My home town fair puts on 3 pulls each year, 2 during the fair and 1 a month later. Last night, they had 7200lb Street legal Gas and 8000 Street legal Diesel. Well, I just couldn't resist the opportunity to stop by and hook. However since I don't keep plates and insurance on my puller, they wouldn't let me hook in the class but did let me do a "Test" pass for the entry fee price of $20 of course.
Two years ago when I go into pulling, I ran this class since I was street legal. Back then, it was a gas/diesel 7200lb class, and I came in 3rd with a distance of around 280ft.
So last night, after all the "stockers" ran (the best was maybe 278ft) they let Josh (another ITPA truck) and I run with the same sled as the "stockers".
I couldn't believe the difference in the truck from then to now! I had to keep looking back to see if the sled was attached! When I got the green flag, I cleared out the carb, put a slight load on the drivetrain, then put the skinny pedal on the floor board. The motor shot up to 6000 and by the 50ft mark, it was singing 7200 (man that is a sweet sound LOL). At the 200ft mark, the truck was still gaining speed! Then at about 250ft the rear seemed to float to the right so I drove'er right to collect it, and brought it back in line where I wanted it, gaining momentum the whole time. As I passed the 300' line, I saw the flagman scrambling to get out of the way. Then, something weird happened, I was expecting the sled to bring me to a stop, but instead it felt like the truck came up and was gaining speed, so I thought something happened to the sled and lifted as I looked back to see if it was still there and to see if the flagman was giving me the red flag. To my delight, the sled was still attached, and no red flag, so I came back in to about 1/2 throttle until the concrete baracade got real big, and let go of the go fast pedal and applied some brake. That was so freakin sweet, what a ride! In the 3 seasons I have pulled, I have NEVER had to lift or apply the brakes, I'm always fighting for every last inch. Even though I knew I was way over powered for the class, it still felt good to experience the ride.
As I was chaining the truck back on the trailer. A young lady came over and informed me that she took second place in the class and wanted to know why the pull commitee wouldn't let Josh and I in the class. So choking back the urge to gloat a little, I politely informed her that it was because we didn't have plates and insurance, and on top of that, it really wouldn't have been fair to the drivers in that class. (besides, someone would have complained that we were too hot, LOL)
Well the fun was short lived! I pulled twice with ITPA yesterday and was back to being frustrated again! First we went to Lafayette and did ok, but still not getting the revs up as quick or as high as I would like. The really frusting part came when we went to Noblesville! The track was dry on both sides and wet in the middle, so I spotted the sled on the dry side hoping to get the rpm up quickly, and that seemed to work, but by 100 ft I knew I was screwed because the truck just wasn't building any momentum. I tried to come over into the middle but the sled was coming on and it really shut me down. I don't even think the truck broke 200 ft before getting stopped.
Travis and I were talking last night and have come up with a plan. We have some down time in August, so I'm taking advantage of the time to make some small changes to free up some horsepower. Then over the winter will be making some bigger changes!
Hopefully next year will bring some better results than this one has! In the meantime, I need to find some more brush pulls to run. LOL
what are you running for a torque converter? i just sent my good one out to be checked because it had lost a buch of efficiency. but even with the 2200 stall and 25.8 final im running now i dont have a problem gettng it to come to life. this saturday I turned 6500 and spun out at 7500.
Cory
This message has been edited by fordman300 from IP address 69.40.154.94 on Jul 23, 2007 1:39 PM
