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© 1999 Brian F. Schreurs
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Maryland International RacewayTest Session: Saturday, November 13, 1999We took the Firebird to Maryland International Raceway and met up with Josh and his Mustang. It was MIR's last test-n-tune for the year; we both had some testing to do. For us, we needed to verify the performance gains of the MS&R Airbox; Josh needed to find out whether there were any gains at all from his Tri-D H-pipe.Normally MIR is a very nice track. They usually prep it and they usually keep the cars moving. They also actually perform a real tech inspection so the total beaters stay off the track. However, today we had some issues. Herewith, then, at MIR's expense, are some Things We Hate:
Force the pro cars to use one lane, and the street cars the other. When the pros blow up their cars, start cleaning up their lane and do a quick safety inspection in the street car lane. If the street lane is clean, let the street cars continue to run. Make the pros suffer for their own follies and let the streeters get their money's worth. A simple concept, but very good. Thanks to all the breakage, we got six runs in seven hours. Not the best use of our time. But, we did get our test results. First, let's look at Josh's H-pipe. Josh has been having some trouble getting his car set up properly. In fact he has been slowing down every time he goes to the track all year. We're not sure what's wrong yet, but he's slid from 14.7 at 94 mph to 15.4 at 92 mph. While we know the stock H-pipe didn't cause this degradation, we were hoping the Tri-D pipe would at least partially reverse it.
Something is definitely not right. But thanks to the continuous supply of broken pro cars, we didn't have the time to figure it out. Now for the Firebird. This was a retest of the MS&R Airbox in an effort to document proof of its performance benefits. We made the first three runs with the MS&R box and K&N filter in place. We averaged 13.75 seconds at 104.1 mph. Yes, we know that's a little slow for an LS1 Firebird, but our clutch is fried so that's pretty good for us right now.
Well, wait a second. The 60-foot time also slowed down. The engine was much easier to bog with the stock airbox. We believe this is due to the engine's difficulty in building air velocity through those pitiful baffles. So, with a tenth lost at the 60-foot, that's about 0.15 at the traps. Which leaves us with about two-tenths left over attributable to the airbox. Still, that's very good. Now our biggest problem is getting the car quick enough that it'll stay out of the 14s forever. We're hoping a new clutch will be worth at least another two-tenths. We'll keep you posted. And MIR... we'll be back. But not to another $30 test-n-tune.
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