Updated 7-14-2001 (added pictures)

Rolling through the staging lanes at Great Lakes Dragaway.

Waiting to do a burnout. On street tires you stay out of the water.

And a nice smoky burnout. My poor tires... LoL

First trip: 8-22-97

The first time that I took my Monte SS to the local 1/4 mile track (Great Lakes Dragaway, Union Grove, Wis), it had the following components: stock L69 305 V8 block and heads with about 100,000 miles on them, stock exhaust manifolds and pipes, an Edelbrock Performer intake manifold, non-posi 3.73 rear end, stock CCC Q-jet carb, a K&N 14x3 open element air cleaner, and the stock  distributor, but with all new ignition components (cap, rotor, plugs, wires, etc). I'd heard that a stock 85 Monte SS should run about a 16 second 1/4 mile, so I was hoping for at least 15.xx. I went to the track on August 22, 1997, and here's what transpired:

The abbreviations are:

RT: Reaction time (in seconds). This is how long it took to leave the staging beam lamps (which are beaming at the front tires), from the time that the LAST yellow light came on (right before the green light). A .500 is perfect,  less than .500 is a red-light.

60': Sixty foot time (in seconds). This is how long it took, in seconds, to get thru the first 60 feet of track.

1/8 ET: eigth mile elapsed time (in seconds).

1/8 mph: miles per hour at the halfway point.

1/4 ET: quarter mile elapsed time (in seconds).

1/4 mph: miles per hour through the finish line. This is the average speed through the last 60 feet of track (before the finish line).

Overall, I wasn't disappointed with the times. It was my first time ever drag racing, at least legally... When it made a pass at 15.5, I was satisfied that the minor mods I had made to the 305 must have helped it breathe a little better. But of course it got old in a hurry, having to watch Camaros, Mustangs, and others pulling away as we raced down the strip.

Next trip: 6-17-98

The 305 was out, and a 377 in its place. Edelbrock TES ceramic coated headers replaced the stock exhaust manifolds. And a new PFP converter bolted to the stock SS y-pipe (after the cat), dual muffler and tailpipe exhaust system. The ECM had no trouble controlling the 377, mainly due to the conservative camshaft I'm running. It's a Crane Powermax cam, but it appears to have specs identical to the Crane Compucam 2040. The intake, carb, ignition, and air cleaner were the same ones from the 305. The 3.73 rear end now had an Auburn Pro posi unit inside, so I was hoping for some 60' time improvements, as well as some time off the 1/4 mile times just due to the cubic inch increase.

Well the 377 shaved a full second off the 1/4 mile times. I was impressed with the power improvement down the track. It pulled much harder through 2nd and 3rd gears compared to the 305. I managed to keep my reaction times in the .6xx's for the first four runs, but blew it on run 5. Even though it was hard to keep the rear wheels from breaking loose out of the box, the posi unit definitely helped my 60' times, by about 3 tenths of a second on average. The times were about where I thought they'd be. The 377 had alot more cubic inches, but it still just had old iron '441' GM heads, and the compression ratio was only around 8.5:1. Definitely much room left for improvement.

Next trip: 5-24-00

The 377 had been opened up and major surgery done on it. The 350 crank was changed back to a stock GM 400 crank. The dished pistons were replaced with flat-tops. The result was 408 cubic inches, with about a 9.7:1 compression ratio (using the same ol' '441' heads). The rest of the engine used all the same pieces as the 377, including the same cam. I did remove the pulley driven cooling fan and fan clutch though. I installed an electric fan set-up with a temperature controlled relay and an over-ride switch so I can run the fan anytime I'd like also. A turbo 400 tranny had also replaced the original 200-4R tranny. I knew that a helmet is required if you run under 14 seconds in the 1/4 mile. But I still wasn't sure if I'd need one or not. I was hoping I would :)  I also brought the OEM PROM chip, to compare to the ADS performance chip which had been in the SS since the 305 was between the fenders.

The 1/8th mile timers weren't working on one side. Runs 1 and 2 were with the ADS chip. Runs 3 -5 were done with the OEM chip. The motor really seems to like the OEM chip better. Run 5 was an experiment with launch technique, (or my lack thereof..) which didn't work. I red-lighted and managed to match my 60' times from back when it had the 305 and non-posi rear end. But I was glad to see it break into the 13's on runs 2, 3 and 4. Run 4 was definitely the most fun run I've had yet. The other guy was in a late model Camaro. And after he left me at the line with his .548 RT (mine was .728) I managed to catch him, and was about 2-3 car lengths in front of him through the lights. He ran a 14.121 to my 13.865. So the extra 31 cubic inches shaved almost 3/4 of a second off my times, compared to the 377. Overall, 13.8's seem pretty good to me, considering this is still with the old 441 heads, through a single converter exhaust system, and on 235 street tires.

Next trip: 11-11-00

The 408 had some new Air Flow Research cylinder heads for this trip. The weather was great: cool, dry air, no wind. There weren't too many racers there either, which allowed for plenty of runs, and some tuning between runs in search of the best et. I was hoping for some low 13's, and got a bunch of 'em. But when I finally dialed in the best timing setting, and got a decent launch, a few 12 second timeslips were mine to keep! The best 5 runs of the day were:

This will certainly be the last time to the track this year. It's almost time to put the SS away for winter (sigh...)  I'm not sure what, if any, projects I'll try over the winter, but considering the small cam I'm still running, along with the single converter exhaust system, and my 'all but gone' BFG Radial TA's, there is still plenty of room for improvement. Dare I say 11's?

Timeline Comparison:

Here's a table of the best times from each trip to the track:

My original goal of a daily driver, low 13 second Monte Carlo SS has finally become a reality. For the record, the original ECM, PROM, EGR and CCC Q-jet are all still in place, and the SS runs perfectly. This car is rolling evidence that engine computers and emissions devices do not necessarily need to be removed to go like a bat outa heck!

Thanks for visiting this extremely text heavy page :)

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