OK I'm burning the late nite oil here thinking about my next Olds Project to build up for 1/4 mile racing and street driving. I will say that most likely it will have a 307 in it, and I will be racing that until I find, buy, and build a 350 or 403 Olds motor (Going to stick with a small block, and give it that totally stock look, I love sleepers)

Anyway, I found an artcial on Car Craft's web site and they dyno'ed 2 cars and found that were some horsepower losses are:

transmission loss about 21%
rear end loss about 18%
Engine driven fan loss about 6%

When I ran the numbers again my Delta's guessimate HP numbers, it came up pretty close. I guessed the Delta had 90 HP based on the 20.50 / 64 miles per hour avg 1/4mile time and a weight of 3990 lbs. The 307 was rated at 140 HP and those losses all added up to a total of 93 HP at the rear wheels.

I know the debate was very hot about the fan causing power loss before. I'm not really looking for that.

What I was planing on doing was buying a Delta or Cutlass or maybe a Custom Cruiser with the 307, swapping out the carb and dist. for mechinal units, fresh plugs and wires, maybe try removing the A.I.R. tubes and just putting bolts in the holes on the heads, cleaning out the EGR passages, and maybe putting on a turbo muffler (Summit brand) and adding a K&N filter to the stock air cleaner. I'm not looking to spend any money on anything that cannot be moved over to the next motor

I need the car to run 19.99 or faster to stay in the class. I really don't care if the car runs 19.90's for a few seasons because the slowest car in the class is more hated than the fastest car. I made it to the 3rd round more than once with the Delta running in the mid 20's on a 19.99 dial

 

That sounds like a cool project. I don't know if you could run mid 19s with a 307, but I bet you could easily do it with a mildly built 350 or 403. Sounds like you have the right idea. Keep us posted.

 

I found a guy on youtube claiming that his 1988 Custom Cruiser with the stock 307 and 3.23 posi out back is running 16.30s in the 1/4 mile. I know thats a bunch of BS. There are no 1/4 mile videos, just 7 mintues of looking at the car and the car talking

 

You can probably gain 2 seconds in et by gearing, and converter and exhaust.
Maybe some cold air touches too.
Simple things can make a big difference.
A 3.23 gear with a 200r4 trans can launch.
Who cares what the HP numbers are.
They really don't mean anything.
ET is what counts.
Jim

 

I had the exhaust done on my Delta as well as a set of 3.42's out back (open, not a posi) and the car did not gain anything in the 1/4 mile