Good night at Hidden Valley, NT

[troppo]

Actually, it was a hot and very sticky night, not at all pleasant wearing long sleeves and trousers but I managed to have some fun anyway ;)
I haven't been to the drags for about 15 years but I think I might've got the bug back.

Car is a BA n/a XR6, turbo snorkel, BMC filter, Bluepower edit-in-progress.
Pitiful reaction times and bugger all traction on the stock rims and tyres meant my best of 10 passes was a very ordinary 15.861@144.01km/h (slip is km's and I couldn't be bothered doing the conversions).

I was wondering though, how much does humidity affect performance?
It started at 94.3% on my frist slip at 8.03 pm and crept up from there. I did the last pass of the night at 10.13 pm and by then it was up to 98.8%.
Can I look forward to better times if the weather ever catches up with the calender and we actually get some cool dry air this year (cool being relative of course)?

[CAMS290]

Sounds like you had fun !
Was there any other Fords running ??

My mate is from Alice, he has a 10 second HK Monaro, they are building a full ANDRA sanctioned track there at the moment, we cant even get a proper facility like that in Melbourne.

[XRCIST]

15.86 is what the guys from motor were running when the BA xr6 came out, but u should do better than them because they cant do straight line acceleration tests to save themselves, 14.95 from a BA GT and 14.8 from a turbo pffft.

Anyway, im no expert on how bad the conditions will affect your time but that humidity level sure doesn't sound promising. You should be able to get at least a 15.5, i know of an auto ba xr6 that ran a 15.1 dead stock. Im assuming yours is auto.

What was your 60ft?

Chris will look after you well with the edit, top bloke, worked his magic on a tune for my na xr6 :

[troppo]

Yeah Cam, had a ball mate, more fun than flying a plane I reckon.
Was a few other Fords there too, I talked a young lad from work into coming down in his stock mk2 XR6 ute and had 4 passes with him. Was also a couple of XR6T's and at least one AU XR8 ute.

XRCIST, yeah I knew about the motor mag figures and I read the thread of the chap doing the 15.1 stock. Yes it is an auto, had it dyno'd before any mods @ 125.2 rwkw. Haven't had it dyno'd yet since the edit and I don't really wanna take it back to the guy who did it b4. Also didn't get a time for it b4 the edit coz the timing lights melted last month after about 20 mins. However I was half a second quicker than the lad in the stock ute with just the edit, a Turbo snorkel and BMC filter on 3 out of the 4 runs. I was quicker on the other pass too, but thanks to a crap start and an early gear change, not half a second quicker.

60ft on that pass was 2.511, best 60ft for the night was 2.486 on the first pass.
I only did 2 passes last month coz the timing gear was melted but traction wasn't a problem then. This time it was. Dunno if the difference was due to the track, the edit upgrade or my driving....possibly all three. The crap 60ft time is real obvious in the last run for the night, which incidentally was my best. It was against my mate's mate in a VP? commodore. He said it was a 185i with a little work done (chip & extractors), he was also running on M/T street tyres. He ran a 15.201 versus my 15.861 but he was only 2km/h faster through the traps. My 60ft was 2.511 to his 2.274. At 660ft he was 3.33km/h faster with my 114.08 to his 117.41 but by full track he was only 2.33km/h faster with my 144.01 to his 146.34.

Enough rambling...for those interested in an assortment of crap times and figures, feel free: shambles
The ones against my mate in the stock XR6 ute were 3,7,8 & 9.

And yes, dealing with Chris has been a pleasure to date

[XRCIST]

Troppo, you did well considering the conditions and also compared to your mates xr6. Your 60ft is definitely killing you, its all in the launch.

A member on here, falcon73, took his xt to the track and his pb was 16.292 @88.81 mph with a 2.493 60ft. Now comparing his to yours you did a quicker time (by 4 tenths) with a slower 60ft. Seeing as the xr6s come equipped with a shorter diff ratio and yours is also modified, your 60ft should be alot quicker, between 2.35 to 2.4s. No doubt the humidity is also a major culprit but with the right conditions your car is certainly capable of posting a quick time.

Anyway, maybe someone with more drag racing knowledge will be able to explain the affects of humidity and hopefully make a better judgement on what your car can do. Im sure you and others out there would like to know, i know i certainly would as my car has exactly the same mods.