I Have A Mustang Problem!!

-i got a 1979 mercury capri which has a mustangs 302 v8 with a 4 barrell Carter competition carb and 15w-40 oil, it has a 3 speed automatic transmission, i raced a honda crx with it and lost, is there anything i can do to make it faster? is it the oil is it too thick? is it the timing on the distributer? is it the carburator? i would like to know how to make it go faster??? how come i couldnt beat a simple little car

It could be any number of things really. Your oil thickness wouldn't really play a vital role your engine's inability to perform up to par. Naturally, the thicker the viscosity the slower the oil flows through the valves. Now if your engine runs fairly hot at high RPMs, then you want high-viscosity oil. Considering that most 302s make power between 3,750 and 5,000 RPMs you shouldn't really need thicker oil. If I were you, I would just stay with something around 15W to 20W. Oil that is too thin won't really have much of an effect on the internals of your engine, just that it will have to be changed more frequently. As far as your loss, the only thing that comes to mind is the weight of the opposing car, the fact that it was possibly a sleeper on the outside, when inside it wasn't. You never really know why or how you win or lose, although sometimes it's apparent such as taking a 4-banger and putting it up against a pro-street Camaro that runs mid- to low-7s in the quarter mile. It's hard to give you an exact answer because the topic and problem covers such a broad area. Maybe next time you're beaten, ask the driver what he's running and then you can figure out why you lost to a rice burner.

there is alot you can do,
slap some gt40 aluminum heads on it, with rollers,
add some under drive pulleys, does it have headers already? if not,
put them on goto the offroad exhaust 2 1/2", flow masters.
put a shift kit in the tranny. change that carb to a holley 650 double pump, or fuel injection, put electric fuel pump and water pump. you could also put a supercharger under the hood. it all depends on how much you got money got. ya wanna play ya gotta pay. :)
how much did he beat you by?

cange the body the body you have now is big and doofy

cange the body the body you have now is big and doofy


what does that even mean?