Thinking of snagging a good ol SRT-4 myself('05)

[ponchonutty]

Naw, don't worry about running NOS because that could lead to trouble. The reason why I am saying this is because of the poor tunning thus far. If you can't easily figure out what you need to do at the moment, you could possibly blow the motor by messing up the mixture with NOS.

Don't waste the money on a shift kit. The 700r4 doesn't need it. Now, is it slipping or such it may need rebuilt but not a shift kit. You can adjust the valve body on these trannies to shift nice and firm without wasting money on a kit. It's not like the old 350 or 400 turbo trans.

Have you checked the plugs to see what they look like? Do you have the right timing? Have you messed with the HEI at all? These are all inexpensive items to peek at to get a little more hp. Never overlook the cheap stuff first. They may not seem like a lot but if you can tweak here or there it'll add up. Remember, my success with my 'Bird was purely tuning and squeezing every ounce of hp I could out of the motor. I think 90% of your problem leads to the carb. You should have looked for an old TPI system and played with that. Many guys are going back to that for the ease of tunability they now have with them.

[daveshapellSVT]

yea i checked the plugs before and after we tuned the carb. the motor is running good, not lean or rich. i'm sure if i could get on a dyno or have some better instrument for tunning i could squeeze out another 10-20 hp, but for the most part the tune is about as good as it can get aside from a wide band and some dyno time. i'm certain the reason why it's not that quick is because the heads are bone stock with non roller rockers and the cam is very conservative. once i get some new heads and the right cam i'll be over 300hp easily. The 700r4 is ok it shifts like it should, problem is it's an auto so it doesn't shift very quickly and theres more power loss through it as opposed to a manual tranny. if i get a shift kit it will shift way harder and quicker. it shifts pretty hard now for a stock auto tranny, but it really won't get much better without some better parts in it. both my cousins had third gens and i've been in them stock and after a shift kit. so i know what to expect. I'm actually surprised it ran a 14.5 i initially thought it would be slower. i wanted to swap the heads and cam before i dropped in the motor but i didn't have much cash and the garage was my fiances step dads so i didn't wanna tie it up for a long time. i figure i can gain at least 15hp from some roller tip 1.6 rocker arms. and if i can get my tranny to shift faster and harder with the shift kit that will really help, plus i have kinda tall gears 3:23. so if i adress those three things i'll be using what i have much better. i might do those three things this summer and do the heads and cam over the fall. the reason why i ran a carb is because i was having a nightmare with the tpi setup. plus the TPI setups are very restrictive in flow and power capabilities. they are setup for very low end torque which can be good but the torque is most times only good till 4500 rpm. i did some research and read some comparisons and i found an article where they made 50 more hp from a carb setup then a TPI setup. same motor and everything. with my old l98 TPI setup i could not stop the codes from flashing. all kinds, i replaced most of the top end of the motor and the car was still really slow and only ran a 15.1@91mph. after finding out 6 of my injectors were clogged and i was still having other issues i just said screw fuel injection and went with a new 4 bolt 350 bored over that was just rebuilt and i threw on a carb. sold the L98 and never looked back. Now i have a fresh motor with tons of room to make big power.

Oh, i forgot to mention that when i ran that 14.5 i had a flowmaster two chamber race muffler in place of a cat converter. i had it in there to try and fool the shop where i got my inspection done and make them think it was a cat converter. it worked and they passed the car. since then i replaced the muffler with a straight 3" pipe and it's noticibly quicker and much much louder. so i'm pretty confident i could run a 14.3 now maybe even quicker on a cooler day then 80 degrees. we'll see what happens this summer i'll deffinatley hit up the track a few more times. I'm not in too much of a rush with this project, i've had much faster cars before this one, so i've had my fun and i've gone fast. this project i wanna take my time and just have fun learning more things about carb setups.

What did you have done to your cars and what were they running. you've owned some of my favorite cars i'm kinda curious.

[ponchonutty]

Well like I said with my '89 Formula it was all stock even with the 305 and got it to run consistant 13.74-13.95. It was just all tuning. I also had a very low mileaged 84 z28 that I had set up simular to your Formula. I had that running low 13's but it was a bitch to keep it consistant for some reason. The silver t/a was my first car and did mostly street racing with that so I have no idea what it would have ran. The '76 you see in the picture I never ran myself but the original owner did. It was the class leader for 2 years until he parked it. I can't remember what he said it ran. I had another '76 t/a that was a 400 4sp special edition. That I had installed the whole Edelbrock setup (carb, intake, heads). I didn't go nasty on the cam because I was looking for more of a good street running car. It ended up running a best of 12.34 before I sold it. I'm sure there was more to be had but I didn't have the time to tune it. I also didn't want to sell it but I needed the money.

[daveshapellSVT]

yea once i get the heads and cam and the other little things, i'm gonna spend some time tuning it. i gotta get a jetting kit. i think to help me along the way i'll buy a wide band. with the heads and cam i want i should be in the high 12's once i get the tranny to shift better.