First ever run at the track

cyoder

Registered User
So, I decided to take my 1990 SC to the track on Tuesday. It is all stock and I wanted to see what it would run before i started doing any upgrades to it. Here is the best run the car had, keep in mind that this is the first time I had ever been to a track to race. It was about 90 degrees outside so the car was running warm. Also, I was running on street tires without doing a burnout.


R/T .551
60' 2.341
330 6.736
1/8 10.318
MPH 69.05
1000 13.391
1/4 16.007
MPH 85.91


What would be the best thing to upgrade first. I want to eventually get the car into the 14's. I have a cold air intake sitting in the garage that will be going on this week. If I upgrade the pulley will it cause the head gaskets to blow quickly?
 
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Looks a lot like the first pass I ever made at the track.

There are numerous threads about suggested upgrades. Personally, I always recommend underdrive pulleys as an early mode.
 
auto or manual ?

heres what i would do :

-intake (even a K&N panel filer will be enough)
-5% sc od pulley
-fan on back of the intercooler
-exhaust-get some straighter downtubes made, with or without hi-flow cats. then get a good aftermarket resonator. leave the back half alone, it'll flow fine for now.
 
Learn how to lower your reaction time....:p

Try leaving as soon as you see the first yellow light up....:eek:

I have the same set up as yours and got my reaction time down to a .023

One word of advice, do not put your trans in OD when running at the track.....

Leave it in D....:p
 
auto or manual ?

heres what i would do :

-intake (even a K&N panel filer will be enough)
-5% sc od pulley
-fan on back of the intercooler
-exhaust-get some straighter downtubes made, with or without hi-flow cats. then get a good aftermarket resonator. leave the back half alone, it'll flow fine for now.

It is an automatic.
 
Reaction time doesn't have anything to do with your ET. I would put a CAI, custom downtubes, exhaust, double intercooler, and a late model blower. The exhaust and late model blower (blowers from 1994/1995 SC's) will be the best route to go with.
 
Reaction time doesn't have anything to do with your ET. I would put a CAI, custom downtubes, exhaust, double intercooler, and a late model blower. The exhaust and late model blower (blowers from 1994/1995 SC's) will be the best route to go with.

I was tryin to keep costs down. But yea a late model sc would be great. You can get one for about $250
 
The easiest upgrade you can do is to learn to drive your car.. Practice practice practice and you will knock 1/2 second off that ET easily on street tires..
 
If it still has the stock balancer on it, start setting aside money from each pay check to buy a replacement BHJ. Eventually that stocker will fail on you.

Along with that I'd be setting aside some money for a Lentech valve body for your transmission. You don't want your trans shifting into overdrive when doing a WOT run down the track. And it's a nice upgrade, though costly.

While saving for those things, and assuming all the regular maintenance stuff on your car is taken care of, underdrives will be a nice upgrade. A 5% overdrive Jackshaft pulley or blower pulley would work well. A new, shorter A/C condenser would allow your stock intercooler to work much better and an IC fan to cool things down after a run down the track.

My best time with my 90 auto with a 5% overdrive pulley and lentech valve body, custom down tubes, 2.5 - 3 - 2.5 exhaust, and MT ET Street tires is 14.667 at 93.89mph.

If you have a membership here, this thread is well worth the fee where XR7 Dave took a bone stock SC, and did mods to it, with dyno runs to see what worked, and how much.http://www.sccoa.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98215&highlight=air+silencer

This thread gets interesting around post 32 or so on other peoples ideas of the mods to do:
http://www.sccoa.com/forums/showthread.php?t=106779&highlight=track
 
i have decided that the first thing i want to get done is the exhaust. i want to get it professionally done because i dont have the time to do it myself and i dont really want to mess anything up. what is the best size pipes that i can tell them to put on. my grandpa got stainless steel flowmasters on his truck and it costed him a little less that 600 dollars. Is that a good price?
 
Stainless Steel prices are up now, so I'm not sure what it would cost you. the SC requires some bends, more than what a truck would so I would expect the cost to be a bit more.

Hopefully someone will pipe up on exhaust pipe sizes. I went with 2.5 into 3" into 2.5" on my 90 sc. But there have been many threads regarding exhaust pipe sizes, and I can't recall what the latest thought is.
 
First off, leave the pipe after the resonator and around the gas tank alone. It's 2.5in which is plenty for now.

Have them make new downpipes, 2", with or without cats depending on your state. And then get a dual in/single out aftermarket resonator with the appropriate sizes.

After that it's up to you if u wanna change the mufflers out also.
 
First off, leave the pipe after the resonator and around the gas tank alone. It's 2.5in which is plenty for now.

Have them make new downpipes, 2", with or without cats depending on your state. And then get a dual in/single out aftermarket resonator with the appropriate sizes.

After that it's up to you if u wanna change the mufflers out also.

I figure it should be about $400 with cats and resonator included
 
Ok, i just called one of the performance shops here and they told me that it is going to cost $531 dollars for all the parts and doing all the exhaust. Does that sound ok?
 
i just told them that I wanted the whole exhaust redone with perfomance flowmasters and he said he would have to order the parts and things and it would cost 531 to do everything.
 
Personally I would tell them to leave the pipe from behind the resonator to the rear mufflers. No sense in them charging u for pipe and labor. The stock pipe size is fine.

I would get better angled downpipes made with or without cats and a better resonator. And whatever mufflers u want.

Just my 2 cents.
 
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First off if you are going to do an exhaust I would upgrade to a 93+ gas tank for straighter flow. While you got the tank down, put in a 255lph high pressure fuel pump, If you plan on doing anything else performance wise you will need this pump anyway. You want 2.5" to single 3.5" to 2.5 pipe or true dual 2.5". Do it right the first time and your exhaust will support all the hp you can make. You will save money in the long run from having to do it again. This is just my honest opinion.
 
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