Flash vs CPO
07-10-2015, 09:17 AM
#18
Pro
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Rock Hill, SC, just south of Charlotte, NC
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Us Superformance Cobra owners had a lot of interest and experience in how much one has to increase horsepower before the driver can feel it with their "butt dyno." Our old, vintage but highly tunable V8 engines were easy and cheap to modify. We had engines everywhere from relatively mild 351 Windsors, putting out about 350 ponies, although in a car weighing not much over 2200 pounds such power gave prodigious performance, up thru my own "built" 351 pushed out to 396 ci, rwhp over 480 hp, to friends with aluminum block 460 motors with upwards of 600 hp. One of us had a stroked NASCAR motor, with over 700 ponies. Some guys had Weber and FI set-ups. Me, i upgraded my carburation to a full race Holley, and found with a NASCAR air filter it flowed 9 more hp than with no carb. I also found that changing my Holley's secondary to the "white spring", made the secondary's basically a double pumper. A simple dollar spring changed added 40 mid range hp, although the peak hp remained the same. Bigger jetting gave more peak power, but made the car so "gassy" that other drivers did want to follow me on road trips.
So we had a lot of experience on the Dyno at Olthoff Racing, and great experience with performance modifications. And the Dyno doesn't lie, as long as the operator puts in actual test conditions. We Cobra drivers tended to come to the conclusion that unless there was at least a 10% increase in power, we were kidding ourselves if we thought we could feel it when driving our Cobra's. Things like cold starting, idle, mpg, hesitation with dropping open the secondaries, that we could tell, but not power increases without a big change in power. Now, on a race track, if a certain corner could now be taken in a higher gear, that we could tell, but not in street driving.
So it is my experience, that unless one is a pro grade driver, it takes big power changes to be able to tell if some engine modification actually makes more power. On a 400+ hp car, if an owner thinks he can justify money for 20 hp with his "butt dyno", he is kidding himself.
When I sold my Cobra, I gave two big chests of my tools to my son Chris, as other than oil changes, there is nothing I can do on my cars. Before, i was changing everything from Carbs to rear crank seals.
Oh, by the way, the final path report on my prostate removal of two weeks ago, is that there is hope that my surgeon "got it all". Time will tell if I have distant mets, but for now, with all my tubes out, and a lot fewer post-op complications than I feared, I feel great. Walking 3-4 miles a day now out on the beach. First tests for me in about 3 months.
In about two weeks, driving from the SC coast out to western NE for the Sandhills Challenge, the 52 miles up and back open road run. We are all set up for the trip out and back. My wife is from NE, and I went to college there, so will meet up with lots of friends and families. Will soon start looking at the weather for an optimal time to make the run out.
So life is good once again, and truly, all the best.....
So we had a lot of experience on the Dyno at Olthoff Racing, and great experience with performance modifications. And the Dyno doesn't lie, as long as the operator puts in actual test conditions. We Cobra drivers tended to come to the conclusion that unless there was at least a 10% increase in power, we were kidding ourselves if we thought we could feel it when driving our Cobra's. Things like cold starting, idle, mpg, hesitation with dropping open the secondaries, that we could tell, but not power increases without a big change in power. Now, on a race track, if a certain corner could now be taken in a higher gear, that we could tell, but not in street driving.
So it is my experience, that unless one is a pro grade driver, it takes big power changes to be able to tell if some engine modification actually makes more power. On a 400+ hp car, if an owner thinks he can justify money for 20 hp with his "butt dyno", he is kidding himself.
When I sold my Cobra, I gave two big chests of my tools to my son Chris, as other than oil changes, there is nothing I can do on my cars. Before, i was changing everything from Carbs to rear crank seals.
Oh, by the way, the final path report on my prostate removal of two weeks ago, is that there is hope that my surgeon "got it all". Time will tell if I have distant mets, but for now, with all my tubes out, and a lot fewer post-op complications than I feared, I feel great. Walking 3-4 miles a day now out on the beach. First tests for me in about 3 months.
In about two weeks, driving from the SC coast out to western NE for the Sandhills Challenge, the 52 miles up and back open road run. We are all set up for the trip out and back. My wife is from NE, and I went to college there, so will meet up with lots of friends and families. Will soon start looking at the weather for an optimal time to make the run out.
So life is good once again, and truly, all the best.....