i have been thinking about putting a pair of electric exhaust cut outs under my 97, i know a few have them, i know driller does for sure, where do i find a quality set? and do they make a huge difference on the track, remember i do have kooks headers so im sure they make more difference on an exhaust that actually breathes unlike stock i wouldnt waste my time putting them on stock exhaust. my second question is, who runs spray on their mark? the previous owner had a 175 shot on my car already, i was thinking of putting a 100 shot back in it just for track runs, i wouldnt use it often because i dont want to kill the car! i am getting the itch to go to the track soon but i know if i dont get some drag radials i will boil the tires at the track that are on the car now. i also have the cobra rotors front and rear, dlf might have to answer this can i still fit a 16 inch rim in the rear? i know i cant in the front but will the rear clear? i also think this years tax check i will invest in a new convertor too i would like to be able to launch the car harder without boiling off the tires.

I'm sure the 16s will still fit the back. Everything else I am at a loss.

For the cutouts, look for the QTP brand and get their programmable controller. They are not cheap, but I learned the hard way.

I wouldnt worry about a 100 shot it should work fine. I like my dry set up. Works every time with the tps programming. I went with a basic low buck converter and it is worth about 4 tenths at the track. These two mods imo are well worth the time and money. Best bang for the buck. I ran regular z rated street tires with good results for the first year after that the tires got hard and spun more than I would like. The tires still had tread but didn't hook good any more. I went with dr that work great at the track and on the street. The only issue I'm seeing with them is the dry rot. I bought them less than a year ago and now see small cracks at the base of the tread and side wall. With the dr you don't need to do much at all of a burn out. If you only go to the track a few times a year they may crack up before you wear them out. That's why I run them on the street now. Plus I like to spray on the street.

Jamie, not sure if you remember what size Mike S has on his car but it wasn't as wide as you're talking about and he had to have all kinds of adjustments done to fit his new rims on his car. It's been a while since I seen the pics and details but try to find his thread. It was right when he finally got around to installing them. They were rubbing. I can't remember if it was here or .org where he posted all the pics.

I think you need to run your car at the track first and then combat traction issues before you go adding NAWZ!! or a converter.

That being said, screw the giggle juice and get the damn Eaton on there!

A 16" x 9" rim with the correct offset (+36mm) will not fit with the relocated calipers, it'll hit the parking brake cable for sure, my 17 inch rims barely clear. Narrower rims may work, but I haven't tried them.

The picture is a 17" x 9" M179 Cobra "R" wheel with a 36mm offset and a 275/40-17 MT DR on my SC. Exactly the same on my LSC.

http://www.lincolnvscadillac.com/showthread.php?t=42786&highlight=wheels

http://www.lincolnvscadillac.com/showthread.php?t=58927&highlight=wheels

I think you need to run your car at the track first and then combat traction issues before you go adding NAWZ!! or a converter.

That being said, screw the giggle juice and get the damn Eaton on there!

The juice is a great thing you don't use it on the launch. Pulled many 1.9 short 12.6-12.9 @ 110 all with a 245 street tire. Its hard to argue with those results.$$

The juice is a great thing you don't use it on the launch. Pulled many 1.9 short 12.6-12.9 @ 110 all with a 245 street tire. Its hard to argue with those results.$$
Thats great and I know about the greatness of giggle juice but JAMIE needs to learn the car first. He says all the time how bad his traction is and how the car always lights the tires up almost uncontrollably. Somethings up, maybe its just tire choice, but he needs to fix that first. I have way more power and way more torque but don't have traction issues at all..... well not terribly bad ones anyway.
Plus hes never raced the car so really he should learn how to get it to hook and go play with it a lot before he tries to do stuff that will only enhance his traction and lack of skills (joking) problems. :)

Only one way to see what kind of traction issues there will be at the strip.
Gotta take it to the strip and see what it`ll do.

I have cleared stock 95 mustang steel wheels which are 15in and 95 mustang waffle ponys which are 16in with a cobra rear disk setup. On the 15s the sections where the 2 piece wheel was welded together will scrape the caliper at the top edge. I rounded the top of the caliper maybe 1/8 of an inch and it cleared fine. The 16in wheels cleared with no issues or modifications required. I have always used 26 inch M/T ET Streets with no tubes in them and never had too many issues hooking it up.

-Alan

Have to agree with Laser here.
Get your 60 ft time on track.
Get base numbers to start with then add mods.

I don't see anything wrong with the giggle juice if its done right.
If you are close to a track and want to run often ditch the juice.
If you want to run just once and a while....juice is tough to beat.

I don't know if the cutouts are worth it.... bang for the buck.

I guess not all marks are created equal. I really haven't had the traction issue be that bad. But yes if your spinning you ain't winning...
Anyways this is what your car could do on a 245 g force sport and a tiny shot. Drive it to the track and home with no changes. Well of course yours will look much better.
http://m.youtube.com/?client=mv-google&xl=xl_blazer#/watch?xl=xl_blazer&v=jnWWYmQ9kLE

I don't know if the cutouts are worth it.... bang for the buck.

There are pluses and minuses with the cutouts in my opinion. I've tested mine enough to know they are worth some HP at the track. But it is less than a tenth in ET.

Worth is truly a relative value. ;)

I have this custom setup.
http://i1008.photobucket.com/albums/af202/pogigreg/Black%20Knight/100_3104.jpg

well i am gonna try to get to the track in the next few weeks, i was so tempted to take it to sunshine tonight a few of my buddies went down but like i said sunshine is an 1/8 mile i want to learn the car on a full 1/4 mile the only good thing about sunshine is its very close to my house. this is my thought why i have horrible traction on the street bill, in florida, where i live, the roads are super heavy travelled everyday by millions of cars, our traffic lights on main drags are 5 minutes or longer, we have no inspections at all, there are lots of cars on the road that shouldnt be, lots of fluids leak on our roads, this makes it super slick everywhere, when it rains, you can skid on our roads like black ice in the winter. i think my car should hook decent at the track, specially with the 265-40 michelin pilots sport ps 2's i mean you can stick your finger nail into my rear tires they are so soft. on a back road in the rain i can hammer on my car and those tires grip like glue on a wet road, they just dont grip on the main roads with all the crap leaked everywhere. i will run the car before i do anything else to it for sure, because maybe i dont need to do anything who knows, i feel i do need a convertor though, i want the car to take off violently when i am in the mood to do so!

Would your time be better on 16's or 18's?

well i'll never know that answer because 16's will never fit back on my car!

You should start on a 1/8th track. Need to learn how to launch the car not keep the pedal to the floor after traction is no longer an issue.

bill how mad are you gonna be when i run a faster time than you lol. never say never !

bill how mad are you gonna be when i run a faster time than you lol. never say never !

The way your car is setup right now? :p

Not going to happen, 14.2's @ 96, if you're lucky and everything goes just right.

in florida, where i live, the roads are super heavy travelled everyday by millions of cars, our traffic lights on main drags are 5 minutes or longer, we have no inspections at all, there are lots of cars on the road that shouldnt be, lots of fluids leak on our roads, this makes it super slick everywhere, when it rains, you can skid on our roads like black ice in the winter.


That's the truth right there! My mustang would not hook up on the streets either even if it was dry!

The way your car is setup right now? :p

Not going to happen, 14.2's @ 96, if you're lucky and everything goes just right.

well looks i have to make a date with the track then and see. if all the money that was put into my car only produces 14.2's i think i'll be parting it out!

Money doesn't always translate into speed... hence the amount of ET driller got from his cut outs.... But it does all add up and you are well on your way to having a real fast mark.

With a good exhaust setup the gain from cutouts is minimal now if it was a full stock exhaust then it would be well worth it, but with a good exhaust setup I wouldn't bother. I do agree that you should run your car sans spray till you figure out just how its going to behave on the track, once you know the car/track then worry about trying to get faster. Also why do you say that 16s will never fit back on your car, they will fit fine I have ran them plenty of times. And I know I am fairly new here, but I have been racing modified MN-12s for almost 10 years including a turbocharged 5.0 Thunderchicken with cobra brakes all the way around been there done that, the 16s will clear.

-Alan

There are pluses and minuses with the cutouts in my opinion. I've tested mine enough to know they are worth some HP at the track. But it is less than a tenth in ET.

Worth is truly a relative value. ;)
That is a fact! :D

You should start on a 1/8th track. Need to learn how to launch the car not keep the pedal to the floor after traction is no longer an issue.

Right again.
The 60 ft is the same no matter what track your at.
That is were your ET is going to come from.
Most of the 1/8th mile tracks are very noob friendly.

Have a buddy with.
Have him talk to the starter so he knows wtf he is doing.
Have him help you to know were you are on the track.
Were the staging lights are, also to put you in the middle of the track, in the groove,that is were the traction is at.

Do every thing the same every time to get base numbers you can work with.
When your not running go watch the tree and visualize in your mind when you would launch your car.
That will help you cut your reaction time, because it gonna suck ;)
Don't number chase...just enjoy the day.

With a good exhaust setup the gain from cutouts is minimal now if it was a full stock exhaust then it would be well worth it, but with a good exhaust setup I wouldn't bother. I do agree that you should run your car sans spray till you figure out just how its going to behave on the track, once you know the car/track then worry about trying to get faster. Also why do you say that 16s will never fit back on your car, they will fit fine I have ran them plenty of times. And I know I am fairly new here, but I have been racing modified MN-12s for almost 10 years including a turbocharged 5.0 Thunderchicken with cobra brakes all the way around been there done that, the 16s will clear.

-Alan

What size 16" wheels? Width? Offset?

What I said earlier was that a 16" wheel, with the correct offset (+36mm for a 9" wide rim), wouldn't clear the parking brake cables.

Now, if you want to slap some narrow 16" x 7" stock wheels on the back, they'll probably fit, but what's the point of a 7" wide rim?

He's better off with either a 17" x 9" or 18" x 9" wheel with DR's.

bill how mad are you gonna be when i run a faster time than you lol. never say never !
Not gonna happen. You are ham fisted/footed and are gonna have bad 60' times. :p

A 16x7 or 16x8 will clear fine never tried a 9 or 10, but I will disagree about being better off running a 17 or 18 inch tire, with a big heavy car like the Lincoln the grip you get from a soft sidewall is more (my opinon here from my personal experience) important than the size of the contact patch.

With that said when you air down a soft sidewall tire the contact patch increases quite a bit as well. The last set of tires I ran were 26x11.5-16 mounted on stock mustang 16 x 7.5 (going off memory here) inch waffle pony's (whatever offset those are) and I had a much larger contact patch than I did with a 245/45/17 radial. Actually we tried that setup on my buddies 97 turbo cobra with about 600 hp to see how it would do against his 18 inch 315 drag radials and he was able drop over a second off his 1/4 time not having to feather it out of the hole.

Oh and my mustang will run deep into the 9s on a little 8 inch wide Weld with a little 28x10.5 slick
-Alan

Jamie I'm not exactly sure what you've done to the car. If your askin about a stall and spray I guess you don't have them. My best guess would be mid 14s. Your tires sound more than up to the task. I couldn't imagine running a 10 or 11" drag tire for a mid 12 sec mark. Over kill imo. One thing to keep in and look out for is the track prep. What I've seen a lot of tracks don't spray the launch area on test and tune nites, unless you pay. That will make a huge difference. Also if the track you hit is mostly street cars running most likely its not prepped and you don't get that soft rubber the drag tires lay down. If you want some good times go during a comp nite run at least during time trials. Good luck.

the test and tunes at sunshine on wed. nights some serious cars show up, tons of insane rotary cars, alot of big inch muscle cars, they do spray the track i have been there just never took my car yet. i have raced a 1/4 miles years ago, we used to go every weekend practically to lebenon valley dragway in new york. i ran my 85 mustang gt there many times. i was never really into the track racing though i just liked having a quick car on the street, i just want to know what my car is capable of, i am not gonna take it there every week, just once in a while to have fun. i would like to dyno the car too and see some numbers before i do anything else to it. and bill the eaton is gone, i wanted that thing so bad but i sacrificed it for plane ticket to go get my wifes car, see i'm not that big of a dick, i think of others before me sometimes. i almost cried but oh well thats life.

Well Jamie here is some advice for the runs. Seriously, go to the 1/8th track cause you are usually able to make more runs and thats where you and I need practice, the launches. There is a fool prrof way to calculate your 1/4 from 1/8 times.

As for the launching and staging, dont drop the tire pressure down. Street tires dont like that. 26-28lbs is perfect. Dont do a nitro-meth burn out. Drive around the water box and just do a couple second burn out to clean the tire and kick off any water. At the lights just bring the car to 1000 rpm so its out of its idle loop and roll on the gas. When you feel the nose lift then you can mash it.

Hope it helps.

16s? :confused:

17s?? :confused: :confused:

Hell, these are 15s! :D :D :D

http://photos.imageevent.com/driller/1993lincolnmarkviii/websize/mini-IMG00093-20100314-1726.jpg

http://photos.imageevent.com/driller/1993lincolnmarkviii/websize/mini-IMG00102-20100314-1730.jpg

. i ran my 85 mustang gt there many times.


I had an 85 gt convertible, my favorite year fox the 80's mustangs.

15's driller but what are you running for rear brakes stock?

15's driller but what are you running for rear brakes stock?

He's got Cobra rotors with the relocation brackets. I installed them.

The determining issue with the wheels will be width and offset. I know that he had to grind on his calipers a bit, but I don't know his wheel width or offset.

Yea the barrel is kind of thick on a Weld giving you less space inside the wheel. Driller would have to chime back in for the exact size, but those looks like 15x8s. I was looking at running the same wheel but didn't want to take quite that much off my caliper.
Jamie its gonna come down to your personal preference, my street tires have always hooked worse at the track. Even on one of my stockish fox coupes. Ran 245/45/17 Kumhos on the street, they hardly ever spun even from stalled up stop light launches, but on the track I was spinning well into second gear. Drag radials work, no doubt about it, but one of the main benefits of a race oriented tire is a sidewall that can absorb the impact from putting the hammer down, the only way I would run a 17 or 18 inch radial is if I couldn't fit a 15 or 16. The 15 probably isn't the way to go because you will have to modify the caplier some amount (the actual amount will depend on wheel design). A 16x7 or a 16x8 on the other hand will fit with no modifications (unless its a really goofy wheel) and hold more than enough tire to put a mark into the 10s.

He's got Cobra rotors with the relocation brackets. I installed them.


Geesh Doug, you make it sound like I wasn't even there! :p

Yea the barrel is kind of thick on a Weld giving you less space inside the wheel. Driller would have to chime back in for the exact size, but those looks like 15x8s. I was looking at running the same wheel but didn't want to take quite that much off my caliper.

I tried the wheels before buying them. The wheel was free just before snugging the lugnuts so I determined it would not take much grinding to fit and I could see where it was hitting the wheel.

They are 15x8s with a 5.5" backspace. I did have to grind the caliper. It wasn't much, it was just the outside edge of the caliper that needed radiused. When I did the grinding, I tested one wheel with 1/2" flat washers over the wheel studs and the wheel cleared fine. Only like 1/8" or so was required to clear and I gave it a small clearance so I only had to grind like a 3/16" fillet on the outside edge of the calipers. I could of swore I had a pic but I can't seem to find it.

DLF warned me about the e-brake cables but when I checked them, mine had 1/4" to 1/2" clearance.

Geesh Doug, you make it sound like I wasn't even there! :p


:)

Well JP, I just wanted him to know that I knew for sure what you had....

so it might be safe to say that if i grab a pair of snowflakes and mount some drag radials on them i should be able to put the snowflakes on the back of my car, hell i have some stock 20 spokes i'll just pop one on and see for myself! i'll have to get a pair of snowflakes since i dont have any wheels kicking around that i can use.

so it might be safe to say that if i grab a pair of snowflakes and mount some drag radials on them i should be able to put the snowflakes on the back of my car, hell i have some stock 20 spokes i'll just pop one on and see for myself! i'll have to get a pair of snowflakes since i dont have any wheels kicking around that i can use.

Yeah, just put them on and check for caliper and parking brake cable clearance.

Sorry, if I misled you....

no no thats cool i mean if i wasnt so lazy all i had to do was grab a wheel in my shop and check lol!!

well i found out today when i corrected my brake rotors that a stock 20 spoke fit on the rear without touching anything, so i answered my own question and now i need to find 2 snowflakes and have them powdercoated and pick up some drag radials, all this when i hit the lottery lmao!