.
lol that E36 M3 annoys me. More like a 16 in the quarter. That and people who thinks 80s cars were "so much slower" than 60s cars. Maybe EARLY 80s, but by mid/late? Pretty much as fast aside from the highest tier of halo cars back then. They get their info from inflated 60s horsepower numbers and whining from the late 70s.

This, and Edizzle, I will have to put up with this for the entire week listening to owners and random people claiming BS about their cars......Mopar owners seem to shine at this, closely followed by late 70's Fbody owners. The bulk of corvette owners there have never driven their cars. Also, current LSx owners suffer from the "can't lose" mentality now....

turboswede
turboswede UltimaDork
5/12/14 12:06 p.m.
edizzle89 wrote: 90% of people who were teenagers in the 60's to 70's think that any muscle car from that time was the fastest car in the world, and they use to have a stock 1972 whatever and it would roast the tires through 3rd and ran a 6 sec quarter cuz it had a big block and big blocks never lose.

Never mind the reason for the tire spin was due to piss-poor tire compounds and the relatively narrow tire profiles. :)

bwh998
bwh998 New Reader
5/12/14 3:49 p.m.

I wasnt around in the 60's or 70's but I have driven a few of the cars in question, on modern rubber, and in general they all felt pretty quick to me. Nowhere neear the slow 16 to 20 second quarter mile times I see people claiming on the internet. So what gives? Maybe you just had crappy examples? Or were mine abnormally high powered? Not trying to be a smart ass either, this is something I honestly wonder about.

psychic_mechanic
psychic_mechanic Dork
5/12/14 3:53 p.m.
bwh998 wrote: I wasnt around in the 60's or 70's but I have driven a few of the cars in question, on modern rubber, and in general they all felt pretty quick to me. Nowhere neear the slow 16 to 20 second quarter mile times I see people claiming on the internet. So what gives? Maybe you just had crappy examples? Or were mine abnormally high powered? Not trying to be a smart ass either, this is something I honestly wonder about.

Try driving them on the original tires, you can't imagine how bad most of them were. A modern temporary spare probably grips more.

Appleseed
Appleseed MegaDork
5/12/14 4:05 p.m.

Can you imagine driving at speed on those pizza cutters back then? My old man told me stories of cruising at 140 in a 69 Hemi Roadrunner out west. Cruising at the speed on pizza cutters until the tank went dry. No thanks. He even he admitted that if they'd had a blowout, there'd be Plymouth shrapnel all over central South Dakota, and I wouldn't be here.

To those who say those old bias plys wouldn't hook, isn't there a drag series in which the cars are stock (but with massive internal engine mods) running 10s on 60 series bias plys?

Joe Gearin
Joe Gearin Associate Publisher
5/12/14 4:27 p.m.

What always amazed me was that the truly fast muscle cars ( LS6, Hemi, 440-6, etc.) Would actually run mid to low 13 second 1/4 mile times......with those crappy old tires. Once they hooked up.....watch out!

Take one of those old ground pounders, put some modern rubber on them, and you are into the twelves through the 1/4. The run of the mill muscle cars may not have been all that fast--- but the special ones were. They all produced prodigious amounts of torque, so they felt faster than they were. Some of them like the Yenko Nova were insanely fast considering the crappy brakes, vague steering and horrible tires of the day. Even adjusted for today's HP figures, they made 400hp or so, in a 2500 lb package.

bwh998
bwh998 New Reader
5/12/14 4:37 p.m.

In reply to psychic_mechanic:

Thats kind of my point, if they could do 14 (and some 13) second quarters on 1960's rubber, spinning 2/3 of the way down the track, what would they run on modern rubber?

nicksta43
nicksta43 UltraDork
5/12/14 4:37 p.m.

In reply to Appleseed:

They may be bias ply construction but the actual rubber compound has also advanced by leaps and bounds compared to what they were back then.

I'm not that old but I have driven on polyglass tires, supposedly one of the best tires from the time, and they made a 300hp f-body feel like it had 450+. I could practically break em' loose at will. Of course they were very old at the time I drove on them.

fidelity101
fidelity101 Dork
5/12/14 4:39 p.m.

You get lots of good results by typing in camero into craigslist rather than camaro. Since they're dumb they will take nearly anything for the crap they got for sale.

Also the word project is fun too.

bwh998
bwh998 New Reader
5/12/14 4:39 p.m.

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc136/harddrivin1le_album/1969CARLIFE.jpg?t=1192642505

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc136/harddrivin1le_album/1970CARLIFE.jpg?t=1192643898

turboswede
turboswede UltimaDork
5/12/14 5:07 p.m.
bwh998 wrote: http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc136/harddrivin1le_album/1969CARLIFE.jpg?t=1192642505 http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc136/harddrivin1le_album/1970CARLIFE.jpg?t=1192643898

mazdeuce
mazdeuce UltraDork
5/12/14 5:41 p.m.

Holy crap the 510 was slow.

stuart in mn
stuart in mn PowerDork
5/12/14 7:02 p.m.
Appleseed wrote: To those who say those old bias plys wouldn't hook, isn't there a drag series in which the cars are stock (but with massive internal engine mods) running 10s on 60 series bias plys?

There are a couple drag series - one for 'pure stock' and one for 'stock appearing' (F.A.S.T) cars. The pure stock are supposed to be absolutely stock inside and out, while the F.A.S.T cars have all kinds of hidden tricks. Some of the pure stock cars are running mid 11s, the F.A.S.T cars are in the mid 9s. Both are running on tires that were original to the particular car - if it came from the factory with G70 bias plies, that's what they have to use.

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