Quarter Mile Dragstrip Tactics - Gimme Faster - Hold The Power

Ever since the first car tore down a dragstrip, the emphasis of this hobby has been focused on making more and more horsepower. Being a student of physics you recognize that acceleration is defined as the rate of change of velocity with respect to time. Thus, there are three degrees of freedom that can be employed to alter the rate of acceleration of a vehicle. They are: increased power; decreased weight/drag; and increased power with decreased weight/drag.

GMHTP has done an excellent job of representing the tricks required to make more power from the General's EFI products, so we are now positioned to take you to the next level. Recognizing that very little has been written on going faster with no more power, this primer will offer information that can be applied to a car of any elapsed time class, but will focus on a street/strip entry, which is the majority of GMHTP's audience.

Going Against Conventional Wisdom
The criteria that we set when creating this article was that the concepts represented could not produce one more horsepower. The gains would all need to be achieved by using the power the engine already is producing-only in a more efficient manner. Though it is often easier to make horsepower, every vehicle reaches a point when, either due to physical or financial constraints, the engine has no more left in it. Though it is not commonly practiced, a much more efficient and cost effective approach for a racer would be to apply the tactics represented here first. Then if your e.t. goal is not achieved, up the ante with an increase in ponies. Interestingly, the performance gain per dollar spent is often much better reducing the car's power consumption than turning up the heat with speed parts.

An often overlooked side benefit of going faster with less is the minimal strain this exposes the engine to. It cannot be forgotten that horsepower is heat and cylinder pressure, nothing more. GM EFI cars are so easy to make big power with that it is overlooked that at one point the engine's life expectancy is greatly reduced as a function of horsepower. For example, a rod bearing that was designed to live for hundreds of thousands of miles at a factory power level will not last as long when the cylinder pressure (not to be confused with compression pressure) is increased. There is a reason why factory produced high-horsepower engines have larger main and rod bearing diameters, thicker piston rings, and increased stiffness of the engine block and crankshaft. Though a modern GM engine is very accepting of increased power, the additional stress on the internal components cannot be denied. The trick for the street/strip racer is to find the delicate balance between reliability and performance.

When making the vehicle more efficient, the wear on the engine is now the same as it was prior to achieving the e.t. gain. Granted, some areas such as the differential may be exposed to increased stress since it just recognizes the power that is planted to the tire and not what the engine is producing. But if common sense were applied, then this too would not be much of an issue.