KNONFS

iTrader: (14)

http://www.nhrasportcompact.com/2004...ry/020901.html

6.68 seconds at 211 mph

Damn, this people are making it extremely hard for the rotary egine

BTW - Sorry for the non rotary content...

7mania

So wouldn't that made him the fastest ET/mph for the import pro rear wheel drive in the world. Can NE1 confirm this.

enzo250

it's true. Steph went 6.68 @ 211 in testing.
He hit the wall days later but luckly he's fine and the car isn't that bad. He'll be ready soon.

I've heard of other records broken already too. It's going to be a good year. There were a couple of Pro FWD's that have already gone 7's in testing.

savannaGT

****! Thats an amazing time! What engine setup is he running in that car?
Cant wait for the sport compact season to start up again!

LTProject

NSX twin turbo engine i believe.

Maxthe7man

Man, the sportcompact speeds and times have really moved down quickly, they are getting faster than some of the equivalent domestic classes that have had 30 years+ to perfect the craft, pretty amazing... Kinda bummed about it not being a rotary, but don't forget, our guy gotta do it with less help and mostly oem engine parts...Max

gambone

iTrader: (3)

Steve Gambone oner since 78 76RX4 twin turbo twin fuel injected I shop at U Pull It

fdracer

how the **** does abel have less help than steph. i guarantee you k&n gives abel more money than aem spends campaigning the civic. abel currently has the premier sponsorship deal in pro rwd. street glow and aem combined don't make 1% the yearly revenue k&n does, so who do you think spends more for sponsorships. don't make excuses just cause abel is slow. if he runs quicker than the other pro cars then he deserves all the credit, if he runs slower then he also deserves the blame. and why would you complain about him using oem parts, no one is preventing him from running aftermarket rotors and e-shaft. the only stock part he has to run is the housings, because everyone has to use a factory engine block now.

Maxthe7man

Who makes aftermarket rotors and e-shaft??????? not to many....Max

enzo250

but they do exist right.

j200pruf

iTrader: (4)

I know of a few aftermarket e-shafts, but I don't think anyone other than mazda makes rotors. I think that even downing/atlanta uses the factory 10:1 rotors that mazda made for the 26b.

jimlab

Amazing that they're just now starting to run faster than NHRA's naturally aspirated Pro Stock class while running huge turbos and boost?

There's a lot more regulation on the domestic side than there is in the import classes. If there weren't, you'd have domestic door slammers running in the 5s and low 6s with big turbos. Combinations like John Meany's 2,100+ horsepower quad turbo small block Camaro are banned almost immediately after they're finished because they're too fast.

Maxthe7man

Yes Jim, thats true, but those engines are also 2-3 times the displacement of the sport compact crowd, and as your pictures illustrate, for them to move ahead, they themselves have to resort to power adders to move their times ahead, the same power adders that the sport compact guys have gotten down to a science..It wasn't that long ago when the word turbo and Nhra were oxymorons, its the import guys that really affected that change, even with the GN on the scene they really weren't that big of player earlier on..In a nutshell the domestics are just embracing the technology the import racers demonstrated at the track, 12 years ago the trend in the domestics was still to build mountain motors to go faster, not put twin turbos on small blocks...
...
But even comparing naturally aspirated to naturally aspirated, alot of all motor imports, are faster in their classes than all motor domestics, even at my local track..
10 years ago, a 14 second domestic was kick ***, thats passe in the import crowd even for dailydriven street cars nowadays...

I don't think there are any aftermarket rotors, there are eshafts for custom displacements, Racing beat made aluminium side housings, but I don't think anyone uses them...Its interesting to read the engine stats of the big names in the import racing... I got a kick out of it when I was thumbing through the big names in import racing and their car profiles...

The honda guys engine parts list reads like this
HKS....
AEM....
SRp..
arias
milodon
moroso
spoon
Mugen
edelbrock
Then you read the rotary racers engine parts list:

Mazda 13b with custom porting and ceramic seals

12abridgeport

I believe Yaw Power sells or at least used to, modified rotors and e-shafts, all lighted up and balanced.



P.S. There is just something about those 2 turbos sitting on top of that BIG motor that makes me feel tingling in my stomach. Wait correction...aren't there are 4 turbos??

fdracer

get off the crack pipe man. first of all the domestic guys have been running turbos for far longer than imports. the nhra powerade series doesn't have a class for turbos, that's why you think "turbo and nhra are oxymorons". the import crowd didn't invent any of this, domestics have done all this already, it's just that nhra rules prevent it. there's alot that goes on in the background that keeps things the way they are. if pro stock could use efi, traction control, alcohol, power adders, etc. they'd be a lot quicker. and you think the sport compacts have gotten the setups "down to a science"? do you understand that imports have copied their entire setups from domestics. everything from the tuning, to cam profile, compression ratio, headwork, clutch and suspension setup, has been taken from proven domestic setups. why do you think the top import guys run methanol and tons of boost? it's because that's the exact same setup alcohol dragsters run. look at all the quickest teams in pro rwd, who is running the show? steph's crew chief is jerry malicoat, his chassis is built by don ness. bullish's engine builder and crew chief, bert gaetner, and their clutch man are both from pro-stock. their head porter dave localio, worked for pat musi. venom is from the domestic side, grant downing build funny car chassis'. the scrantons are from the mustang scene. lingenfelter, no explanation needed. the imports have copied 30 years of r&d and trial and error from the domestics, we didn't come up w/ this ****. and abel can get custom billet cranks and rotors if he wanted too, even i know where to get them. it's just that he doesn't need them cause he keeps blowing his ceramic apex seals, before hurting either the crank or rotors. otherwise, everything else on the car is also custom, so stop bitching.

Maxthe7man

Yes there are guys out there have been doing the turbo thing for along time on domestics, but they were never accepted within the ranks of the nhra, until organized import racing, brought them from like I said a dirty word, to a legitimate form of racing in the NHRA, which was what I was talking about, it seems your crack pipe is larger than mine..
No import racers did not invent all the parts that make their cars fast, but the again, nor did domestic drag racers, after all the hemi design itself was originally an import idea, thats if you consider things of british design, imported..
First you say if the domestic guys could use traction control, efi etc they'de be alot quicker, then you say the import guys copied all they know from the domestic guys, how can that be if the domestic guys are not allowed to run them....
Don't confuse invention with implemenation, yes there are guys that have been turboning gasser cars on the salt flats for years, however its the import guys that really brought the turbo forward, maybe I am older than you, and seeing the revolution first hand helps me understand this more than you, but even just 12-15 years ago, on most NHRA ruled tracks across North America, a turbo was rare sight, even with the domestics trying their hands at turbochargers in oem products like the daytona, mustang svo, or buick gn, even in open class recreational drag racing, the turbo was not something that was accepted with in the domestic/nhra mentality, what we are seeing now is natural progression of cars from their original designs and you are ignoring that, the funny car didn't originate from a 1997 supra, it developed down from an altered wheel base v-8 dodge sedan, where as the import racers, have evolved quickly from a point in time where the hardware they use to go fast originated on the original design of the car from original equipment. Yes some of the best domestic guys have their fingers in the pie, however they have stepped into the scene at a point where their skills suit the progression, and it happened alot quicker in the import scene than it did the domestic scene.....Now if everything is copied from the domestic guys, in which domestic nhra drag cars, is motec or other electronic engine managment being used, traction control, electronic boost control, boost per gear, etc.... If its not allowed in the domestic classes, I would hardly think the guys running those setups in the import classess copied the tuning and knowledge of those parts running a 69 chevelle with a dominator and shot of n20 , now would they...
Ps: love to see some pics of the billet rotors.....

12abridgeport

From what i understand the only reason turbos weren't too popular with domestics is because even about 10 years ago there weren't too many turbos that one could actually use on a big v8. It's not until recently turbochargers got developed to be worthwhile to put on a large displacement. Now they can out perform superchargers and NOS, where as before they couldn't.

I think that imports did help to get the turbochargers improved, however, a lot of other engine building techniques and car setups,etc.. they definetly got from domestics...i don't blame them either, a lot of research has already been done for them. Plus technology usually advances at a faster rate all the time and especially with the whole import fad, that gave imports a big jump.

However, if you take all that new technology no matter where it came from and apply it to a BIG displacement, you are going to have a winner in racing. It could even be a domestic or an imported big displacement motor, it doesn't matter, displacement wins no matter how you put it. Just my .02 cents

12abridgeport

blah

enzo250

Most of the turbo's people still use today were designed almost 30 years ago.

.

Maxthe7man

Yes, most of the turbo's have been around along time, the t04 has been around for ever, on heavy trucks, where the advancements were made was the shaft seals, they were never meant for vacuum as diesels have no throttle plates, and when someone put it on a draw through on a gas motor, they would usually smoke like a burning tire, they weren't designed for that duty, and to see fuel on the seal.. Also fuel injection really blew it wide open, there were so many pitfalls in turboing with a carb, you either had to seal the carb, or live without intercooling, depending on what route you took..
And horsepower is directly linked to airflow, more air + more fuel equals more power, and of course you can keep increasing the overall size of the motor to do that...But if you can find a way to move more air with less internal rotating mass loss, you will make more power from a given volume of air...
Its funny though, I can remember being in speed shops back in 1988-90, and hearing all the domestic drag racing crowd, laughing about turbos, import cars, and how turbos destroy motors, they smoke alot yada yada yada, even the GN guys got no respect....A local guy ran a mid 12 in a toyota turbo car from a road race club, and people just preteneded it never happened, even backhalfed dedicated domestic drag cars couldn't touch that on our track...
The Japanese aftermarket has really helped propel the sport, so has the australian aftermarket, hks, greddy, haltech, etc etc, has brought hi tech to the masses...Most of the GN guys ran hks electronics, now we have North American versions of that stuff, but it was the likes of haltech and HKS that really pushed that envelope along with the import racers..Max

johnisenglish

I may be pulling this out of my ***, but didn't NHRA ban the use of Turbos back in the 70's or something, thus pushing the focus very much on superchargers? I can't remember where I read that...

jimlab

From another site...

fdracer

you think just cause nhra doesn't use turbos, that domestic drag racers haven't been using them for the past half a century? the nhra is just a sanctioning body, it's not all of drag racing. everyone who's succesful in pro rwd drive has copied domestic setups from the engine build, to tuning, to chassis, suspension, clutch, turbos, etc. the entire setup is a copy of domestic setups. you think the pro stock chassis was just invented? it's been refined over and over again for the past 30 years. look at the crew chiefs, engine builders, headporters, chassis builders, tuners, clutch guys of all the top teams, they are all domestic guys. the tuning they use now for methanol and turbo is an exact copy of alcohol dragsters, it's just that they used meth and superchargers. the turbos the guys pro guys are using now are the exact turbos that turbo drag mustangs have been using for the longest time. do any of the pro rwd cars run hks products, greddy, apex, etc.? hell no!! do they run mitsubishi turbos, do they run slicks from yokohama? no. look at a typical pro rwd car like abels:

pro stock chassis
4-link
ford 9" rear
koni electric shocks
lamb front struts
mark williams axels
mark williams 3rd member
mark williams drive shaft
slider clutch
g-force tranny
trick titanium clutch can
methanol
turbos
pro-stock or pro-mod spoiler
pro-stock dry sump
pro-stock fuel pump
an lines and fittings
msd ignition
1600cc injectors
weld wheels
goodyear slicks

these are things all perfected from domestic setups. my chasssis builder has built about 20 tube frame cars that were shipped to japan. they were just pro stock chassis' w/ skin from a japanese car. yes, he's even built cars for your almighty hks.

jimlab

Very good points.

The most competitive import drivers/teams finally figured out that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line and went to Pro Stock chassis builders to get cars that launch and run straight. If you've ever watched video of some of the Australian cars run, they're all over the ******* place. Same with Abel Ibarra in the "old days".

Most import fanatics either don't know or don't want to admit that imports wouldn't be running nearly as quick as they are if they weren't running what basically amounts to an NHRA Pro Stock car with a Japanese skin and an import engine. The rest of the car might as well be straight from the Pro Stock ranks where hardware and design is concerned.

As the saying goes, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

fdracer

****** finally, thank you jim!