1987 Corvette Z52
Moderators: MostMint, wxo, Fred32v, Basement Paul, ttamrettus
Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
What size are those dirt tires?
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Basement Paul
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Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
They're 235-75-15 and made by Forceum, whoever they are. The reviews were good and they were cheap. Lots of tread at 16/32. No reviews were on any cars though, just good tires and half the price of name brand.
-BP
-BP
Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
So what led you to start thinking about dirt drags?
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Basement Paul
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Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
A friend of mine with a '68 Cutlass did it (and ice drags), another buddy does it with his quad, so I figured I'd give it a whirl. The Vette has real good weight distribution and in a 2wd class with mostly pickups, I would think it would be pretty competitive.
-BP
-BP
Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
Be sure to take a camera man with you. This should be fun to watch.
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TireSmoker
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Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
I plan on being there, I'll get some good video.
-Dave
-Dave
Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
What's the date?
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TireSmoker
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Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
Friday, Sept 15 at Dragway 42.
Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
BE THERE!!!
They’ll sell you th whole seat… but you’re only gonna’ need the edge!!
GM
They’ll sell you th whole seat… but you’re only gonna’ need the edge!!
GM
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Basement Paul
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Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
Yesterday I made the trip to Holmes County Fairgrounds for the KOI dirt drags. I was the ONLY car there and maybe one of the only people without cowboy boots. I made several passes early on in the practice session when the track was still pretty good, and a few after it fell apart. It's a 200' track and I'm 2wd, so traction goes away pretty bad for anything 2wd as the track dries. They reprepped it for eliminations but by the time I got to run, it was pretty much destroyed and dry again from the badass 4wd diesel trucks.
My first class was Street Stock gas (no diesels) but with 4wd trucks. I was about .3 sec off the faster trucks, but still quicker than several. Since it's double elimination I had a couple shots but came up short both runs by about a half a car length.
The second class I ran was 2wd V8 which is a DOT tire, and basically a street driven vehicle. This is where I figured I would have my best shot. And I was correct. There were six vehicles in the class, but it seemed like I raced way too many times since I THOUGHT I won all my races. Turns out one of my run I was flickering the second bulb on the tree and when I punched it I tripped the red and never saw it. I was typically at least two car lengths ahead of everyone in the class and was lifting before the stripe to no show all my cards... But I ended up racing in the finals against the guy I redlit against and he threw his two buddies out before the run to lighten his truck cuz he knew I was faster. I was able to beat him by almost a second on that pass too for the win. It's a hot lapping event, so once they pull your class, you run until you're done. It goes by pretty fast, but is totally fun and I love the heads up nature of it.
There's another one, and probably my final one for the season, this coming Friday at Dragway 42 and I'm told will have more competition, which means more money to the victor. I won $30 for the victory. Each class is only $10, so I was ahead by $10.
Driving down there I had a full tank of fuel, 75lbs of sand, and a 5 gallon gas can along with some tools and other stuff, so I was weighted down pretty good. At 75mph on some of the bridge dips, the LR tire would rub the inner plastic. So to remedy that, I'm going to put a spacer in the rear spring rods. When I put longer rods in before, it lowered the car, so I'm going to use the stock bolt that's in there and put at least a half in spacer in there to raise the rear and stiffen it up a little. Then I think I can safely carry more weight, which in testing proved was better to have in there and not tear up the car on the way there.
I'm also ordering 90/10 drag shocks for the front. They're super easy to change on this car, so I can swap them out when I go to drag/dirt racing vs when we want it to handle. I believe the drag shocks will help immensely and I think I will be able to compete with the 4x4 street guys with those changes.
This was silly fun, and I loved being the only car there beating up on these truck guys. I really think there's not too many pickups that aren't all out dirt draggers that will be able to get the power down enough to keep up with the Vette. Looking forward to 42...
-BP
My first class was Street Stock gas (no diesels) but with 4wd trucks. I was about .3 sec off the faster trucks, but still quicker than several. Since it's double elimination I had a couple shots but came up short both runs by about a half a car length.
The second class I ran was 2wd V8 which is a DOT tire, and basically a street driven vehicle. This is where I figured I would have my best shot. And I was correct. There were six vehicles in the class, but it seemed like I raced way too many times since I THOUGHT I won all my races. Turns out one of my run I was flickering the second bulb on the tree and when I punched it I tripped the red and never saw it. I was typically at least two car lengths ahead of everyone in the class and was lifting before the stripe to no show all my cards... But I ended up racing in the finals against the guy I redlit against and he threw his two buddies out before the run to lighten his truck cuz he knew I was faster. I was able to beat him by almost a second on that pass too for the win. It's a hot lapping event, so once they pull your class, you run until you're done. It goes by pretty fast, but is totally fun and I love the heads up nature of it.
There's another one, and probably my final one for the season, this coming Friday at Dragway 42 and I'm told will have more competition, which means more money to the victor. I won $30 for the victory. Each class is only $10, so I was ahead by $10.
Driving down there I had a full tank of fuel, 75lbs of sand, and a 5 gallon gas can along with some tools and other stuff, so I was weighted down pretty good. At 75mph on some of the bridge dips, the LR tire would rub the inner plastic. So to remedy that, I'm going to put a spacer in the rear spring rods. When I put longer rods in before, it lowered the car, so I'm going to use the stock bolt that's in there and put at least a half in spacer in there to raise the rear and stiffen it up a little. Then I think I can safely carry more weight, which in testing proved was better to have in there and not tear up the car on the way there.
I'm also ordering 90/10 drag shocks for the front. They're super easy to change on this car, so I can swap them out when I go to drag/dirt racing vs when we want it to handle. I believe the drag shocks will help immensely and I think I will be able to compete with the 4x4 street guys with those changes.
This was silly fun, and I loved being the only car there beating up on these truck guys. I really think there's not too many pickups that aren't all out dirt draggers that will be able to get the power down enough to keep up with the Vette. Looking forward to 42...
-BP
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Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
Way to go, BP!! That looks like great fun. I would have loved to have been there!
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Basement Paul
- Posts: 3382
- Joined: Sun Jul 17, 2005 9:27 pm
- Location: In the dirt.
Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
Thanks. It's silly fun. I'll post a few videos this week too.
-BP
-BP
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TireSmoker
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Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
Paul sent me a couple videos on my phone and It. Is. Hilarious. It looks like a lot of fun.
Maybe Fred needs to drive it -- just to ensure all the drivers are wearing cowboy boots!
Maybe Fred needs to drive it -- just to ensure all the drivers are wearing cowboy boots!
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Basement Paul
- Posts: 3382
- Joined: Sun Jul 17, 2005 9:27 pm
- Location: In the dirt.
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Basement Paul
- Posts: 3382
- Joined: Sun Jul 17, 2005 9:27 pm
- Location: In the dirt.
Re: 1987 Corvette Z52
In a effort to help the car hook up better in the dirt, I bought a set of 90-10 drag shocks for the front, and shimmed up the rear spring so I could carry more weight in the back without scraping the rear tires on the inner fenders while driving to the races. Both of these seemed to work well as it basically dead hooked this past weekend at the 42 race. BUT, I'm not sure now how much of that was my upgrades and how much was the track. See the 42 track ended up being a very hard, smooth surface where the track at Holmes County was super loose and I think would have benefitted more from this set up. So now I think I kind of have to prepare for multiple surfaces. In hindsight, I believe the car would have been faster at 42 towards the end of the night with less weight in it, where the exact opposite was the case at Holmes County.
Adding taller and lighter tires to the front will also help with the weight transfer, and I plan to do some tire siping to the rear tires which should help in pretty much all scenarios. The car will also lose some weight over the winter which I think will help everywhere. I would ideally like to run it as light as possible on a sticky track and have it hook and only add weight on the loose dirt tracks. I had 200lbs and Andy in the car with a nearly full tank of fuel at race time. If I get rid of the weight, the Andy, and some of the fuel, that's 400lbs which would really help my down track speed.
This is all a fun learning process, but I wholly expect to be running close to the 4.5 second index and winning that class at least once next year. My best run on Friday was a 4.72 with Andy in the car, but in eliminations was closer to 4.9s on every pass.
But tomorrow I'll take the rear shims out, put the drag tires back on and head out to KMP for some late season bracket racing. I do expect the car to be at least in the 13.6s as the air is a little better, and I have not yet raced it with the exhaust mods and the air foil install. I'm really hoping it will run a 13.5x though, and I believe this to be realistic.
-BP
Adding taller and lighter tires to the front will also help with the weight transfer, and I plan to do some tire siping to the rear tires which should help in pretty much all scenarios. The car will also lose some weight over the winter which I think will help everywhere. I would ideally like to run it as light as possible on a sticky track and have it hook and only add weight on the loose dirt tracks. I had 200lbs and Andy in the car with a nearly full tank of fuel at race time. If I get rid of the weight, the Andy, and some of the fuel, that's 400lbs which would really help my down track speed.
This is all a fun learning process, but I wholly expect to be running close to the 4.5 second index and winning that class at least once next year. My best run on Friday was a 4.72 with Andy in the car, but in eliminations was closer to 4.9s on every pass.
But tomorrow I'll take the rear shims out, put the drag tires back on and head out to KMP for some late season bracket racing. I do expect the car to be at least in the 13.6s as the air is a little better, and I have not yet raced it with the exhaust mods and the air foil install. I'm really hoping it will run a 13.5x though, and I believe this to be realistic.
-BP
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