Drag Racing a Merkur XR4Ti
Drag Racing a Merkur XR4TiDRAG RACING A FORD 2.3 TURBO POWERED MERKUR XR4Ti
(Added 08-28-03): I am definitely NOT a good drag racer! The fact is, I've been to the track on 3 occasions in my life. Honestly, when I go to the track, I feel like a real Goober. I'm so green and inexperienced that I don't know what the heck I'm doing. It sort of feels like when you first learn to drive and you have to think about everything.... I need to switch on the headlights... I need to shift soon... I better get ready to push the clutch.... that light just turned yellow - should I slow down or speed up?... oh no, it turned red... Everything requires deliberate thought and it doesn't feel natural. That's the way I feel at the track - like I'm a 16 year old kid just learning to drive and everything seems so awkward. Obviously, if I hung out at the track more, it'd all be 2nd nature but that's just not the case. Going to the track 3 times in the past 5 years or so definitely doesn't make me an expert!! So, with my sincere confession that I am a real Goober of a drag racer, here goes my experiences....
1) I went once in Florida years ago. We got rained on. After around 2 hours of waiting for them to dry the track, they finally opened up only 1/8th mile. Being the first time at the track and being totally ignorant of everything, I managed a couple terrible 1/8th mile runs. I don't even remember the times. That's probably for the best because they were so bad! I couldn't keep the tires from spinning. It was pathetic.
2) Another time in Colorado at Bandimere Speedway (~5800ft elevation) in 2002. Unfortunately, I picked the last open Test & Tune night of the season and it was so crowded that I only got to make 2 runs. I only managed a best of around 14.2 sec @ 100 mph. It felt pathetic. I believed that the car should have the power to break in the high 12's (yeah, right!).
3) The 3rd time was again at Bandimere in 2003. Chris Roth came along as co-pilot and thankfully he knows what he's doing at the track, so he was able to enlighten me a little bit. I still felt like a Goober most of the time, and even more so with a first hand witness in the cockpit to see of all my fumbling! :) With both of us, the car weighed in at 3396 lbs. I really wasn't trying to break any records (that's for sure), so I told Chris to stay in the car. First couple runs were terrible. First run was at 14.9 sec because the car was getting sideways and I had to peddle the gas to keep the car straight. Second run was even worse. Traction was a problem again and after doing some more peddling of the throttle to get the car straight, the rest of the run felt very eerie... it felt as if a clutch was slipping most of the way down the track. I say it felt "eerie" because I have an C4 automatic tranny transplanted in the car, so the "slipping clutch" feeling was really out of place. Later, someone who was watching from behind said that one of the tires kept spinning down the track. That was a pathetic 15.7 sec run. The way things were going, I was headed to the 16's Hall of Fame real fast! Both of those pathetic runs were made in the right lane.
On the 3rd run, we ended up in the left lane. Not sure what the big difference was, but the traction seemed better. After a grandma reaction time launch, the car hooked and just went. Kept straight and there was no need to keep backing off the gas. I kept my foot into it and let the C4 do its work shifting at a lazy 5500RPM or so. That run felt "right". From start to finish, the car felt like I know that it should run. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this run came in at 13.1 sec @104 MPH. This is the only time slip that's worth posting, so here it is...
OK. So now I finally felt like the car was running right and was capable of the high 12's that I thought it should be able to do last year when I went to the track. Because it was below 13.99 sec, Chris needed to get out and I needed to rent a helmet. Chris said that for every 100 lbs less weight, you can gain around 1/10th in the 1/4. So, I was looking to see if I could make a run at 12.9 at around 3200 lbs running solo. Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be...
I managed to have time for 2 more runs, but both runs only helped to confirm my "Goober" status at the track! Run #4 the car hooked up and launched good (after another grandma reaction time) and it felt like I was on my way to another good time, but part way down the track there was a loud "POP" and the car just lost power. I limped along barely able to give the car any gas. Sounded like an intercooler hose popped, but with a tight fitting helmet my sound perception was poor and I was worried about something worse. Initially, thoughts of a blown engine and "How I am going to get home?". Because the car kept idling along at low RPM, I felt confident that the short block was still in one peace. A blown head gasket maybe. As I mentioned, with the tight fitting helmet on, I couldn't hear well but I was hoping it was just an intercooler hose. After limping off the track, I popped the hood and sure enough a mandrel bend pipe had popped out of a silicone connector coming off the outlet of the turbo. I squeezed it back on and tried to tighten it up.
Run #5 was a re-run of #4. The same IC connection popped around the 1-2 shift point and then I limped off the track feeling like a dog with it's tail between it's leg. Pretty embarrassing to have a car that should be able to run high 12's consistently, but you end up with a loud POP and a 32mph 1/4mi run! :) Oh well, such is life. Stuff like this keeps one humble!
Later, when I looked at it a little closer, I could see that particular mandrel bend had shifted around in another section of rubber hose that it was connected to. As a result, the end of the mandrel bend that fit into the silicone connector coming out of the turbo was misaligned. Had I noticed that earlier, I should have been able to get it back together properly and get another run in. It wasn't meant to be. My IC plumbing is a crude combination of mandrel bend steel exhaust pipe, and NAPA truck coolant hose. Sure, if I had a bead around the ends of my mandrel bend tubing, then the connections would be much less likely to pop. But, as ugly as it looks, I can't remember my current IC tubing setup ever popping a connection before. And I've been running with this same IC setup for almost 3 years now! It definitely wasn't because I was running a higher boost setting. Turbo boost was set to 20-21psi at the track. By the way, I really only like to run at the track with the same set up as I drive on the street. Same street tires, same boost levels, same lousy 91 octane Colorado "premium" fuel, & a good old bone stock 120K+ mile short block. For me, it's more fun to run it at the track the same as it's setup for daily driving, because that's more realistic than running some high strung/high boost calibration that can only survive on a diet of high octane racing fuel. Anyway, I've run this same hacked up intercooler plumbing with 23-24psi before and didn't have a connection pop. It appears that the one mandrel bend shifted because of engine movement and probably a clamp that wasn't tight enough which resulted in the "POP"! Like I said... 12.9's just weren't meant to be that night. After Run #5, it was late and the track was closing for the night so there was no way to give it another try after re-aligning that mandrel bend.
Anyone that has ever under the hood of my car knows it's not pretty! 7 years of hacking and tinkering on the car (much of it done in earlier years when I was clueless) makes for not a pretty sight. That's fine with me. I have tinkered on this car over the years because it was fun for me to do. I was not doing it to try and impress other people. I almost always choose the less expensive route if I feel that it will still function right. Almost always, the result is that it functions reliably for years and years, but it just doesn't look good. Anyone that has seen my car knows that I don't spend much of any time (or money) trying to make my car look good. I've often said, that even if there wasn't another person on the face of the earth, I'd still enjoy taking my car out on the back roads and stomping on it and feeling the acceleration. From the start, this car has been a "mad scientist" experiment for me and I've enjoyed just tinkering on it and learning in the process.
Someone familiar with the Bandimere race track said that my best 1/4 mile run of 13.1 seconds @ 104 MPH was better than some Dodge Vipers (10 cylinder powered supercar) that ran at the same track. So, even though my drag racing skills were pathetic, the old 4 cylinder powered Merkur XR4Ti could take on MUCH more expensive hot rod cars.
Maybe next season I'll try again and see if I can keep my "Goober" status up to date! If I do go again, I'll try to post any worthwhile info or timeslips here on this page.
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